students attending Bachelor and Master studies at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Goce Delcev University - Shtip, University St. Kliment Ohridski Bitola and South East European University
Submission deadline: 15 November 2024
Awards: the three best essays will receive vouchers for IT equipment
The Project Strengthening the Rule of Law and Human Rights in North Macedonia III aims to advance the rule of law and human rights by implementing applicable international standards and OSCE commitments in the judiciary and fundamental rights areas, in line with North Macedonia's strategic priorities. The project addresses various challenges in the domains of judicial independence and impartiality, criminal justice, anti-corruption, anti-discrimination, gender equality and fundamental rights in North Macedonia as identified in various governmental policy documents and international expert assessments.
Following the successful completion of the anti-corruption masterclasses series, organized in cooperation with four national universities (Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Goce Delcev University - Shtip, University St. Kliment Ohridski Bitola and South East European University), the expressed enthusiasm by the students and in order to further encourage active anti-corruption engagement, OSCE Mission to Skopje is organising an essay writing competition for students. The essay competition was inspired by the enthusiasm of the students that attended the anticorruption masterclass activity which provided them with inspiring lectures from a dozen of anti-corruption professionals, scholars and activists.
Authors of the three best essays will receive vouchers for the purchase of IT equipment. The competition will be open until 15 November 2024.
Essays shall demonstrate a well-informed understanding of the complex nature of corruption and the need to provide realistic ideas on how to reduce corruption. Authors shall provide one or few arguments related to the chosen topic of analysis that need to be elaborated and backed with some credible sources from the academic, legal or policy literature. Thus, authors are encouraged to present their own opinion but need to make sure such opinion is based on credible and convincing evidence. Essays shall be written in a well-structured and clear manner, with adequate use of language.
Essays shall be based one of the following general topics:
- Corruption and youth
- Corruption and elections/financing political parties
- Criminal aspects of corruption
- Corruption and gender
These topics serve as a general direction and authors are free to develop their own essays in a more specific manner as long as they stay in line with one of the four general topics.
Essays will be anonymously evaluated by an evaluation committee of three professors, who will evaluate the essays according to the following criteria:
- Essay topic and relevance (max. 25 points)
- Creativeness and originality of proposed argument(s) and solution(s) (max. 25 points)
- Argumentation and use of evidence and sources (max. 25 points)
- Language, structure and clarity (max. 25 points)
Essays shall be written in English, using Times New Roman, font size 12 and 1.5 line spacing, and should be 1400 and 1600 words long (3 pages). Longer essays will not be taken into consideration.
Essays shall be original work of the authors. Any sign of plagiarism (including the use of Chat GTP) will be sanctioned with disqualification from the competition.
Info session
Application process
Instructions for the essay competition are accessible in Macedonian and Albanian languages as well.
