Foreseeing many developed nations with a high Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), have courses to educate children and youth about morality, integrity, and other virtues, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) of Thailand has initiated an Anti-Corruption Education curriculum for Thai children so that they can realize the problem of corruption.
The NACC’s Secretary-General, Mr. Niwatchai Kasemmongkol, explained that 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 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. 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,” he said.
Thus, the NACC, Thailand has set up a subcommittee on creating an anti-corruption curriculum so that it can create a learning kit and media for educating children in order to build a strong society with “zero tolerance to corruption”.
The anti-corruption education curriculum consists of five courses:
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 improved for educating each targeted group of children and youth. To increase efficiency in teaching children, the NACC also selected learning media and tools 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. An evaluation of the achievement of learning according to the curriculum for each age group of students is also arranged. 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, an anti-corruption 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 the NACC could not do this, but we need cooperation from educational agencies as well as all educational institutions, the NACC’s secretary-general concluded.
