There was once a popular joke in Georgia about a man who visited a university professor. “My son is such an idiot that he will never pass your entrance exams,” said the despairing parent — to which the academic replied: “I bet you $1,000 that he will.”

The joke highlighted just how rampant bribes to university staff had become after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. According to some estimates, more than half of university places were sold to students in the early 1990s for as much as $30,000 (Rs.19.25 lakh) at a time. Low pay for academics helped to institutionalise corruption throughout the academy, with many staff receiving kickbacks worth hundreds of dollars to graduate mediocre students.

Sweeping anti-corruption reforms enacted after the so-called Rose Revolution in 2003 have put an end to these practices and jokes. Students entering Georgia’s 75 higher education institutions must now pass a countrywide university entrance exam, introduced in 2005, with a rigorous checking process under which each exam answer paper is read by at least six independent graders. Those writing the exam in its early years did so under CCTV surveillance, with scripts theatrically escorted to exam markers under police escort, explains a 2015 report published by the Legatum Institute, a London-based thinktank.

“The exam has worked very well in addressing issues that existed,” says Mikheil Chkhenkeli, who was appointed Georgia’s minister of education in November, having previously been vice-rector at Tbilisi State University, the country’s leading higher education institution. “We are now thinking about improving the exam by involving more university and high school representatives (in its design) so it reflects the needs of universities.”

Georgia has been equally determined in rooting out other forms of academic corruption. Moves to shut down diploma mills by introducing a new accreditation process led to the closure of more than half of the country’s higher education institutions in 2005, halving the undergraduate intake that year to about 16,500 students, says the Legatum Institute.

Many academics suspected of landing their jobs thanks to nepotism or bribes, were forced to reapply for their posts under an open and competitive process. “There is now a very clear and transparent hiring process,” says Prof. Chkhenkeli, who spent 20 years teaching at US universities after acquiring his Ph D in mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania. 

“Georgia’s mathematical schools are extremely strong and we do well in physics, but we’ve also been strong in psychology and languages too,” he says, pointing to the many poets produced by the Black Sea state, sandwiched between Russia and Turkey.

Prof. Chkhenkeli is also aiming to attract more young people to consider an academic career — a task aided by the growing faith that job applications will now be assessed on merit, rather than by “academic barons”. “We have academic strengths in science and technology, but also in the humanities,” he explains, “and when you combine this with Georgian hospitality and our lifestyle, it will offer a very fulfilling experience to students”.