Transparency International-Moldova: “Today’s school is tomorrow’s society”

Transparency International-Moldova and the Ministry of Education and Youth this week have carried out an activity aimed at ensuring integrity in the education system. The training of teachers from pre-university education institutions was aimed at supporting the implementation of the National Strategy for Preventing and Combating Corruption and at reducing tolerance of this phenomenon, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting a communiqué from Transparency International-Moldova. The training seminar was themed “Today’s School is Tomorrow’s Society”. The justice and fairness, honesty and correctness, professionalism, goodwill and care, respect and tolerance must be the basic benchmarks of a modern education system,” the communiqué says. The problem of corruption in the education system and the methods of preventing it were a special focus at the seminar. The consequences of corruption in education are multiple: deterioration of the ethic and moral values, diminution of the motivation to study, reduction in the quality of studies, low competitiveness of the labor force on the home and foreign markets, impoverishment of the population. In order to combat corruption, Transparency International – Moldova proposed drafting a model Code of Ethics for pre-university education institutions that would be compulsory for the teaching and non-teaching staff, students and parents. “The Code should include the basic values, rules of conduct (especially prohibition of presents and favors, prevention and settlement of conflicts of interest), responsibilities and sanctions for not observing the Code. It will be also necessary to work out a clear mechanism for implementing the Code. Thirty-four persons – heads of methodological centers and methodologists of the local General Education Divisions – took part in the training seminar. Under an agreement with the Ministry of Education and Youth, the trainers will hold 120 seminars in pre-university education institutions with a similar topic in all the country’s regions for teaching staff, students and parents.