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support the effectuation of meaningful public education while an effort has been made to find out the degree to which the use of print and electronic media would enhance public awareness on anti-corruption issues in Zimbabwe.
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developed a sense of community ownership and resisted any attempts to corrupt them. Transparency International, (2016) reports that there was a drastic reduction of bribery cases in the procurement of teaching and learning resources and hence huge moneys that used to be stolen were served. This study strongly believes that the public education intervention carried out in Uganda is highly appreciated, therefore, I wish to find out what input the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission and its partners could have to match, or surpass the Ugandan case study.
Another important requirement in coming up with an effective public education programme includes the hiring and appointment of qualified educators. OECD, (2015) points out that in the majority of cases in Africa, public awareness programmes were handled by contract teachers / educators who were accorded poor working conditions including salaries. This was a serious anomaly because such educators lacked security of tenure and it was possible that they failed to have ownership of the programme. This idea was supported by Wan and Sirat, (2018) who said, the assumption was that the people who took part in decision making as well as implementation of a programme did not only legitimatize the change process but served as agents of change through taking ownership of the educational programme. Therefore, giving adequate remuneration to educators played a huge role in motivating them. The public education on anti-corruption in Zimbabwe is generally poorly funded by the state and there is no extra funding from traditional donors like United Nations Development Programme, (UNDP). That being the case, the morale on the part of the educators is hitting rock bottom and this adversely affects the delivery of the public education on anti-corruption. This is one area in which my study has great interest in.
The use of effective methods by educators during public education programme was of paramount significance in this study. As Quah, (2017) argues, teaching strategies were central in improving the quality of education. The idea implies that it did not matter who the target group might be when delivering on an awareness programme.
Whether they were school children or adults, the bottom line was that they needed to be actively involved in the learning process. Therefore, the use of participatory methodologies was key to achieving one’s objectives, Ghoku and Lekoko, (2007 p 152) summed it up by saying, “Education is not equivalent to indoctrination,
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mesmerism, hypnotism or head shrinking”. This meant that educators should not take their participants for granted and always resort to telling methods. They should also tolerate their misplaced responses and be practically very sensitive to their needs in the process of delivering the lessons.
In an article by Patrinos (2013) entitled, ‘The hidden cost of corruption: Teacher absenteeism and loss in schools’, the availability of educators was of paramount importance in implementing a successful educational programme. Zimbabwe has had educational programmes some of which were highly successful, for example the Universal Primary Education which assisted the country to raise the level of literacy to the over 90 %. This educational programme was achieved through various innovative methods including hiring of expatriate teachers and the Zintecisation of the teachers’ training, (Zimbabwe Open University, EA3PD303). The new educational programme ensured that classes were always manned by teachers even though some of them were still in training.
However, there were some programmes that did not take off the ground as was expected due to a number of reasons although chief among them was the none availability of teachers. The examples that came to mind included Education with production, Sex Education, Political Economy to mention but a few. While lack of teachers in these programmes played a bigger role, misconceptions on the actual content to be taught led to their rejection by the public. Although the education programmes were not implemented simultaneously, the misconceptions and failure to provide qualified educators in each of the them contributed to their failure one after the other. Thus, Ghoku and Lekoko, (2007) commented that, skepticism arose from previous experiences of failed programmes and people became very doubtful about the success of current programmes. The sentiments by Ghoku and Lekoko, (2007) are important in this study because I also suspect there could be some degree of suspicion among the public on how the public education on Anti-corruption in Zimbabwe was being handled. There were some awareness campaigns which were well advertised in the print and electronic media, and people came with the hope to participate but the Commission failed to come to the party. In some of the cases the Commission came and the campaign was done, however the Commission reneged on what was agreed upon with the public. For example, some of the people
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who reported their cases of corruption never received feedback on the steps taken by the Commission. The public treated this as lack of seriousness on the part of the Commission and hence their participation in future educational programmes was thrown into doubt.
The use of media could never be over emphasized in any modern educational enterprise. All learners require the use of relevant media as they participate in an educational programme. The Global Monitoring Report, (2015) stress that the radio is an enduring and successful medium which could be effectively used for all people and particularly those in remotest parts of the country. The report sounded quite relevant to the Zimbabwean situation where areas like Binga, Malipati, Muzarabani and others were so remote that receiving radio services was quite erratic. These areas have no electricity, libraries or telephone landlines and the road network is very bad. The television reception is comparatively poor if not none existent.
Therefore, in such situations, it would be best to use the radio to raise the people’s awareness on programmes of importance. In this case anti-corruption education was a necessary programme that needed to be taught to all the citizens irrespective of where they were located. The fact that corruption knows no region or boundaries speaks volumes of the need to educate everybody in Zimbabwe about it so that the public plays a part in preventing all forms of corruption.
Connected to the use of the radio, is the idea of using cell phones to educate the people in the country irrespective of where they are located. There are various platforms like whatsapp, twitter, short message services, and others that could be used when sending bulk messages to the public. Borcan, et al, (2017) explains that mobile phones arguably have the greatest potential for information communication technology-based learning. The idea appears very realistic in the sense that in Zimbabwe, nearly 80% of the adult population has cell phones, and more than half of them have cell phones with a radio facility, while some of them have smart cell phones which could be used for browsing the internet. This made the cell phone the most versatile technology to use during public education especially with people scattered all over the country. This mode of technology has widened the opportunities for public participation in anti-corruption education in Zimbabwe. In my
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study, I have made an effort to explore the effect of various media on the delivery of anti-corruption public education.