"Unpacking the Multidimensional Impact of Corruption on Educational Quality and Equity: A Mixed-Methods Study of Private Secondary Education."

This study examines the multifaceted impact of corruption on educational outcomes within the context of private secondary education. While corruption is widely acknowledged as detrimental to public schooling, its specific mechanisms and effects in privatized, fee-paying institutions remain underexplored. This research aims to move beyond a unidimensional understanding by investigating how administrative and pedagogical corruptions differentially shape academic quality and social equity. The study employs a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design. Phase I (Quantitative): A survey measuring perceived corruption, resource allocation, teacher morale, and student achievement was administered to 100 stakeholders (teachers, students, and parents) across three private high schools. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was utilized to test the mediating pathways between corruption and outcomes. Phase II (Qualitative): Follow-up semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 purposively sampled participants (principals, heads of departments, and student leaders) to contextualize the statistical findings and explore the lived experiences of oversight and resistance. The quantitative results indicate that corruption significantly predicts reduced educational equity but has a weaker, non-significant direct effect on overall test scores when mediated by private tutoring. The qualitative data reveal that the "invisibility" of corruption in private schools is maintained through a complicit silence among affluent parents, while the burden of inequity falls disproportionately on scholarship students. Crucially, the presence of active Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) emerged as a significant buffer, moderating the destructive effects on teacher motivation. This study contributes the "Corruptive Spiral & Resilient Response" (CSRR) model, which delineates the distinct pathways through which corruption operates in private education. It challenges the assumption that fee-paying schools are immune to systemic malfeasance and offers a practical framework for policy intervention, emphasizing the empowerment of oversight committees over mere punitive measures. The mixed-methods approach provides methodological rigor, revealing the hidden socio-emotional costs of corruption that are often missed by purely quantitative audits.

Corruption in Education, Private Schools, Educational Equity, Mixed-Methods

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