Corruption in Education – Nature and Causes

Education is an area that has significant impacts on and is at the same time affected by social, economic, cultural and political dimensions of a society as well as of an individual. While we all hope that education plays almost revolutionary role to change things for better: still many thinkers perceive it as playing conformist role to sustain the status quo. In this paradoxical situation there is a need to study various linkages education has with democratic governance and corruption. Keeping this in mind present paper explores the role educational institutions presumably can play, should play and are actually playing in fighting corruption and advancing democratic governance. Corruption has essentially two players: the supply side and the demand side. Does education in any way decrease either of them? Paper concludes that the greatest tragic irony of education in our country is that so called intelligentsia that is supposed to give direction to the society, has least say in policy making in their own field of operation. Paper emphasized that education is a field where philosophy and action must merge, the teacher cannot escape the responsibility if the things they criticize do not change