National Anti-Corruption Commission initiates an anti-corruption education curriculum to educate Thai children and instill integrity value in Thai society

Corruption is one of the issues that countries around the global are concerned about. This is due mainly to its complexity and difficulty to manage. Corruption has a huge impact on the development of each nation, especially in developing nations. Corruption should be a problem that must be solved soonest. Corruption in Thai society during the past period has had enormous negative effects on the country and is a major obstacle to the country's development in all dimensions. In The past, the form of corruption was direct, and uncomplicated such as accepting bribes, and procurement. However, nowadays it has changed to become more complex which is involved with a conflict of interest and policy corruption. 

Children and youth are the future and hope of the country that we can instill the idea that corruption is an unusual thing in society. We should start educating and creating a culture against corruption in them since they are young. It's like providing a vaccination for a disease. The education could be done starting from early childhood up to higher education. We should focus on building a strong society to a level of ‘zero tolerance’ against corruption to create an anti-corruption culture, sufficiency, discipline, and integrity.

Even in developed countries or countries with the highest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) in the world, there is also the cultivation of teaching and learning for children and youth to promote the importance of morality, integrity, and other virtues. Discipline has been instilled as it is the basis of integrity. Those moralities are being cultivated at the family level, to the education, and learning process in the anti-corruption course. This course doesn't only focus on creating awareness against misconduct and corruption, but it also focuses on creating pride in doing good deeds through a teaching and learning process that has been developed efficiently. Anti-corruption education curriculum helps children get a proper education and understand the values and ethics that are perceived to be corrupt to prevent them from wrongdoing and misconduct. 

NACC has therefore initiated a communication format to reach children and youth so that they can realize the problem of corruption. A subcommittee on creating a curriculum and learning kit and media was set to create an Anti-Corruption Education curriculum, which consists of five courses as follows: 

1. Basic education curriculum (additional courses on corruption prevention)

2. Higher education curriculum (Youngster with a good heart)

3. Curriculum according to government service guidelines: military and police 

4. A course to create lecturers who lead change towards a ‘zero tolerance’ against corruption society. 

5. Coaching course for anti-corruption awareness.

All five courses have been implemented and also improved for educating each targeted group. In addition, the sub-committee creates a curriculum or learning kit and media on anti-corruption also selects learning media from various sources both domestically and abroad for the basic education curriculum and higher education curriculum, which can be applied in different educational institutions. The curriculum focuses on creating correct knowledge and understanding about the meaning and scope of various types of corruption, both direct and indirect, the damage caused by corruption, and the importance of anti-corruption, while also arranging for an evaluation of the achievement of learning according to the curriculum for each age group of students. This curriculum has also been promoted in other provinces covering in all regions of the country.  

Not only creating curricula, the NACC has also developed an Anti-Corruption Education Platform, which is an information technology system in the form of a Web Application for use in teaching and learning. E-learning or online anti-corruption education courses can be accessed 24/7 at any time through a variety of devices, including mobile applications and the Virtual Museum, which is an educational innovation that supports learning through an online channel. 

The NACC wants to create some changes in society. This starts with adjusting the thinking processes of children and citizens in order to lead to behavior change. Hopefully, Anti-Corruption Education curriculum will create knowledge, understanding, and skills for learners or those who have completed training in thinking and distinguishing between personal interests and public interests, learning to be embarrassed, and ‘zero intolerance’ against corruption. Having a “STRONG” mindset: sufficiency mentality and resisting corruption, while being a responsible citizen to jointly prevent and combat corruption in Thai society. All of those are considered challenging goals of the NACC in driving the anti-corruption education curriculum toward future achievement. However, only NACC could not do this, but we need cooperation from educational agencies as well as all educational institutions.

Source: https://www.nacc.go.th/categorydetail/20180831184638361/20240312100006? 

*This press release translation is funded by National Anti-Corruption Fund (NACF).

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