Study reveals high prevalence of quiet corruption in Lagos’ public schools

A study has revealed that there is high prevalence of quiet corruption in public institutions in Lagos State.

A lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Lagos, Dr. David Akeju, disclosed this yesterday at the presentation of a pilot study on ‘Quiet corruption in public education institutions in Lagos State’ jointly carried out by Trust Africa and Human Development Initiatives (HDI).

According to the study, “quiet corruption in schools manifests in teacher absenteeism, students’ sexual harassment, lack of knowledge of subject matter, favoritism, examination malpractice among others.

Akeju said: “By the indicators, we first talked about perception generally, for the primary secondary and tertiary institutions and over 60 percent, some about 70 percent said quiet corruption is prevalent. When you talk of their experience, even among university students, we have as much as 60 per cent of respondents saying that it has affected them in one-way or the other. There is none of the indicators that is lower than 50 percent.

The Executive Director, Human Development Initiatives (HDI), Mrs. Olufunso Owasanoye stated that it is a pity that school administrators and government agencies saddled with the responsibility of taming corruption were shielded from investigating the occurrence and prevalence of quiet corruption within the school system.