If African business schools are to serve as change agents and play an effective role in combating systemic corruption in Africa, they need to equip future business leaders with pragmatic political skills rather than rely solely on developing an individual’s ethical outlook, according to new research from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. “Pockets of ethical behaviour do not go far enough in Africa, according to assistant professor of strategy in the School of Management at the University of Bath. “The [private] sector has a huge potential to bring about change, but only if it is politically capable,” he said.

In line with the second MDG of achieving universal primary education by ensuring that all girls and boys complete a full course of primary schooling, moral values and ethics need to be inducted in the education system aside practical skills. Though some people have argued that corruption is as old as mankind, it is mankind that can avert the situation through structuring curricular whose aim should be producing morally upright citizens who abhor corruption.