Indore : Highlighting unethical practices in higher education, former director of Indian Institute of Management Indore Prof N Ravichandran here on Monday said that some institutes were even selling degrees in the country.
“It’s disappointing but it is a bitter truth. We have accepted plagiarism in research and we talk about ethics in education,” he said while addressing a symposium on “Moral practices and ethical issues in industrial organisation and academic institutions” at Shri Shri Govindram Seksaria Institute of Technology and Science (SGSITS).
This symposium was part of a series of symposia are being organised by the State Government to prepare a blueprint for inculcating moral values and ethics in the courses of higher learning. One such symposium on ‘Human values in health services’ was organised at MGM Medical College on March 1.
The symposium held at SGSITS was attended by principals of different engineering colleges. Chief Guest of the programme was Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya (DAVV) Vice Chancellor Prof DP Singh while Principal Secretary (technical education) Sanjay Singh was special guest. Commissioner (technical education) Ashish Dongre was also present in the symposium while the key-note speaker was Ravichandran.
Stating that what’s right and what’s wrong is subjective and vary people to people and time to time, a faculty with IIM Ahmedabad, Ravichandran said: “Moral values and ethics take a backseat as in our greed we try to achieve more than we require. We have moved away from natural way of living, thanks to education, societal values and civilized society. The civilized society is artificial so being natural is easy but very difficult to practice.”
He said that moral values and ethics can have space only when children of today are taught to on those lines. “When a boy or a girl will disregard ill-gotten wealth raised by his/her parents then only the ethics and moral values will find place in the society,” he added.
Teachers need to become role models
DAVV Vice Chancellor DP Singh said that moral values and ethics won’t flow into the minds of students only by their inclusion in the curriculum. “The teacher needs to become a role model for practicing ethics and moral values then only the change is expected.” He also said that moral values, spirituality and education together can act as a tool to activate wisdom.
Moral values should be enhanced in institutes
Principal Secretary (Technical Education) Sanjay Singh said that moral values are eternal and people’s acts are based on ‘Dharma’. He stated that inculcating moral practices and ethics in curriculum to some extent but their demonstrations will have more impact. “A child learns his first lesson of values at home and then goes to the institute where his trust in the lesson learnt should be enhanced so that when he walks out to work he should be a treasure on his own.”
We are collecting ideas through symposium
Commissioner (Technical Education) Ashish Dongre said that the government is collecting ideas from academicians by organising a series of symposia on moral values and ethics in education. “The deliberations so collected will be collaborated and a blueprint for inculcating moral values and ethics into the curriculum. The idea of this has come straight out of the brain of the Chief Minister.”
Need to think out of the box
SGSITS Director SS Bhadauria said that the academicians need to think out of the box on the subject of moral values and ethics. “I hope that the deliberation of this symposium will help the government in its purpose.”
Urgent need to teach values
Prof PK Sen said that national-level scams like 2G, 3G and Coalgate and the local case of drug trial indicate that there is urgent need to teach moral values to students so that they can become responsible professionals.
