Question:
Discuss about the ethical issues faced by the Education Sector in India.
Ethics can be defined as the practice that does not harm others. Being ethical means performing the activities that are valuable and do not harm the other peoples morale. Ethics is one of the major concerns for all. Unethical practices are found to exist in almost all fields or sectors today. This study is about various factors that give birth to the unethical practices at the education sector. The Indian education sector is considered in the study because in recent times, there are many unethical activities have been observed in the same. Studying this area helps in understanding the basic concept of ethics in business. The major objectives of this study are:
Education sector is also facing many ethical issues in India. This is because of commercialization and corruption in the industry.
Ethical issues faced by the sector:
Privatization: Privatization is not at all a bad thing for India. However, privatization in the education system in India is affecting the system and the students in negative manner. As the government of India has allowed the private sector to start up their own financing education institutions, education in India is becoming a market commodity (Kingdon, 2007). The first unethical behaviour of these institutions can be seen in the amount of fees they charges from the students. They use luxurious infrastructure to attract the students after which these institutions exploit them unethically. Another ethical issue that has been found in such institutions is appointing teachers at low salary scale (Rossouw, Van Vuuren, Ghani, and Adam, 2010). These teachers are not even qualified to be on that post. These practices may ruin the future of the students as they are not getting the correct education and knowledge. As these institutions runs on private basis so they also arrange the examination papers for the students and provide them higher grades without providing them knowledge (Kumar and Dash, 2011). This is the most unethical practice done by these institutions.
Lack of value education: In ancient times, the education in India has different means. The ‘Gurus’ at that time focuses on providing Indian culture values to the students. Now the time has changed and so as the pattern of the education. Today’s curriculum of the Indian education system only provides knowledge to the students that makes them money makers and keeps them away from their cultural values.
Corruption: Increase in corruption in the education system has deprived the level of ethical practices in the same. Corruption in education system is about the use of public offices to have private benefits. Today, the education in India has become a field of commercial matters. Corruption has occurred at every point of education sector such as administration; school infrastructure, textbook distribution, admitting only the creamy layers, admission by donations etc. are some of the practices (Arnove, Torres and Franz, 2012).
Sustainability focus of the sector:
Education sector of India is focusing on various aspects of sustainability these days. It has been analysed that sustainability in India is related to the environmental concerns. Every business in India has to focus on maintain the environment sustainability by reducing the activities that can harm the environment. Education can play their part in the same by implementing some of the courses related to environment safety and measures. Educating the students for the same helps in providing them knowledge about the importance of the keeping the environment safe in the country.
Major stakeholders in the sector:
Stakeholders of any sector are the people who are directly or indirectly associated with that particular sector (Agarwal, 2007). Although, the major focus of the education sector is students who are studying in the educational intitutions but there are some other stakeholders who are also involved in making the educational institution to run properly (Peters, 2015). The internal stakeholders of the education sector in India are students, faculties, administration and the support group that supports the functioning of the institutions. As far as the external stakeholders of the sector are considered, some of them are government and local bodies, the alumni, communities, local businesses etc.
Factors that drives the sector to manage the business ethics:
There are many factors that drive the education sector in India to manage its business ethics. It has been analysed that the biggest factor that drives the management of business ethics is related to the corruption that is spreading in the sector and also related to the exploitation of the students by providing them the knowledge that does not relates to their culture. It has been analysed that because of the commercialization of the education in India, the students are facing so much issues as they do not get the quality education from the institutions have to pay a lot for getting admissions in such big institutions (Prakash, 2007). The culture of giving donation restricts the people get the high quality education as they need to pay a large amount of money for that. students believes that educational institutions are the place to worship as they get education and knowledge but the deterioration of the ethical practices in the education system has changes the face of the whole system for the students (Reyhner and Eder, 2015). They look for their idols in the schools and colleges but these unethical practices in the education system reduce the respect that the students have for their institutions. In some of the states in India, the exams have transformed to Shiksha Mafia, the students are coming up with new ideas to cheat in their exams and their teachers help them in the same. This restricts the actual meaning of education to the students and also provides them wrong lessons (Umashankar and Dutta, 2007). After the independence of the county, many policies have been framed by the government to improve the education system of the country but these policies have not shown any satisfactory effect on the education system improvement. This is because the policies that have been made concentrated more on the dimensions of subjects but has given no weightage to the ethical and moral values.
Managing business ethics:
The government of the country has taken many initiatives in order to improve the education system and managing the business ethics in the education sector of India. In the recent years, it has been discussed that there is a need for teachers training so that they can provide correct education to the students (Ainscow and Sandill, 2010). There are policies formed by the government in order to make the standard qualification compulsory for the teachers to be appointed at the educational institutions. The government of India is also putting efforts by opening more and more semi-governmental institutions that operates by the private institutions but are governed by the government of India or the state government such as Rajasthan technical university, Mumbai university etc. As far as the curriculum of the courses in India is concerned, it has been analysed that the value education is very important for the students in India and thus the curriculum should be change according to the cultural values of India (Agarwal, 2009). The teachers should also take the initiative to improve their teaching patterns and should be loyal to their duties so that they can play their part in the education system of India. Being ethical also delegates the responsibility to the people to perform their duties. This is also important for the parents to give ethical knowledge and values to their children. The collective efforts of all the stakeholders of education sector are important for developing the system and for managing the business ethics in the system (Miles and Singal, 2010). It has been identified from the pattern of education that it is required to provide the practical knowledge to the Indian students rather than forcing them to score good marks in the theoretical subjects. This pressure that is created on the minds of the students also results in wrong practices by the students and sometimes it leads to depression that affects the health of the students.
Conclusion:
This study concludes that ethics is the very important part of any business in order to maintain the values of the business. Education sector is also one of the sectors that are facing many issues in terms of ethics in India. Some of the issues are related to corruption, the curriculum, lack of values and culture of India etc. there are various stakeholders of the education sector who have to take initiatives to management the business ethics. Some of the stakeholders are students, teachers, administration etc. these issues can be managed by initiatives such changing the curriculum, including the values and training the teachers.
References:
Kingdon, G.G., 2007. The progress of school education in India. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 23(2), pp.168-195.
Kumar, S. and Dash, M.K., 2011. Management education in India: trends, issues and implications. Research Journal of International Studies, 18(1), pp.16-26.
Peters, R.S., 2015. Ethics and Education (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.
Arnove, R.F., Torres, C.A. and Franz, S. eds., 2012. Comparative education: The dialectic of the global and the local. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Agarwal, P., 2007. Higher education in India: Growth, concerns and change agenda. Higher Education Quarterly, 61(2), pp.197-207.
Prakash, V., 2007. Trends in growth and financing of higher education in India. Economic and Political Weekly, pp.3249-3258.
Reyhner, J. and Eder, J., 2015. American Indian education: A history. University of Oklahoma Press.
Umashankar, V. and Dutta, K., 2007. Balanced scorecards in managing higher education institutions: an Indian perspective. International Journal of Educational Management, 21(1), pp.54-67.
Ainscow, M. and Sandill, A., 2010. Developing inclusive education systems: the role of organisational cultures and leadership. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 14(4), pp.401-416.
Agarwal, P., 2009. Indian higher education: Envisioning the future. Sage Publications India.
Miles, S. and Singal, N., 2010. The Education for All and inclusive education debate: conflict, contradiction or opportunity?. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 14(1), pp.1-15.
Rossouw, D., Van Vuuren, L., Ghani, A.H.A. and Adam, M.Z.A., 2010. Business ethics. Oxford University Press Southern Africa.
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