The Role of universities in the fight against corruption

Abstract

The recent increase in the number of reports on anti-graft activities in the various sectors of Kenyan society reveals a greater determination on the part of the government and of international and local bodies to curb corruption in the country. After taking power in December 2002, the NARC government under the leadership of President Kibaki carried out a series of legal and institutional reforms among which was the enactment of the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act of 2003 through which the Kenya Anti- Corruption Commission was established. However in spite of these efforts, ratings from Transparency International continued to show Kenya as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. In its 2006 Corruptions Perceptions Index Kenya was ranked 142nd out of 163 countries, with a score of 2.2 – based on a scale from zero to ten- indicating high levels of perceived corruption in the country. Transparency International Kenyan Chapter also conducted a survey in the same year which showed that corruption cases increased in 2005 and that bribery continues to form part of the Kenyans’ way of life. In 2006 the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission published its first National Corruption Perception Survey with the aim of educating the public about the nature, levels and extent of corruption and where it occurs. It also launched the Kenya National Anti-Corruption Plan which contains the national strategy to fight corruption. Its main objective is to seek the collaboration of the various stakeholders to progressively and systematically reduce, to the extent possible, the causes and destructive effects of corruption in Kenya.1 The Plan proposes a number of measures to fight corruption, namely, the creation of enabling environments, the building and strengthening of institutions, the establishment and adoption of ethical standards in Kenyan organizations, and the creation of public awareness on the evils of corruption. Insofar as education is concerned, it specifically proposed the inclusion of an anti-corruption module in the curricula of all training and educational institutions. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of educational institutions, in particular the universities, in the fight against corruption.