Wed, 9 February 2022

The youths of today are the leaders of tomorrow

The youth are more interested in current political processes and have actively participated in political, economic, and social reforms. Especially, for the reason that the role of youth in developing countries is a main part, their participation in the prevention of corruption is a sign of success. Anti-corruption organizations started programs anti-corruption several decades ago which the young can involve in it. Curricula on Integrity education were developed for schools, universities, and colleges. And also civil society organizations also conducted the integrity awareness program which aimed primarily at young people. In general, it can be seen that projects led by young people in civil society organizations have become effective and successful, and most of Myanmar’s young people are also participating in civil society organizations. According to the Burmese saying, “the youths of today are the leaders of tomorrow”, which means the youth are the leaders of the future. So they need not only to participate in national development activities but also to prevent corruption which is one of the main obstacles to national development.

Why we should cooperate with young people

In a 2013 report, the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), compiles world population data, which expressed 25 percent of the global population is young people who are between the ages of 10 and 24, and about 32 percent are from in developing countries. As developing countries, it highlighted that the role of youth should be elevated and involved in approaching anti-corruption activities. Transparency International (TI) 2009, data released the youths are a large part of society and most of the youth at these ages are likely to commit corruption. According to a survey published by Transparency International-TI in 2013, 27 percent of young people under the age of 30 had committed a bribe in the past 12 months. According to the anti-corruption survey published by the Myanmar Affairs Research Group in July 2017, 794 people were surveyed, and observed that 500 people had personally experienced corruption, and 108 of them were young people under the age of 35.

In what ways should we cooperate?

As Transparency International-TI, they pointed out that the youths participating in anti-corruption activities, the opening of youth integrity camps, cooperation with basic education schools and universities, creating networks of youths moment on the anti-corruption, and informing knowledge of corruption through media, exhibitions, and competitions are the main events.

Opening of Youth Integrity Camps

The main purpose of opening youth integrity camps is to teach youths integrity, transparency, responsibility, and accountability for building a good society. In addition, youth and youth leaders from every sector are aimed to become the practical implementers of the development of a good governance system that has transparency and accountability. The participants in the youth integrity camps are media workers, students, artists, and staff representatives of various fields, being able to share experiences in their respective fields is the essence of youth integrity camps. As mentioned by Transparency International-TI, the first country that started democracy training youths camps and integrity youths camps in 2008 was Papua New Guinea. Participants who completed attending the Youth Integrity Camp gave feedback in which they felt understanding the meaning of corruption deeply and learned most people can either directly or indirectly deal with corruption.

Cooperation with basic education schools, universities, degree, and colleges

As organizations (basic education schools, and university Degree colleges) have been used as a gateway for the youth to inform corruption and educate the youth about integrity. However, it is very difficult to incorporate it into the current school curricula and it is difficult to find extra-curricular’s time from the fixed school schedule. Fortunately, there are advantages such as easy-to-use teaching materials and other related things already in schools, and giving training in a familiar environment for the young are strong points. Experts have considered that schools, universities, degrees, and colleges should be used as Education camps because they are valuable places for the youth. According to the document published by Amnesty International (AI) in 2006, they point out in it that most young people are tired of their daily studies, so some programs such as thesis seminars, literary lectures, conversational discussions, meetings, theatre workshops, and other education programs are more effective to draw attention of the young. Therefore, non-government society organizations cooperated with schools in holding anti-corruption seminars and other activities for the youth. In addition, developing anti-corruption curricula and compilation of reference books aimed at self-reading and learning has been widely done. For example, the Education for Justice (E4J) Initiative's anti-corruption reference publications were compiled by university-level, experts around the world to assess and analyze the current situation in developing and developed countries as a global program for the implementation of the Doha Declaration, which was approved at the 13th Conference of the United Nations on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice held in Doha, Qatar, in 2015.

Efforts of the Myanmar Anti-Corruption Commission

In order to emphasize the participation of young people in Myanmar's anti-corruption activities in the future, Anti-Corruption Commission would be more important and effective to include anti-corruption awareness lessons in the school education system, as the Anti-Corruption Commission starts to teach anti-corruption lessons for the basic education school level with the relevant ministry department and organizations in accordance with the provisions of Section 16 (i) of the Anti-Corruption Law. We are coordinating with organizations. As integrity is essential in the prevention of corruption, school-aged children should be taught to understand and value integrity, school children with the aim of increasing the awareness of not accepting all evil practices done invisibly. As an educational program to promote integrity, primary school level teachers' books for promoting righteousness and integrity were developed in cooperation with the Ministry of Education__ 40,000 books were transferred to the Ministry of Education Department on October 18th 2018. As a second step, the developing integrity program teachers' handbooks of the secondary school level of basic education were developed in cooperation with the Ministry of Education__40,000 books were handed over to the Ministry of Education on July 29th 2019.

In addition, the reference booklets on anti-corruption have been compiled again for Basic Education High School students, these are intended for them to get knowledge of anti-corruption and be students who are ashamed of doing corruption, against and repulsed by corruption, to become good volunteers in the human society and especially they realize the good and the bad and criticize between the cause and effect and the right and wrong. To recognize the role of young people in the fight against corruption. There are teachers from 22 universities and colleges teacher and student 238 students participated in that youths camp to recognize the participation of the youth in fighting corruption and to develop the ethics that young people should follow in carrying out activities to develop integrity. The Integrity Youth Camp 1/2019 was opened in Nay Pyi Taw and the Integrity Youth Camp 2/2019 in Mandalay. As participants, they can study the nature of ethics and social behaviors, and standards of integrity.  They can face corruption and ethnic crisis through their studies. They can build a society that does not totally accept corruption through their pieces of knowledge

As a special measure, The Education for Justice (E4J) Initiative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for civil society organizations and those interested in anti-corruption to read and learn for university-level students, public employees, civil servants businessmen, non-government organizations and participants which are University Module Series, 2018 Integrity and Ethics Modules published in March 2019 translated into Myanmar version that are the Anti-Corruption Modules published in September, Anti-Corruption University Level Reference Booklet (1) and integrity and Ethics University Level Reference Booklet (1) and (2) for university students has already been distributed to university students.

In society, anti-corruption programs are held around the state in order that the young people are practicing Integrity, being beneficial people to society by following basic rules and ethics, getting the right thoughts about their society, having accountability for their actions, and developing public integrity for civil and national staff. If so, it is believed that a new generation with good practices and integrity will build a peaceful country that is free from corruption. 

List of reference books/publications

Anti-Corruption Resource Centre,

Annual Reports of Anti-Corruption Commission