The heads of some of Russia’s most prestigious educational establishments yesterday admitted that students use surrogates (代理人) to gain entry to top institutes, whose qualifications are a passport to lucrative jobs.
The surrogate students are only the latest symptom of an epidemic of corruption that has gripped the Russian higher education system. A report published this week by the Ministry of Education and Moscow’s Higher School of Economics (HSE) showed that more than $300m was paid in bribes to enter the country’s educational establishments last year. A direct bribe to lecturers to enter an institution can be up to $30000 for a top law faculty, the HSE estimates.
"In our school alone this spring we caught four impostors who were attempting to sit the entrance tests in place of others, " said Grigory Kantorovich, deputy head of the HSE. "Those were not isolated cases; it’s a whole, specialised business. "
Such corruption is multiplied by a burgeoning market in coursework and diplomas written by teachers and lecturers, which can be bought over the Internet.
A police spokesman said there was no dedicated unit for tackling corruption in education, but individual cases were investigated if evidence was handed over.
参考答案：昨天，俄罗斯一些极富声望的教育机构首脑承认，有学生借助代考方式企图进入名牌大学就读，因为名校的毕业文凭是他们日后找到工资优厚的工作的通行证。
代考现象仅是俄高等教育体系中腐败成风的最新征兆。本周由俄罗斯教育部和莫斯科高等经济学院联合公布的报告表明，去年该国各教育机构收受的学生入学贿赂金额超过3亿美元。莫斯科高等经济学院估计，名校法律专业的导师一次性直接收受的贿赂金额可高达3万美元。
莫斯科高等经济学院副院长坎托罗维奇指出：“仅在我们学校，今年春季就抓到了4名入学考试代考者。这些作弊现象不是孤立的个案，它已成为一个整体的、专门的商业行为。”
在俄大中学校出现日益严重的作弊现象的同时，还存在着更严重的弄虚作假之风。目前，一些由教师和导师撰写的论文和各种假文凭正通过因特网公然叫卖，知识造假市场正在兴起。
莫斯科警察局发言人指出，目前尚无专门机构负责打击教育机构中存在的腐败现象，但如果证据移交上来，将会对个案立案侦查。