EDUCATION AND ETHICS

EDUCATION AND ETHICS

Ethics

Ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues. Ethical standards also include those that enjoin virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty and rights, such as the right to life, the right to freedom from injury, right to education and the right to privacy. Such standards are adequate standards of ethics because they are supported by consistent and well-founded reasons. Ethics has also another dimension which refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards. So it is necessary to constantly examine one's standards to ensure that they are reasonable and well-founded. Ethics also means, then, the continuous effort of studying our own moral beliefs and our moral conduct, and striving to ensure that we live up to standards that are reasonable and solidly-based.

Ethics in Education

 Ethics as a scanner has to scan through the vital areas of human endeavour. Education is one such important area which should be related to Ethics. Education should assist to imbibe ethics.

Ethics in Education could be measured in terms of parameters like Accountability, Transparency and Human values. This applies to the system as a whole as well as to individuals involved in such a system. 

Education

Right type of education could be an important factor in the process of transformation of man. Education should help a person for his total development—physical, intellectual and spiritual. It should help towards disciplined life, self-control, compassionate and humane approach, spontaneous sympathy, regard for all beings and keenness to serve the society. It should enable one not to become self-centered and narrow minded. Education should serve not only to develop one’s intellect and skill but also help to broaden one’s outlook and make him useful to society and the world at large. True education must humanize a person. The educational system must produce young men and women of character and ability, committed to national service and development. This is possible only through reinforcing the present educational system with value orientation.

Erosion of Values

What is happening around us today Violence, hatred, mistrust, growing divisive forces, narrow parochialism, separatist tendencies, considerable fall in moral, social, ethical and national values both in personal and public life. Materialistic outlook is manifest in almost every dimension of man’s life style and day-to-day living. Materialism has become a major force influencing his conduct and behaviour. It is shaping his character and personality and even determining his life’s goal. Human dignity and self-respect founded on good character and integrity are overtaken by arrogance, conceit, hypocrisy and artificial postures. The erosion of character is noticed in social and national life. Personal ethics and moral responsibility towards society have become meaningless where there is dominance of self-interest above everything.

The urgent need for value orientation of education and it should not be merely a matter of brave declarations. The programme needs patience and careful and comprehensive planning. It needs to be built into our educational system, our media institutions, our cultural organisations, in the teachings of science and humanities, in all kinds of

educational, social and political endeavours so that they have cumulative impact on the minds of our children and youth when they are receptive and uncorrupted by cynicism. If we have the necessary determination and firm commitment then ‘we shall overcome’.

Value Orientation of Education

The growing concern over the erosion of essential values and an increasing cynicism in society has brought to focus the need for readjustments in the curriculum in order to

make education a forceful tool for the cultivation of social and moral values. In our culturally plural society, education should foster universal and eternal values, oriented towards the unity and integration of our people. Such value education should help eliminate obscurantism, religious fanaticism, violence, superstition and fatalism.  Apart from this combative role, value education has a profound positive content, based on our heritage, national and universal goals and perceptions. It should lay primary emphasis

on this aspect.

Teacher’s Role

Teacher has the most important role to play in the value development.  Teacher’s personal, professional and social life is the crucial factor in the promotion of values. The most powerful influence of his personality lies in the ‘hidden curriculum’ of his personality and behaviour and the silent message which his students can and do get through his thinking, discipline of mind and refinement of taste

Synthesis of Human Values with Ideals of Education

Over the years, there has also been confusion about the definition of values and the conceptual framework of the programme. Various Committees and Commissions, on the basis of their analysis, suggested a large number of instrumental and sub-values. We have been presented with a hierarchy of values which are too numerous to be understood. It should be difficult for any curriculum planner and material writer either to give any rating or any weightage.

The process of blossoming human excellence calls for excellence in each of the five aspects of human personality, namely intellectual, physical, emotional, psychic and spiritual. The five basic values—truth, righteous conduct, peace, love and non-violence correspond to the above five aspects of human personality. These values are universal and transcend all distinctions of country, religion, caste and creed. They embrace all beings, as their origin lies right within each individual. The five major objectives or ideals of education are knowledge, skill, balance, vision and identity. If one were to read through the reports of various Commissions and Committees on education with discerning eyes and in-depth analysis, a beautiful synthesis of five human values conforming to the five facets of human personality and the five ideals of education could be found..  It is a beautiful merging based on deep analysis and study of human nature and promotion of human values through education resulting in the blossoming of the human personality.

We have also started realizing that moral values, social values, scientific values, aesthetic values, ethical values, democratic values, personal values, religious values, political values, economic values, altruistic values, etc., are only a description of attitudes, behaviour patterns, habits, etc.

