The role of education in promoting integrity.

 

Everyone has a set of values, based on their family, social, cultural, religious, or political context. Education can both raise awareness on prevalent values and their impact and promote universal values. Therefore, education and training are cornerstones for building a culture of integrity in society. They can serve as means to raise awareness of the devastating effects of corruption, reduce societal tolerance of corrupt practices and equip people with the knowledge and skills to recognize, prevent and resist corruption. Teaching young people about integrity has the potential to shape the future by shaping societal norms. For a meaningful change, however, a culture of integrity should be mainstreamed in relevant education modules amongst all age groups, and action needs to go beyond government and involve individuals, civil society organizations and companies. All the key international conventions and standards on fighting corruption acknowledge the important role of education and training. For example, the United NationsConvention Against Corruption calls on signatories to promote education and training programs that enable civil servants to perform their functions with integrity and enhance their awareness of the risks of corruption inherent in the performance of these functions. It also urges governments to undertake public information activities and education programs that contribute to non-tolerance of corruption, including through school and university curricula. Its Chapter VI sets out a detailed list of issues that such trainings could deal with and encourages adherents to provide related technical assistance to other countries, particularly developing ones. The OECD Convention on Combating Bribery ofForeign Public Officials in International BusinessTransactions recommends that adhering governments undertake awareness-raising and training initiatives in the public sector for the purpose of preventing and detecting foreign bribery, including through dedicated guidance. The importance of different kinds of training is further elaborated throughout the text of the Convention and the related recommendations. For example, Annex II of the Recommendation of the Council for Further Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions explicitly recommends that companies ensure effective periodic communication and documented training for all levels of the company on the company’s ethics and compliance program or measures regarding foreign bribery, including for business partners. In this regard, business organizations and professional associations are encouraged to make training, prevention, due diligence, and other compliance tools available. Many of the OECD Country Monitoring Reports that evaluate the compliance of signatories with the Convention advise adherents to make more use of awareness-raising measures and trainings to fight corruption.

Finally, three of the 13 recommendations set out in the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Public Integrity are directly related to education and training. All of them can be found in Part III of the recommendation, which calls on adherents to cultivate a culture of public integrity. To this end, Recommendation states that governments should promote a whole society culture of public integrity, partnering with the private sector and civil society. This should include reducing tolerance of corruption in society through campaigns to promote civic education on public integrity, particularly in schools. Recommendation – investing in integrity leadership – acknowledges the importance of delivering periodic training and guidance to public sector managers on public integrity issues. Finally, Recommendation 8 is specifically dedicated to providing sufficient information, training, guidance and advice to public officials throughout their careers on how to apply public integrity standards in the workplace. This paper follows the definition of education set out in the UNESCO International Standard Classificationof Education. Thus, the following chapters will look at both the role of formal and non-formal education. UNESCO defines formal education as being “institutionalized, intentional and planned through public organizations and recognized private bodies, and – in their totality – constitute the formal education system of a country.” Non-formal education is defined as being “institutionalized, intentional and planned by an education provider.” It is an alternative and/or complement to formal education within the process of lifelong learning of individuals and can include training in a workplace to improve or adapt existing qualifications and skills.