In my opinion: Memo to Hunt: Higher education must teach ethics [Independent.ie]
- Published: 12 January 2011
The Hunt report on higher education is an important document. However, it has one major weakness.
While it places much emphasis on factors such as knowledge, innovation, technology and skills, it makes no real reference to values, ethical decision making, regulatory frame- works, corporate responsibility...
Our recent economic collapse was more than a technical event -- it was a human event that arose from unwise and in some cases unethical decisions. When there were opportunities for fairness, caution and duty of care, there was carelessness, irresponsibility, and on occasion downright dishonesty.
The report's main weakness is that it allows higher education's almost exclusive focus on such things as knowledge, innovation, technology and skill to remain unchallenged.
At a time when many of the sharp suits in our failed banking and property sectors and in our inadequate regulatory, political and administrative regimes held high-quality degrees we wonder did we do enough for them. In teaching them to become innovative, technologically proficient and competent in the latest knowledge or method, did we short-change them?
UNESCO's director-general said that some of the pilots who perpetrated the 9/11 atrocity were university graduates and argued that "knowledge by itself . . . is not enough -- many terrorists, after all, are educated".
Hunt is a child of its time -- the early end of the Celtic Tiger. And it is inadequate for today's world. For all its good work, it misses a core weakness in higher education -- the lack of a coherent role in preparing graduates for responsible and ethical behaviour in the workplace.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
