Corruption in Educating Accounting and Finance Students as Root to Financial Crimes in Africa

This paper examines the corrupt practices that are noticeable in the African tertiary educational institutions offering accounting and finance programmes, with a view to ascertaining how the identified stakeholders to the African education sector are involved in the corruption that breeds financial crimes in the African continent and the role they could play in combating the menace. Being a literature review type, the paper reviews the challenges of corruption in Africa, in general, and the higher education sector, in particular; the various dimensions of corruption in the education sector; and the role expected to be played by the stakeholders in the sector for a successful fight against corruption and avoidance of financial crimes in the African continent and beyond. It is the conclusion of the paper that all the identified stakeholders- teachers, students, parents, community and the government- are involved in the corrupt practices that are skewed to the education sector, and that each of the five stakeholders has a role to play in combating it for the production of ethical accountants and financial experts that would build financial crime-free African economies. It is recommended that governments of the countries in Africa, being the most powerful of all the stakeholders, should exercise the powers available to them in implementing appropriate preventive measures against corruption in the course of educating accounting and finance students, and in taking appropriate disciplinary measures against any teacher/lecturer or school/university administrator found to be corrupt, if the continent is to make any headway in producing ethically sound world class accountants and financial experts.