Transparency fills the deep human need to understand the world and make our lives as clean and honest as possible. Transparency, however, has always been in short supply in Ukraine, which is why the nation is in the corrupt mess it is in.
How does a politician manage to earn multiple degrees while in office? How is it that politicians live in gated communities occupying government property at taxpayers’ expense? Or how does a high-level secret service official like Andriy Kyslynsky occupy a sensitive position while in possession of a doctored, not a doctorate, academic degree? Former Justice Minister Roman Zvarych simply lied about his fictitious credentials and all it took was for one journalist to call the registrar’s office of Columbia University in New York to find out.
What about others in high places and the example this sets for those who actually study to complete a university degree, only to get passed over for a lucrative job by someone with a fake diploma? The academic bonafides of other politicians is being raised (again), including “Proffessor” Victor Yanukovych’s collection of degrees and titles. Recall, he made numerous mistakes on his 2004 presidential election application form. More recently, it turns out that Simferopol city official Volodomyr Dodatok’s alma mater exists only in his head. It turns out that the sheepskin belonging to Ruslan Krymintsov, deputy head of Zaporizhya Oblast land resources administration, is exactly this, and not a symbol of education.
Ukraine needs more rigorous internal verification procedures, from private employers to government bodies. Some basic information, long considered public information in Western democracies, should be available to anyone who wants to look – such as whether a person obtained a legitimate degree from an accredited university. And the information should be available online for anyone to check on university websites.
This will not solve all of Ukraine’s problems, not even in higher education, where students can still bribe their way into getting official degrees. But it’s a start. Thanks to more transparency, in many Western nations, falsifying one’s resume has become the kiss of death professionally.
