A Paper

On

“Ethics In Education”

Submitted
For
RD
3 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
ON
“Business Ethics Governance, And Sustainable Enterprises”

Organized
By

GUJARAT TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Submitted
By

Dr. Viral Shilu

Director
Shree Swaminarayan Institute Of Management
Chhaya-Porbandar
E-mail: prof.viralshilu@gmail.com
Cell: +91 9824286825
ETHICS IN EDUCATION

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‟:

"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 benefits 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. “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 “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 “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 “bell towers” of academia in spite of the intrinsic
“good” intentions of the plan. All this does not augur well for the “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 plodding effort,
characterized by small successes and small failures for a long time into the future.
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