Partnering with young generations to promote integrity

For nearly half a century, promoting youth education, instilling the positive values of probity, integrity and law abidingness in youngsters has been a top priority for the ICAC. In order to build a strong and extensive youth anti-corruption network and to better meet the preferences and habits of young people, the Commission has also turned to a partnership strategy.

In recent years, the ICAC proactively recruited tertiary students as our close allies in promoting probity, integrity and fairness. Through participating in various ICAC activities, these ICAC Ambassadors learnt about positive values and helped disseminate them to friends and schoolmates. They have become effective multipliers and helped raised the awareness of integrity and the evils of corruption amongst their peers.

Over 100 ICAC Ambassadors from around 20 local tertiary institutes earlier joined a training camp organised by the ICAC. The one-day programme consisted of adventure experiential activities, Augmented Reality (AR) games and group activities, all of which aimed to enhance team work, cooperation and leadership. May Fan Ching-yin, ICAC’s Principal Youth and Education Officer, told ICAC Post that every ICAC Ambassador took on the important mission of promoting probity messages on their campuses. During the training, ambassadors had gained better understanding about the work of the anti-corruption agency, rule of law in Hong Kong as well as the key elements of the anti-bribery law. They would make use of these knowledge to tailor-make campus-based activities for disseminating ICAC’s messages to their schoolmates.

“The key is to draw their attention and arouse their interest, approachable instead of being banal or old-fashioned. As our Ambassadors are all tertiary students, they are very familiar with popular topics, preferences and the latest trends among their peers. They are expected to come up with activities with innovative ideas which are suitable for young people. With the support of ICAC officers, they will organise these activities on their campus to help introduce the Commission’s work and promote anti- graft messages,” she said.

Ms Fan added that the ICAC would further enrich the contents of the ICAC Ambassador programme in a bid to help young people better understand our country and the rule of law, nurture the value of law abidingness and strengthen their sense of national identity.

Primary students to serve as ICAC’s little helpers

For primary students, the Commission has also been recruiting “new blood” as ICAC’s little helpers. In the current academic year, the ICAC’s “i Junior” Primary School Moral Education Programme successfully recruited a total of 1,500 primary students as “I Junior” leaders. Coming from over 230 local primary schools, these little helpers equipped themselves for the job by attending integrity training hosted by ICAC officers. With the help of a wide variety of teaching and activity materials such as card games and booth games, “i Junior” leaders will help disseminate integrity messages to their schoolmates during recess time.

Or Ching-yu, Headmistress of St Stephen’s Girls’ Primary School, one of the local schools joining the ICAC programme, fully supported the idea of partnering with the ICAC as it would help nurture positive values amongst students.

“The themes and storylines of the ICAC’s teaching materials and animation cartoon series center around the daily lives of Hong Kong students. The animation series also allow students to choose their own preferred endings, hence inspiring their thinking and encouraging more interaction. The teaching materials are useful in deepening students’ understanding about the positive values of honesty and integrity,” Ms Or said.

The “i Junior” Primary School Moral Education Programme aims to engage 120,000 students in the current academic year. The ICAC is expecting to collaborate with more primary schools in the next school year with a focus on the value of “fairness”.