Students in schools and colleges are soon to be imparted lessons on the menace of corruption, its debilitating impact on socio-economic sphere and ways of tackling it.

Central Vigilance Commission is in touch with the HRD Ministry, CBSE, AICTE, Medical Council of India (MCI) and other educational bodies to introduce course content on corruption and ethics to make the students aware of the scourge and its consequences, its chief said on Friday.

"From the Commission's side, we have been in touch with the Ministry of Human Resources Development, the Central Board for Secondary Education and also the AICTE and MCI to introduce simple course content to enable students right from the schools to the colleges to understand what corruption is, what bribery is and what integrity is...," Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) K V Chowdary said.

Chowdary was delivering a lecture at the 13th anniversary of Vigilance Study Circle, a professional body established in Hyderabad to spread awareness on vigilance and to improve the knowledge and skills of vigilance professionals.

The content on ethics could be taught in small portions for students in secondary schools as well as professional colleges, he said.

"...how the personal ethic is different from the ethic expected from you in an office. What could be the consequences if you don't follow the ethical way etc, so that in a small capsule of say, two or three chapters, spread over a class study of two or three years, be it for the secondary schools or for the professional colleges, they could be made aware of the need for anti-corruption and what actually corruption is."

Bribery and corruption are often seen synonymously by many, but corruption has a wider connotation, he stressed.

The Commission would continue its punitive work so that it acts as a deterrent against corruption, Chowdary added.