"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Special recommendations:

Altbach, Philip G.: The Question of Corruption in Academe (2004)
This paper describes the causes and effects of corruption in university examinations and professorial behaviour.

Bray, Mark: Education in a Hidden Marketplace: Monitoring of Private Tuition (2006)
This report examines how the opening of a free market for private tutoring has affected education, including access to institutions of higher education, in nine countries that once had socialist systems.

Chapman, David: Corruption and the Education Sector (2002)
This paper, written by an education practitioner, gives numerous examples of the serious consequences that arise from pervasive petty and grand corruption in the education sector. It describes the causes and various forms of corruption in education, and discusses donor complicity. The paper also has short descriptions of good practice to prevent corruption in education.

Chaudhury, Nazmul et al.: Missing in action: Teacher and Health Worker Absence in Developing Countries (2006)
This study by researchers at the World Bank and Harvard University finds that absenteeism is all too common among teachers in developing countries. It is based on the results of unannounced visits to primary schools in Bangladesh, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Peru and Uganda. On average, across the six countries, 19 percent of teachers failed to show up for work.

GTZ: Preventing Corruption in the Education System (2004)
This practical guide is addressed to those responsible for education sector reform within the framework of development cooperation. The guide aims to provide ideas and practical support, and to indicate ways of integrating corruption-prevention components appropriately in projects of this nature.

Heyneman, Stephen P.: Education and Corruption (2002)
This paper provides a good overview on the various types of corruption in the education sector and their causes, with an emphasis on the role of institutions in higher education. It also discusses reforms designed to minimise the risk of educational corruption.

IMF Working Paper (Gupta et al): Corruption and the Provision of Health Care and Education Services (2000)
This paper provides evidence that reducing corruption can result in significant social gains as measured by a decrease in primary-school dropout rates. It is based on empirical research.

Narayan, Deepa et al.: Can Anyone Hear Us? Voices from 47 countries (1999)
This study is part of a global effort entitled Consultations with the Poor, designed to inform the World Development report 2000/2001 on Poverty and Development. The research involved poor people in twenty-three countries around the world. The study contains many references to education, and the impact of corruption in education, especially for the poor.

Partnership for Governance Reform, Indonesia: The Poor Speak up. 17 Stories of Corruption (2003)
This book attempts to give voice to the poor and to bring their concerns more directly to those in a position to address them. The stories told here (based on research in Indonesia) reveal the pervasiveness of corruption in virtually every aspect of poor people's lives, its complexity and its many consequences - economic, social, moral.

Patrinos, Harry and Kagia, Ruth: Maximising the Performance of Education Systems: The Case of Teacher Absenteeism. In: Campos, J. and Pradhan, S. (Ed): The Many Faces of Corruption: Tracking Vulnerabilities at the Sector Level (2007)
Teachers’ absenteeism is a serious threat to student achievement and provides a negative model to students. This paper presents various findings and studies, as well as strategies and examples on how to combat absenteeism.

Ritva Reinikka, Jakob Svensson: The Power of Information: Evidence from a Newspaper Campaign to Reduce Capture (2004)
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 3239 This paper evaluates the effects of increased public access to information as a tool to reduce capture and corruption of public funds. In the late 1990s, the Ugandan government initiated a newspaper campaign to boost schools' and parents' ability to monitor local officials' handling of a large school-grant program. The results were striking: capture was reduced from 80 percent in 1995 to less than 20 percent in 2001.

Tanaka, Shinichiro: Corruption in Education Sector Development (2001)
The paper draws on the author's experience in advising various educational projects in developing countries. It proposes a preventive strategy that will help professionals to protect an education project from corruption.

The International Institute for Educational Planning, UNESCO
has produced a number of research papers on issues related to corruption in education, such as academic fraud, private tutoring, teacher management or formula funding.

Waite, D. and Allen, D.: Corruption and Abuse of Power in Educational Administration (2003)
This article represents an ethnology of the topic of abuse of power in education, drawing on examples from Mexico, China and the US. It describes the effects of institutionalized corruption and highlights how difficult it is to draw the boundaries between corruption and other forms of misbehavior.