Amman University Signs Agreement to Host the Secretariat of the Arab Network for Integrity Education

The President of Al-Ahliyyeh Amman University (AAU), Dr. Sadeq Hamed, and the CEO of Tiri-Making Integrity Work, Mr. Fredrik Galtung, signed a cooperation agreement to host the Arab Integrity Education Network (AIEN) for the second year, on 8 September at the presidents office in Amman. Dr. Hamed discussed the role of integrity education in the development process especially at this time of change in the Arab World, and mentioned the challenges facing universities and higher education. On his part, Mr. Galtung expressed his high regard to the universitys support to the efforts of AIEN. He further underlined the intended role of universities and public training institutions as the most important institutions to shape the society, and pointed out that the integrity education provides the greatest opportunities to support reform and governance in the Arab World, and that it may have the most influential role in the fight against corruption. Mr. Galtung pointed out that a strategy is needed for educational reform through Integrity Education on a large scale in the region and confirmed that the Integrity Education programmes offer new and innovative solutions to deal with the intractable problems of corruption. On the other hand, the university president expressed his commitment to begin developing curricula that will incorporate the topic of integrity, to be presented to the students during the next academic year. This curricula aims to enable graduates work and compete with integrity in challenging environments. He believes that there is a need to address creative approaches and long-term commitment to demote corruption and lack of accountability; and education is a wide area of this change. Tiri – Making Integrity Work is an international organization registered in UK, working with governments, the private sector and civil society to find practical solutions to achieve integrity. Tiri believes that working to achieve integrity is perhaps the best and only way to gain access to equitable and sustainable development in all parts of the world. Tiri implements a number of programmes that include Pro-Poor Integrity, Integrity in the Workplace, Democratic Governance and IEN. Tiri believes that the fight against corruption through laws did not lead to much success for many years and we must focus on the building system of values of an individual and arming him/her with the ability to move positively in the community for this purpose. The Programme Manager of the AIEN, Dr. Malik Elamaireh, said that the university is working on building an independent academic network of Arab universities and institutes of public administration, whose role in teaching the principles of integrity, training and ways to combat the manifestations of corruption in the daily life will be activated. The network includes more than twenty Arab League and Training Institute members in eight Arab countries. The AIEN intends to y hold its first conference in November in an Arab country.