Building a cohort of mentors in integrity education through hybrid learning in Pakistan

20 October, Islamabad - UNODC’s Global Integrity Education (GIE) Project stands out at the cutting-edge of innovation in Pakistan. A unique and momentous programme, it brings together the creative spirit of a large fraternity of academics and university teachers to lead change through building a cadre of integrity ambassadors in private companies by teaching customized learning modules on ethical leadership, challenges to ethical living, behavioural ethics and detecting and investigating corruption to last-year graduate students. This is the first-ever programme of UNODC, funded by the Siemens Integrity Initiative, that has set a benchmark of ethical learning in Pakistan.

 Backed by an inter-disciplinary, participatory and phased approach, UNODC Country Office in Pakistan has followed a rigorously iterative and innovative path of engaging a wide range of private sector experts and academics to form a working group under the project. Bringing together years of learning, experience, thought leadership and knowledge, they worked to adapt and tailor a selection of modules from the UNODC’s 28 global modules on anti-corruption, integrity and ethics to ensure their local relevance to Pakistan. The modules were contextualized by integrating real life examples, role play exercises, local readings and case studies.

As part of this ongoing process of transfer of learning, UNODC led a TOT Programme for lecturers that took off in mid-September with preworkshop activities and an online self-paced e-learning course. The process contributed into a Virtual Training of Trainers (ToT) Programme hosted by UNODC in Lahore from 5-8 October 2020 in collaboration with the University of Central Punjab (UCP). The objective was to enhance the capacity of local lecturers to use the contextualized modules in their courses. The event brought together a cohort of 48 eminent academic experts, professors and university faculty to go through an interactive, exhilarating and enriching hybrid learning curve. In the course of the programme, participants engaged in a series of interactive activities, including pre-workshop assignments, self-paced online course, four webinars and teaching demonstrations on the modules. Given, this was the first of a series of ToT activities, which UNODC will implement in Kenya, Mexico and 

Pakistan, it was also attended by academics from Kenya and Mexico who participate in the GIE Project.

The timing of the ToT is also critical. As countries all over the world are trying to tackle some of the most pressing and unpredictable challenges stemming out of the economic fallout of the outbreak of COVID-19. Among these, the pandemic has brutally influenced and stretched the business ecosystems increasing the compliance risk, particularly for the developing economies of South Asian countries like Pakistan. 

Overall, the ToT was a stimulating and thought-provoking experience in the way everyone meshed together as a team for sharing the knowledge both at the local and global level. The workshop is the first step in bringing together the foundational elements of an enriching and engaging learning experience in integrity education. As the modules are further cascaded for university students, there is going to be a lot of iterative feedback, generating new knowledge and case studies to make the experience more up-to-date, relevant and innovative for the students.  


What do the ToT facilitators and participants say? 

 

Role-plays of "business scenarios facing ethical dichotomy" are one good way to integrate ethics education in classroom. Kazim Ali, Sr. Lecturer, University of Central Punjab 

I really like the role play teaching method, it is engaging and also constrain the students to prepare themselves very well. Well done! Beatrice Pesce, UNODC HQ, Vienna 

A good teaching demonstration. It provides interesting ideas about how the entire module canbeincorporated in a course. Well done. Dr. Muhammad Nadeem Dogar, Assistant Professor, University of Central Punjab 

Seen so many different ways of teaching the modules and very inspiring for all of us. Florian Lair, UNODC HQ, Vienna