Attitudes Toward Public Sector Corruption: A Study Of University Students In Kwazulu-Natal

Abstract

The aim of this article is to ascertain the perceptions of public sector corruption held by university students, drawing on a questionnaire completed by 509 second-year Durban University of Technology and University of KwaZulu-Natal economics/business studies students in mid-2010.

An overwhelming proportion of respondents regarded corruption as serious or very serious and believed that it had worsened over the previous three years. Indian respondents were more likely than Africans to regard corruption as serious and becoming worse, but a very large majority of both ethnic groups held these views. All ten scenarios presented were judged to be corrupt by the majority of respondents, although there was a wide range across the scenarios. A sizeable minority reported their willingness to engage in the behaviour presented in the scenarios. Female respondents were more likely than males to report a behaviour as corrupt and to say that they would not engage in it, while African respondents were more likely than Indian respondents to report a behaviour as corrupt and to say that they would engage in it.

This study needs to be supplemented by qualitative research in order to better understand the attitudes underlying these responses.