The MIM Business School hosted the anti-corruption workshop for students organized by the Transparency Vision Action (TRAVA). The workshop covered systemic corruption in the universities. Mr. Oleksandr Lemenov, MIM’s MIBA in PA graduate provided his expertise to the event.

Ukraine is notorious for corruption with academia being no exception. Therefore, students from all over Ukraine discussed how to fight the lack of transparency in the Ukrainian universities. “I have no experience of studying in Ukraine,” Matthias Meier, one of the workshop organizers said. “However my friends who are studying here often mention unclear processes and academic fraud in the universities. The situation is opposite in Germany where any student can ask the professor about his/her marks. It is a correct way of proving transparency of learning environment. Moreover, most of the German universities use special software to eliminate plagiarism.”

The workshop participants developed projects targeting enhancement of the overall situation in universities. Experts from the National Reforms Council helped the participants with the projects. Mr. Oleksandr Lemenov, MIM’s graduate and leading expert of the Anti-Corruption Reform Group of the Reanimation Package of Reforms, the largest coalition of leading non-governmental organizations and experts from all over Ukraine was one of those experts. Although he mentioned that activism was not very wide-spread in Ukraine and as a consequence, the corruption was tolerated, he had big hopes for the younger generation. “It is young people eager for change who are able to defeat the corruption,” Oleksandr said.

The critical role of business in the anti-corruption activities was another focal point of the workshop. It was discussed that currently, anti-corruption efforts seemed to be important for the international donors rather than Ukrainians. Regardless of the need in transparent framework domestic businesses did not look committed to fighting corruption.

“At MIM I learned that only people who share values make things happen. Building the wide network of people who share values will help us to reverse the situation even under the unfavorable conditions,” explained Oleksandr. “

The Transparency Vision Action is the project founded by the students of the Eastern European Studies from the Free University of Berlin.