On December 5, 2024, National Integrity Lesson was held in educational institutions. It introduces students to the concept of integrity and discusses topics related to corruption and its negative consequences. The event is aimed at fostering a responsible attitude of students towards ethics and integrity.
This year, the integrity lessons are conducted according to the “Methodological Recommendations for Organizing and Conducting the Integrity Week in General Secondary Education Institutions in 2024” developed by NACP Integrity Office experts and a group of co-authors. They include interactive exercises, situations and games that help students not only understand the problem of corruption, but also teach them how to counteract it. All activities are adapted to different ages and interests of students, making the lessons as effective as possible.
The initiative was also supported by well-known Ukrainians, including public figure and restaurateur Yevhen Klopotenko and actor Yevhen Yanovych, who shared examples of integrity from their own lives with the children in video stories.
"Fostering integrity from childhood is not just an investment in the future, but also the basis for building a just and fair society. The sooner we start forming the principles of honesty and responsibility in young people, the stronger and more stable our state will be,” said NACP Head Viktor Pavlushchyk.
NACP employees joined the lesson. They conducted lessons in a number of schools, including Yevhen Semenyuta and Iryna Pyshchymka at the Holosiivskyi Lyceum №241, Alyona Khylko at the Kyiv Gymnasium of Oriental Languages №1, Viktoriia Skorobohata at the Fastiv Academic Lyceum №9, and Hanna Tkachenko at the Ivan Bahrianyi School №148.
Following the lesson for ninth graders, Alyona Khylko noted that the children were very sincere: "It is not easy to talk about integrity with students because it is a rather abstract concept. However, based on real-life situations, they quickly understand everything, analyze and draw conclusions, and surprise us with their deep answers and conscious position,” she shared her impressions.
The National Integrity Lesson for second-graders is a real magic of kindness and inspiration given by children. I was impressed by the frankness and activity of these little thinkers. Together, we listened to a fairy tale about virtuous animals, analyzed various situations about justice and discussed how to act fairly. And we ended the lesson with a warm symbolic moment: everyone wrote on a paper balloon a virtue they want to develop in themselves, and we decorated the Christmas tree with them,” Victoria Skorobohata shared her impressions.
National Integrity Lesson was initiated by the NACP's Integrity Office within the framework of the Integrity Week and with the support of the EU Anti-Corruption Initiative, a leading anti-corruption program funded by the European Union, co-funded and implemented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. This year's project runs from November 25 to December 6, 2024. This is an important initiative aimed at developing an anti-corruption culture in educational institutions.
As a reminder, the NACP's Integrity Office actively and systematically works with Ukrainian schools to promote a culture of integrity. Over the past two years alone, more than four thousand educators have been involved in conducting Integrity Lessons as part of the Integrity Week.
For three years now, the NACP Integrity Office team has been implementing the Transparent School project, which has helped to open 15 Integrity Hubs in different schools and unite 626 educational institutions from 21 regions of Ukraine into the project community.
On December 12, the Forum of Educators “Integrity for Education” will be held. Its goal is to summarize achievements, share experiences, and develop next steps for implementing integrity practices in the educational environment. Registration for the Forum is open until 14:00 on December 6, 2024. The number of seats is limited. A confirmation letter will be sent to the email address of the selected participants.
