Ethics And Education

Today I am writing something on Ethics and Education (as we have been given an assignment in our Technical Comm. class :P). Here are some of my views:

Ethics are concerned with what is right or wrong, good or bad,responsible or irresponsible, obligatory or permissible, praiseworthy or blameworthy. It is associated with guilt, shame, indignation,empathy and compassion.
Ethics are norms for conduct that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
Ethics are about making choices that may not always feel good or seem like they benefit you but are the "right" choices to make. Ethics is something one has to feel for himself.

Ethics are the premise on which the whole social and corporate structure is functioning. The absence of ethics in our daily life can seriously hamper the progress of any nation. But what is being observed lately is that the ethical practices are blithely floundering. Here comes the need to incorporate the ethical education into our education system.
School education is something that we remember throughout our life. Thus if the seed of good ethics has to be sown we should catch the students young.
It is much easier to influence the DNA of a child in the right direction when he just starts to develop his thoughts.

It is very important to include ethical education as a compulsory part of the primary education. It should be given a high priority. Students will grasp the importance of ethics only when educators take it on an even plane with science and mathematics. If some fixed guidelines are not provided the students will end up making their own set of ethical codes.

Ethical guidelines will help students figure out for themselves what actions they should take when faced with ethical issues. Leaving it to the individual judgment is highly risky. Such an individual is more vulnerable to get misguided at any point of time.
Ethics education should incorporate not just teaching the code of professional or social conduct, but rather a process whereby individuals become more consciously involved in making ethical decisions.
One of the main goals of ethics education should be to encourage students to recognize social responsibilities within their profession and as citizens. Ethical education should be implemented to consistently reinforce the desired behaviors and to skillfully reduce the undesired ones.

Recent corporate accounting scandals have brought ethics back into the limelight. The sight of CEOs and CFOs parading into courtrooms has raised public awareness and concern about ethical behavior in management and accounting.
If India has to maintain its reputation of an ethical nation and lest another Satyam strikes hard at our roots we should implement a revolutionary ethical education system without wasting any more time!