The commitment of the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) to inculcate in the minds of the secondary school students an early understanding of the negative impact of corruption on the society through mentoring continues on Tuesday 21st June, 2022 at Hall B, CITAD, Kano. The engagement was third phase among the series of the training workshops organized by the centre to build the capacity of secondary school teachers in Kano State to serve as anti corruption club mentors. The third phase of the training workshop has the following objectives:
- Train the participants how to coach their students to learn about corruption and how to fight it
- Understanding the Anti-Corruption Quiz System as designed by CITAD and
- Prepare students for the Anti-Corruption Quiz
Malam Isah Garba, Senior program Officer, CITAD, made the welcome remark. In his remarks he reinstated the negative impacts of corruption in all aspect of life and emphasized that as someone who taught for several years knows that teachers can have influence on the lives of their students better than their parent. He said that in one way or another we are all victims of corrupted society as experienced and suffered personal loss, intimidation and inconvenience, due to some corrupt practices. So we have to work hard and help the younger generations through social mechanisms don’t fall victims. He added that good deeds have their own rewards, and quoted the tradition that says “whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to those who follow him, without detracting from their rewards at all”.
Hamza Ibrahim presented the first paper ‘Couching Students to Learn about Corruption and how to Fight it’. The paper explained grand corruption, petty corruption and political corruption as type of corruptions. According to the paper grand corruption consists of acts committed at a high level of government that distorts policies or the central functioning of the state, enabling leaders to benefit at the expense of the public good. The petty corruption refers to everyday abuse of entrusted power by low and midlevel public officials in their interactions with ordinary citizens, who often are trying to access basic goods or services in place like hospitals, schools, police departments and other agencies. A political corruption is a manipulation of policies, institutions and rules of procedures. Political corruption is a manipulation of policies, institutions and rules of procedure in the allocation of resources and financing by political decision makers, who abuse their position to sustain their power, status and wealth. To assess participants’ knowledge and understanding on the three types of corruptions, the participants were divided into three groups and asked group one to give five examples of grand corruption, group two five examples of petty corruption and group three five examples of political corruption. They should both groups suggest roles that students can play in supporting anti-corruption activities. Below were the group findings.
Group one (GRAND CORRUPTION)
- Contract embezzlement
- Employment- sales of offers
- Distortion of government policies
- Abuse of power
- Budget padding
Group two (PETTY CORRUPTION)
- Giving and collecting money while breaking traffic rules
- Favor in hospitals
- Use of magic centers (giving money to pass exam
- Buying offers in public offices
- Nepotism
Roles students can play in supporting anti corruption
- Spreading information to others
- Changing the attitudes of the students to be morally sound
- Drawing comics and cartoons
- Organizing debate competitions to show the negative implication of corruption
- By enacting various forms of corruption through dramas
Group three (POLITICAL CORRUPTION)
- Bribing of electoral officers to manipulate the election result
- Buying of voters card
- Bribing of delegates
- Bribing society with minor gift (tsari) such as scalp, matches, soap, detergents, little amount of money etc
- Diversion of projects
Roles of students in fighting corruption
- Avoiding of exam mal practice
- Students should stop unnecessary requests from their parents
- Students must stop greediness behavior
- Students should adopt moral and good characters
- Organizing dramas, write-ups, and short presentations during assembly on corruption
The second paper was presented by Malam Kamilu Isah titled ‘Understanding the Anti-Corruption Quiz System as Designed by CITAD’. Kamilu said that each school will hold a preliminary quiz in their school. This could serve as intra quiz that allows students to compete within the schools among themselves. Those that emerged winners will represent their schools at the state level quiz. There will be provision of airing the final round of quiz competition live on some selected radio stations. Also, CITAD will make use of extra curriculum activities to provide students with experience, knowledge and skills that otherwise would not gain from the formal school curriculum. Subsequently, he requested the participants to back to their groups and answer the following questions: 1. How do we planned to organize preliminary quiz in our school. 2. How do we plan to organize anti-corruption quiz questions in our schools? Below were the group findings:
Group one
Question 1
- By notifying the school authorities
- Selection of interested students from each class
- Selection of quiz officials
- Group of students into categories
- Schedules (Date, Time, Venue)
Question 2
- Training of the students on the different ant-corruption topics
- Giving assignment to the students
- Setting questions based on treated topics of anti corruption
- Pre quiz
- Schedule (Date, Time, Venue)
Group two
Question 1
- By informing the school management and seeking for their approval
- By encouraging the interesting students, though we have anti corruption programs
- To motivate the students potential ideas toward the anti corruption programs
- By fixing time that will not affect their learning for rehasal
- To enlighten the students on the topics to be participated in
Question 2
- The questions should be organized base on what we learnt
- By consulting pass question papers on the relevant subjects such as civic education
- By consulting other teachers who have interest in anti- corruption
Group 3
Question 1
- Creating of the anti corruption club
- Selection of the members
- Awareness of the club members about anti corruption
- The quiz should be inter classes on the club members
- The quiz result will be displayed, and the winners will be awarded with soft gifts for encouragement
Question 2
- The question should be based on what you train the students about corruption
- The question should be base on the level of their understanding e.g corruption in our country.
Malam Ibrahim Nuhu, made the last presentation. The presentation tipped the participants how to prepare their students for anti-corruption quizzes. He said that selection of students must consider participating students, language selection, equip the students with information around corruption issues at national, state, and local levels, mitigation strategies and reporting mechanisms such as petitions, whistle blowing, direct call, email and other online platforms. He lastly shared with participants how in two incidences he reported some corruption cases to anti corruption agencies.