According to Transparency International, corruption in Turkmenistan’s education system is widespread and institutionalized, shaped by legacies inherited from the former Soviet Union. During the Soviet period, the admissions process for tertiary education was highly centralised and constrained, creating opportunities for corruption.
Transparency International, in collaboration with the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Center (2025), published a research brief on the nature and prevalence of corruption and analysis of existing anti-corruption safeguards in the secondary and tertiary education systems in the Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
While most Central Asian countries have reformed their admission processes to improve access to higher education, Turkmenistan’s remains notably restrictive.
Corruption in education is defined as “the systematic use of public office for private benefit whose impact is significant on access, quality, or equity in education”. Corruption undermines access to learning and reduces its quality, leading to prospective skilled professionals emigrating while underqualified graduates occupy essential positions in the economy and public administration. This means a workforce unfit to compete globally, weakening the economy and hindering all development efforts in the country.
According to the brief, corruption in Turkmenistan’s education sector occurs at various levels, from grand, large-scale forms to petty forms, with bribery and extortion being the most common practices. However, other forms of corruption practices in the education sector, such as embezzlement, diversion of budget funds allocated to education, bid rigging, private tutoring, academic fraud, and unfair recruitment and promotion decisions based on favoritism, nepotism, and bribery, are also present in Turkmenistan, as in other Central Asian countries.
All Central Asian countries invested relatively high amounts in transforming their education systems, but Turkmenistan invested the least, at 2.9 percent of its GDP. However, high spending on education does not address the underlying issues as long as resources allocated to education are misused and weak institutional integrity remains unchanged.
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SUPPORT OUR WORKTo strengthen integrity in education, it is recommended to conduct awareness campaigns and training; strengthen institutional and individual capacities; develop anti-corruption plans at the institutional level; increase transparency in accreditation and enforcement, and conduct corruption risk assessments; introduce transparent, merit-based recruitment and maintain merit-based admissions to higher education.
Comparison of government expenditure on education (% of GDP) across the Central Asian region
Source: Transparency International & U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, 2025.
The publication notes that although the government of Turkmenistan applies punitive measures against corruption, such as the arrest of officials for embezzlement or bribery, the report finds no evidence of consistent enforcement or institutional reform in Turkmenistan’s education sector.
