Trickle Down Economics

Of a rather different sort. We hear stories all the time of students who are asked for money by their teachers. The neighbor told me that the teacher sent home a note, telling her to send a bag of flour to the teacher or her child could not continue at the school. A young friend told me of how she missed an exam, and brought a doctor's note only to be told that she could not make up the exam and would not pass the class unless she gave the teacher a sum of money (that she cannot afford). We hear of a Christian young man who repeated the same year of university three times because he refused to pay the bribe asked by the teacher. Talk about integrity! We also hear of girls who are asked for sexual favors from the teacher (a common enough practice) in order to pass their classes. My young friend went to the director of the school and complained about the sum of money she had been asked for, and the director shrugged and said "I don't interfere in the affairs of the teachers".

This is all just horrifying to us. I have contemplated whether I should interfere but after speaking to several people concluded that the student would be persecuted even more. Most people just pay the requested bribe and carry on.

Why are all these teachers so corrupt? Recently I learned that just to get into teachers' college, you have to pay a very large sum of money (more than one month's salary) to the director of the school. While in school, you have to pay the professors. Then there is another sum of money due in order to receive your graduation papers. Then, these new teachers are required to go out to remote villages to teach for two years before they have a chance of getting transferred back to the cities, where they want to live. After all of this, they are ready to get theirs. They feel that they are owed something. And it is quite likely that they still owe money or favors to whomever helped them get through teachers' college. And the people that they owe, owe someone else. It just trickles down from the top, poisoning everyone.

How do we stop this? We can't wipe it out from where we sit. And lest we congratulate ourselves on being so much more "modern" that people here, let's remember that only 40 years ago the New York City Police Department was so corrupt that criminals were getting away with murder. There has been just as much corruption in Western society over the years as there is now here in Mozambique. Why did it slow down in West (or go underground)? People had power to stop it. When people do not have power, others take advantage of them. When they have no money, when they have no jobs, when they have no leverage, they will be victimized by those who wield power. Either individuals acquire the ability to protect themselves, or they rise up as one to protest. I don't know which will happen here on a large scale first. - C