Ethics In Education Essay

Abstract Education has ever been considered as one of the strongest foundations for any civilized society. The success of any Nation is largely attributed the way in which education system is built up. There is growing importance the world over these days to incorporate importance of ethical standards in education. Ethical standards in education contain basic principles, procedures and behavior patterns based on commitment to core values that are deeply rooted in education. An ethical education will pave a way to uplift educational standards which in turn will instill right values among students who will certainly create landmark in their career as well as life. ETHICS IN EDUCATION The Concept Of Ethics The definition of ethics is shaped by personal, societal and professional values, all of which are difficult to specify. Some stress the importance of society’s interests and others stress the interests of the individual. These conflicting viewpoints have dominated the discussion of ethics for a long time and may remain in the future as well. Thus, the term ‘ethics’ will have to be defined in this context. The word ‘ethics’ is derived from the Greek word ‘ethos’ (character) and Latin word ‘moras’ (customs). Taken together these two words define how individuals choose to interact with one another. Thus, ethics is about choices. It signifies how people act in order to make the ‘right’ choice and produce ‘good’ behavior. It encompasses the examination of principles, values and norms, the consideration of available choices to make the right decision and the strength of character to act in accordance with the decision. Hence, ethics, as a practical discipline, demands the acquisition of moral knowledge and the skills to properly apply such knowledge to the problems of daily life. Philosophical Theories of Ethics Decision making based on intuition or personal feeling does not always lead to the right course of action. Therefore, ethical decision making requires a criterion to ensure good judgment. The philosophical theories of ethics provide different and distinct criteria for good, right or moral judgment. Three prominent philosophical theories of ethics are utilitarianism, rights and justice. They are normative theories of ethics, which provide a principle or standard on how a person ought to behave towards others by considering the right and wrong of an action. These normative theories are divided into two broad classifications, consequential and non-consequential. Consequential theories define ‘good’ in terms of its consequences, and a best known example is theory of utilitarianism. In contrast, non-consequential theories define ‘good’ not by its consequences but by its intrinsic value and the best known examples are the rights and justice theories. These theories are described below. (a) The theory of utilitarianism According to this theory, the ethical alternative is the one that maximises good consequences over bad consequences. Jeremy Bentham, who is considered as the father of utilitarian ethics, defines utilitarianism as the greatest happiness principle (the principle of utility), which measures good and bad consequences in terms of happiness and pain. He wrote as follows in his book ‘An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation’: â€Å"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think.† The terms ‘happiness’ and ‘pain’ have broad meaning and encompass all aspects of human welfare, including pleasure and sadness, health and sickness, satisfaction and disappointment, positive and negative emotions, achievement and failure and knowledge and ignorance. Applying the utilitarian principle is a procedural process involving five steps: (1) Define the problem; (2) Identify the stakeholders affected by the problem; (3) List the alternative courses of action for resolving the problem; (4) Identify and calculate the short- and long- term costs and benefits (pain and happiness) for each alternative course of action and (5) Select the course of action that yields greatest sum of benefits over costs for the greatest number of people. Thus, ethical conduct by accountants based on this theory leads to consideration of all possible consequences of a decision for all parties affected by it. This theory takes a pragmatic and common sense approach to ethics. Actions are right to the extent that they benefit people (i.e. actions, which produce more benefit than harm are right and those that do not are wrong). Thus, the cognitive process required for utilitarian decision making appears similar to the cost-benefit analysis that is normally applied in business decisions. However, there are important distinctions between the two concepts in relation to the nature of consequences, the measurability of the consequences and stakeholder analysis. (b) The theory of rights The theory of rights stems from the belief that people have an inherent worth as human beings that must be respected. Therefore, according to this theory, a good decision is one that respects the rights of others. Conversely, a decision is wrong to the extent that it violates another person’s rights. In general, the rights can be divided into two categories: (1) natural rights (rights that exist independently of any legal structure) and (2) Legal rights and contractual rights (rights that are created by social agreement). The natural rights are commonly known as human rights or constitutional rights. Among many natural rights, the right to the truth is important to the function of accounting. The users of financial statements have the right to truthful and accurate financial information when making choices on alternative investment strategies. This right imposes a moral obligation on the