China plans to introduce lessons in schools outlining the "evil" of corruption with graft rife across the country and few signs of it getting better, state media reported July 29.
The Ministry of Education has launched the campaign in big cities and provinces like Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Zhejiang, Hubei and Shaanxi, Xinhua news agency said. The plan is to "vaccinate" the younger generation against corruption as part of an ongoing nationwide anti-graft campaign.
"The profound changes in international and domestic situations have exposed young students to the surrounding corruptive concepts and phenomena," state media said.
Corruption is endemic in China with last year's state audit uncovering 9.06 billion yuan (US$1.1 billion) of misappropriated funds by government departments and 14.5 billion yuan by state companies. Graft in education in 2004 was also rife with 868 million yuan worth of fees illegally collected by government-run universities and 669 million yuan in scientific research funds misappropriated.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2005
