Effects of Corruption on Educational System: A Focus on Private Secondary Schools in Nsukka Zone

This paper examines the level of corruption in educational system focusing on the
private secondary schools in Nigeria. The paper argues that corruption is a general disease
within the private school proprietors, policymakers, examination councils, teachers, supervisors
and invigilators, and above all, leads to the abuse of teaching as a profession like other
professional bodies in Nigeria. In all human societies, particularly the modern ones, education
therefore remains one of the most powerful instruments for both the development of man and
transformation of the human society. However, the efficacy and efficiency of education as an
instrument of transformation depends entirely on how all the stakeholders, students as
individual’s, parents, teachers, proprietors of private schools, policymakers, examination council,
ministry of education and the government manage, execute and implement policy on education
meant for the upliftment of educational sector. In this study, the factors, types, costs, causes of
corruption and challenges facing private secondary schools were examined. Solutions and
strategies to tackle the challenges were also examined.