5.3 Participants’ understanding of public education and corruption
5.3.2 Public education
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wealth. Of late the corrupt had widened they spectrum of demands to include clothes, cars, cell phones, beasts and they demanded weird acts like sex. This was also echoed by Chene, (2013) who commented that there were criminally innovative forms of corruption taking place in the education sector which included buying school or college authorities some of the following; beer, mobile phones, cattle, suits or even sex. Mutondoro and Gweshe, (2015) have also lamented that sexual corruption was now rampant in the Zimbabwean education system to an extent that the girl child was forced to indulge in sexual intercourse with either her teacher / lecturer or head of school in order for her to secure enrolment or pass a certain level of school work.
Therefore, I conceived that the majority of the participants were aware of the correct meaning of corruption and its forms. However, there were other people who could not differentiate between corruption and other predicate offences like rape, murder, civil matters and others. These observations underlined the grave need for an effective public education on anti-corruption.
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From the data I collected through the questionnaire, 51 (85 %) of the 60 participants reported that public education implied a two-way process in which people shared ideas on a subject of concern. They also commented that public education means a nationally driven programme targeted at imparting knowledge, skills and attitudes to the general public on issues of national significance. These views were consistent with Komalasari and Saripudin, (2015) who pointed out that public education implies educational interventions which are aimed at raising awareness on issues of national significance which are carried out by the government or a delegated agency. In August 2018, the occurrence of cholera in some parts of Harare triggered the need for public education on the residents of Harare as a sustainable preventive solution to the problem of cholera while concurrently offering treatment to the victims. The public education process involved the use of various platforms like workshops / seminars, print and electronic media to conscientize people about the possible threat to life in the environment.
In my study, most of the participants I interviewed were clear that public education goes beyond the formal classroom as it catered for all irrespective of race, age, gender and any other aspect that might be discriminatory in nature. The participants were of the view that whilst schools and colleges were important public education platforms, they were not flexible enough to quickly adopt and effect the new learning areas due to certain procedural formalities they needed to undergo first. This leaves the government with the task to choose agencies (public and private) to take over the public education role while efforts are made to rope in schools and colleges as a long-term solution. This view was consistent with the idea that public education is a planned system of education which is premised on sensitizing people on matters of national significance which embrace all people from childhood to adulthood, (Jones, 2017). In public education on anti-corruption, the underlying factor may be that each person or individual could be a potential victim of corruption or a corruption suspect at the very end of it all. Therefore, there was need to educate the public on the meaning, causes, effects of corruption and corruption preventative methods.
However, 9 (15 %) of the 60 participants thought that public education was limited to what schools and universities offered through formal education curricular. These participants argued that it was not possible to educate people outside the confines of the school system. I found their contributions quite interesting and probably less
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informed by reality since the same people go to church, attend political meetings or other government and civil society meetings where people participate in different kinds of civic education. The world over, public education (informal) is accredited for ushering unprecedented levels of development and that most governments have relied on public education to build structures and systems which are working well for the citizens, (Borcan, et al, 2017). Therefore, I established that most of the participants were aware of the effectiveness of public education in raising public awareness and the role it plays to avert or mitigate disasters in a given community or country.
My findings from the 30 participants I interviewed showed that all of them had a clear understanding of the concept public education. They were generally of the view that public education was an intervention strategy to prevent, curtail or bring to a halt a perceived risk through raising people’s awareness. In this regard, a participant from the civil society argued that, ‘Public education implies what an organisation or agency does to raise community awareness on a subject of major concern’, (ICS). A participant from the Civil Service / Government shared that, ‘Public education has a lot do with carrying out outreach programmes to inform the public on how to prevent the occurrence of a likely disaster’, (I G). Similarly, a participant from a parastatal (State Owned Enterprise) reported that:
Public education is a government sanctioned process meant to raise public awareness and activate preventive mechanisms. It is offered for free and does not have restrictions on the beneficiaries, (I P).
The above contributions on the meaning of public education were in agreement with Tsabora, (2016) who posits that, public education is instituted when a government intends to raise public awareness on a problem which has a potential to threaten peace among the citizens and whose prevalence might have high chances of putting the lives of people at risk. These contributions were also in line with Ear, (2016), that the best way to fight corruption was to educate the people to prevent corruption.
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My findings were that public education was premised on promoting the acquisition of knowledge, skills and attitudes. These three products of public education were crucial in the development and sustenance of any community or government programme. Thus, a good public education programme should jealously guard against the occurrence of malpractice, but should empower the people to predict danger and then put plans to prevent its occurrence, (Quah, 2017). If past public education experiences were anything to go by, national programmes like HIV / AIDS, Family Planning, Adult Literacy, Six Child Killer Diseases and several others were successfully instituted to avert perceived disasters. Merill, (1998), Mpofu, (1995) and Chitereka and Nduna, (2010) all concur that the success of such massive programmes depended on the involvement of high-level political passion and commitment from government. What leaves a lot to be desired in the participants’
contributions was the fact that they seemed to prefer a public education programme which covered a definite period after which it is discontinued formally. Such findings might be less effective particularly when dealing with issues of criminal nature like corruption where one finds cunning players (perpetrators) who may plan to execute a tactical withdrawal only to pounce with a bang, catching everyone by surprise if the public education programme discontinues.
The participants also commented that public education on anti-corruption was a systematic way of educating the citizens on social, economic, political, technological, religious and cultural concerns with the aim to improve the people’s livelihoods. The contributions by the participants were of paramount importance in the sense that corruption negatively affects the poor terribly and it makes access to virtually all goods and services very scarce. This observation agrees with Mutondoro, et al, (2015) who point out that corruption emanates from power dynamics in situations where there is less observance of transparency and accountability and in an environment where there are goods and services valued by society. It follows that, the corruption that go unchecked at various schools, colleges and universities may be due to lack of education by the public on viable corruption prevention measures which should protect both the students and their parents from greedy school and college authorities some of whom actually demand bribes in broad day light.
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Participants from civil society organizations also expressed concern on corruption perpetrated by lecturers at theological colleges towards trainee pastors. They believed that the corruption which threatened the survival of many churches could be attributed to the impropriety trainee pastors were exposed to during training which has become part of the people’s culture in most churches. These contributions suggest that public education was a state sanctioned exercise where the government or an entity with delegated authority plans and executes an outreach programme. What came out vividly in the findings was that public education was a two-way process where the educator and the learner were expected to add value in the entire process. I observed that the participants were agreed that a successful public education should have a shared responsibility among the public, non- governmental organisations and the government. Its delivery should be continuous, free of charge and should serve a preventative purpose.