Role of Higher Education

If higher education has to contribute effectively towards fulfilling the national objectives, goals and aspirations and the requirements of the people With changing times, we have to create conditions for achieving excellence, quality, relevance, access and equity. While excellence, quality and relevance are more ‘within’, access and equity which have a wider context, are ‘without’ in relation to a university or an institution of higher learning. Quality being an all time objective, relevance relates to requirements of changing times. The changed economic scenario brings-in interaction and self-reliance to theextent possible, as further imperatives. Added to this, the higher education system at present suffers from some weaknesses such as proliferation of sub-standard institutions, failure to maintain academic calendar, out-dated curriculum. As a result quality suffered.

Education should be an instrument for developing not only an economically prosperous society, but one which can live comfortably in the context of pluralism and democracy as also should provide for equity and social justice with respect for gender, caste, clan and creed. If we desire to maintain high ethical values in our public life, in the professions, in business, and foster the development of the most backward and marginalized who form a major proportion of our population, considerable rethinking and specific policy directions, with needed fiscal support, would have to be provided for education and research. Greater political and national will is needed for implementation of the accepted policies in school education and in the areas of science and technology, humanities and social sciences so as to facilitate implementation in the right earnest.

If changes are not brought in an expeditious manner in the country, there will be lot of migration of brainpower to other countries as it is happening already at present. There is a need for changing the priorities in our education system, in the sense we should follow the dictum “Quality education for all is more important than education of all”.

During the last century, the world has undergone a change from agriculture society, where manual labour was the critical factor, to industrial society where the management of technology, capital and labour provided the competitive advantage. Then the information era where connectivity and software products are driving the economy of a few nations. In the 21st century, a new society is emerging where knowledge is the primary production resource instead of capital and labour. The Knowledge Society is powered by innovation capacity. Efficient utilization of this existing knowledge can create comprehensive wealth of the nation and also improve the quality of life—in the form of better health, education, infrastructure and other social indicators. Ability to create and maintain the knowledge infrastructure, develop knowledge workers and enhance their productivity through creation, growth and exploitation of new knowledge will be the key factors in deciding the prosperity of this Knowledge Society. Whether a nation has arrived at a stage of knowledge society is judged by the way the country effectively deals with knowledge creation and knowledge development in all sectors like IT, Industries, Agriculture, and Health Care etc.

Higher education should play an active role in this transformation process of the society in to a knowledge society and manage the change. This could be done also through value added formal as well as distance education systems. There has been considerable effort to apply technology for improving the delivery of distance education system over the years.

The role of higher education is many fold. It fulfills its role towards social responsibility, which is in the nature of shaping the individual into a good citizen and serve as a tool for gainful employment leading to a better life for the individual and the people dependent on him/her. It provides manpower for Industry, science and technology and contributes towards the creation of basic social infrastructure viz., education, health, nutrition, food

and shelter etc., It contributes towards economic infrastructure as well viz., agriculture, energy, water, transport, communication etc. It also contributes for better social and administrative governance.

Accountability

Accountability relates to the assigned responsibilities and tasks and funds received for that purpose. Accountability, when it is applied to higher education, could mean, in a broader sense, to what extent contributions have been made by it in realising the national goals, objectives and aspirations and also in meeting the requirements of the people with changing times. While discussing ‘accountability in higher education’, one has to look at the total higher education system with all its various sub-systems. These

are to be discussed relating their tasks to their accountability.

The higher education institutions have the following responsibilities:-

(i) Providing relevant and competent manpower (ii) Advancement of knowledge (iii) Undertaking relevant research (R & D) (iv) Taking up extension activities.

 A University should stand for humanism, for tolerance, for reason, for progress, for the adventure of ideas and for the search for truth. It should stand for the onward march of the human race towards ever higher objectives. If the universities discharge their duty adequately, then it is well with the nation and the people (Pandit Nehru).

Academic, Administrative and Financial Autonomy

For achieving excellence, a university should have academic, financial and administrative autonomy. Considerable academic autonomy is already available. There should be ample financial and administrative autonomy as well. In the present day system of government funding there is rigidity coupled with inadequacy. The inadequate situation is going to be worse in the context of the resources crunch. Financial autonomy is vital for continuation of the institutions as real centres of excellence. Therefore, the institutions should strive for fund generation and reduce their dependence on government gradually. Establishment of a ‘corpus fund’ will be a right step in this direction.

In the changed environment, the system of higher education should be able to show flexibility and resilience in reorienting itself to meet the challenges thrown out in the form of imperatives. While making these demands on higher education, however, one should keep in view that it is imperative to free the system from unnecessary constraints and political interference, thereby providing the needed academic, administrative and financial freedom. On the part of the system itself, it should be amenable to accountability.