Palestine: Announcement of a new university course on Integrity, Transparency and Accountability in Combating Corruption

In 2007, AMAN developed a university course entitled: “Integrity, Transparency and Accountability in combating corruption” in collaboration with Birzeit University (BZU) and a number of academics and Palestinian experts. The curriculum aims at enabling Palestinian youth to recognize the efforts of combating corruption through the theoretical and practical knowledge as well as through identifying the conceptual framework of the integrity system, transparency and accountability. This is perceived as an attempt to enhance the capacity of higher education to effectively contribute to the building of a Palestinian national integrity. The course has already been offered as a pilot phase at two universities in Palestine, namely, BZU in the West Bank where the entire book was studied over a period of four semesters and at the Islamic University in Gaza. Both universities adopted the book and incorporated it in their curricula either as a university requirement for students of the public administration at BZU, or as a pilot stage for the students at the Islamic University (IU).

At the end of 2009, AMAN and in cooperation with the National Endowment for Democracy adopted the project "Combating Corruption through Education" and performed a comprehensive evaluation for the book by an educational expert. Then AMAN with a number of local experts started revising and developing the reference book based on the National Integrity System Study- Palestine 2009. Moreover, a manual has been developed for University instructors and professors offering a range of methods and tools, exercises, and case studies to enable them to offer the full content efficiently and to render a maximum benefit. In addition to (BZU) and (IU), three other universities in the West Bank have adopted the course, namely, Al-Quds University / Abu Deis, The Arab American University / Jenin (AAUJ) and Hebron University/ Hebron.

In this regard, the Coalition for Accountability and Integrity "AMAN" held a press conference where a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed between the concerned universities and AMAN. As indicated in the MOU< the course will be offered as a mandatory course for Law students at A-Quds, and AAUJ, while BZU and Hebron Universalities demand it for Public Administrative students. It is worthy to note that all universities will also offer the course as an elective to all students.

AMAN’s Board Chairperson, Dr Hanan Ashrawi, Commissioner for Combating Corruption-AMAN Dr. Azmi Shuaibi, and Executive Director, Ghada Zughayar attended the conference.

In opening the conference, Dr. Shuaibi presented AMANs’ vision and philosophy on fighting corruption in general with emphasis on educational methods for long term effects. He illustrated the need and importance of teaching this course at the university showing appreciation for the cooperation and response from the various universities. His speech was followed by remarks from BZU representative who gave a briefing on the university’s experience and evaluation of the course taught during 2009. Representatives of the other three universities also gave a short speech about adopting the course before the signing of the MOU.