accountant and the reporting entity to prepare and issue, true and fair financial statements. On the other hand, legal and contractual rights are important in the accountant-employer and the accountant-client relationships. These contractual relationships mean that employers and clients have a legal right to expect professional and competent service from the accountants. In turn, the accountants have a corresponding legal duty to perform their tasks to the best of their ability within the constraints of their expertise. (c) The theory of justice Understanding this theory requires understanding various notions of justice. Generally, justice is described as fairness, which refers to the correlation between contribution and reward. However, fairness alone cannot define the term justice. There are also other forms of justice, which include equality (assumes that all people have equal worth), procedural justice (concerns with due process) and compensatory justice (addressed the loss from a wrongful act). However, a comprehensive theory incorporating these various domains of justice has yet to be developed. Thus, the focus of this paper is on the theory of justice, which is based on the principle of distributive justice. It focuses on how fairly one’s decisions distribute benefits and burdens among members of the group. Unjust distribution of benefits and burdens is an unjust act and an unjust act is a morally wrong act. Hence, under this theory, an ethical decision is one that produces the fairest overall distribution of b enefits and burdens. Ethics In Education Basically there are three parties involved in ethical education system namely students, teachers and administrators. Teacher, being the most important facet of ethical education, is the torch bearer to the change the whole scenario of education system. He is the one who could exemplify his ethical behavior in front of students. Students most of the time learn their behavior from their teachers. Right approach of teacher to teach the students inside the class room will make ever lasting impact on the minds of students. It goes without saying that the principle of ethical conduct lie at the core of teaching profession. The whole society can be remolded by administering ethical practices. Secondly, the responsibility for promoting ethics in higher education lies with the leadership of colleges and universities. Like most efforts at organizational change, the energy, financing, and inspiration must start at the top and must anticipate and verbalize a long term commitment to ethical goals . â€Å"Bottom-up† schemes for change are seldom successful since they lack the organizational influence to create a sustained, well supported plan of action. Ethics issues permeate every aspect of university life from admissions to the classroom, from hiring to curriculum development and from research to the athletic field. To alter the ethics culture in an institution of higher education (or any organization) requires the highest level of commitment and realistic consequences for deviations. (a) Verbal and written commitment of the university president/chancellor, board of trustees, alumni association, faculty and staff to the implementation of an ethics plan of action; (b) Verbal and written commitment of departments heads overseeing student recruiting and admissions policy to an ethics plan of action for their areas of concern. Some possible action items might include advertising that the student body is governed by a â€Å"honor code†, the violation of which could lead to disenrollment. The hallmark of the admissions policy would focus on the ethical selection of students to include cultural difference, gender and racial equalities, socio-economic factors, as well as, academic excellence. (c) Faculty hiring guidelines that would include a thorough â€Å"vetting† of the applicant’s qualifications and background as well as a written commitment by the applicant to fully support the ethics initiative; (d) Faculty members to commit to and undertake curriculum revisions that would include the ethical aspects of their particular discipline; (e) Students to commit to a dormitory, fraternity/sorority, off-campus life-style code ethics; (f) Faculty members to commit to ethical guidelines for the research into the publication of scholarly materials; (g) Faculty members to commit to a faculty-faculty, faculty-student ethical relationships guideline. Lastly, students are also expected to contribute maximally by behaving honestly to their work, duties and responsibilities. They should never restore to any malpractices during examination or any class work. Conclusion The writer has reviewed just a fraction of the literature available on the subject of ethics in the workplace. The literature for the most part, supports the notion that the ethical behavior is good, that ethical behavior is needed in the workplace, and that progress is possible in raising men and women above their more prurient interests. Based on the writer’s experience and discussions with university leaders, however, the notion of total commitment by all stakeholders as outlined in the sample plan is probably unlikely. Cries of academic freedom, unreasonable restraints and loss of flexibility would be echoed from the â€Å"bell towers† of academia in spite of the intrinsic â€Å"good† intentions of the plan. All this does not augur well for the â€Å"fast track† implementation of ethics at the university level or in the workplace. Instead, progress in changing individuals towards a more ethical vision of their personal and professional life will be a p lodding effort, characterized by small successes and small failures for a long time into the future. 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