Milan music professors are accused of massive corruption
OrchestrasThree unnamed singing teachers at the Conservatorio di Milano are under police investigation for allegedly accepting bribes from Chinese students to admit them to the hallowed institution.
None of the accused has been named.
A series of home raids has uncovered 110,000 Euros in loose cash in the teachers’ apartments.
The Conservatorio says it is the aggreived party in this case and is cooperating fully with the police.
Read on here.
The Conservatorio has 1,650 students, of whom around 200 come from China.
Too “Xi” to fail?
Italy.
Need we say more?
Cockney’s comment:
Need we say more?
Yes, we need say more. This bribery has been going on at hundreds of U.K. and U.S. universities over the last 20 years — at the *institutional* level, where it is no less wrong.
There must be more to this.
How is a mere faculty member able to admit a student to the school. Is ushering-in their personal picks a standard practice anyway?
Yes, the practice is that the teachers pick their students. There are usually other faculty members on the admissions auditions, but they almost always defer to their colleagues desire to select their own students. If this bribery is true, it is a terrible thing.
If the practice you describe is true, I am utterly un-surprised that bribery occurs and would be un-surprised to hear that bribery has been common for ages.
And/or other non-monetary inducements appealing to aging men.
It’s Italy and the Chinese have lots of lira.
I’m not sure the information is correct, but over the years Chinese students have told me that bribery is common in China’s music world, for example, if one wants to advance from a regional orchestra to one in cities like Beijing or Shanghai. They said this practice predates the communist government and is an old Chinese tradition. Again, I don’t know if this is true, but it might make an interesting investigative article. It could be that the parents of Chinese students brought a Chinese tradition to the conservatory in Milan. I guess it happens everywhere. After all, let’s not forget the bribery scandal concerning the athletics program at USC.
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