Education scandal in Chernivtsi: places in postgraduate programmes were sold for $4,500. PHOTO
Prosecutors in the Chernivtsi region, together with the police, exposed a scheme to sell postgraduate places in three universities at once.
This was reported by the Office of the Prosecutor General, Censor.NET informs.
The suspects are the vice-rector of the State University of Intellectual Technologies and Communications, an associate professor at Fedkovych Chernivtsi University, and the head of a department at the Institute for the Modernisation of Education Content.
Investigators found out that they were selling postgraduate places for $4,500. An associate professor and an employee of the Institute were looking for candidates, and the vice-rector enrolled them. She took $4,000 from each applicant, and her accomplices took $250 each.
After enrolment, the postgraduate students were forced to give up access to the bank cards to which the scholarship was transferred. As a result, more than UAH 285,000 of scholarships were also misappropriated.
The total amount of illegal income exceeds UAH 1 million.
All three were served with a notice of suspicion of bribery, abuse of office and organisation of a criminal scheme.
Earlier, the Ministry of Education and Science reported that all Ukrainian universities are being checked for fictitious postgraduate students. The Ministry of Education, together with the State Education Quality Service and law enforcement agencies, is conducting inspections of universities where violations related to fake education may be recorded.
