Journalists of the youth e-magazine Nasha Versiya and several youth non-governmental organizations conducted an opinion poll among students under the slogan "Information is Crooks' Worst Enemy". "Yes, there is certainly corruption in my college," more than 70% of students in the Kyrgyz city of Osh said.

The opinion poll made it plain that students themselves were at fault. Most respondents admitted readiness to grease the willing palm for the necessary grades. It is the textbook case of supply stimulating demand.

"What the state claims it is doing by way of fighting corruption is a sham," said Arystan Kulnazarov, Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and International Relations of one of Osh universities. Informed of Corruption-Net, the action mounted by non-governmental organization, Kulnazarov decided to shed the light on the matter. "Senior state officials themselves are on the payroll while claiming to be fighting corruption," he said. "The worst crooks are in the upper echelons of state power."

Eighteen percent of the respondents pin the blame for corruption on the state, putting it in the second slot of the so called Rating of the Guilty Parties. Students said that candidates for the parliament buy voters, and voters follow in their steps in everyday life. Second, the powers-that-be essentially compel people in the sphere of education to accept bribes by paying them meager salaries. Students are aware of it, and therefore help their professors to survive - never forgetting about themselves, of course.

Most students, however, do not ascribe corruption at colleges and universities to professors' low salaries. Thirty-three percent of the respondents blamed themselves for existence of corruption. It put the student body itself on top of the Rating of Guilty Parties. "It's students' own fault! Professors do not demand anything. It is students themselves who bribe their way through exams. When one knows that he or she cannot hope to pass an exam, bribe remains the only option." "Had we been really studying, we'd have never paid anyone anything." "There are students who do not even appear here. What is left them? Only bribes." "Professors do not want it but students insist. "Here are 80 soms ($2)," they say. "I need a passing grade." Professors do not like it, but the temptation is sometimes too strong."

Fifty-five percent of the respondents approached by Corruption-Net activists admitted that the idea to offer professors a bribe had been their own.

The Kyrgyz-Uzbek University was gauged as the worst corrupt of all four Osh colleges and universities. Seventy-nine percent of its students confessed that they had paid their tutors.