Ethics for undergrads’ character build up

by Afreeha Jawad

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Very soon the Kelaniya University will be advantaged with ethics and English as compulsories in its academic curriculum.

Informing the Sunday Observer about its introduction, Vice Chancellor Professor Jayantha Wijeratne said, it was a longfelt need and viewed it as a panacea for much of students’ ills.

At Ladies’ College - this writer’s alma mater, ethics was a subject at primary level. The very precise study of Aesop’s Fables among other morality based texts exposed children to higher values - today’s near extinct commodity where the pearl is overlooked for the shell - quantity over quality as it were.

Against this backdrop, Professor Wijeratne and his team of dedicated staffers are rightly directed into making their campus a role model to the rest.

All this apart, they are also hell - bent on students’ adequate exposure to English to fit into whatever job requirement coming their way once they wind up campus life. It would also be a facilitator into a more broad based approach going beyond the warped mindset that comes off a single language study programme.

Noted as it is for a troubled campus, the university with this Vice-Chancellor is now into a state of relative peace what with a gradual reduction of its volatile state.

Attributing all the chaos to external forces that infiltrate into campus life, Professor Wijeratne said, “it’s only a few that disrupt the peace and even they would be fine if not for political engineering.”

Insisting on campus non-closure even when on the brink of disaster, Professor Wijeratne said,” only when things are really very, very bad much to my disgust that I call the police in who I must say have been extremely co-operative in bringing things under control. After all the law of the land must prevail everywhere and the university is no exception”.

Even at the height of trouble a majority of students were averse to its closure. What was once dialogue, debate and discussion have today transformed into physical assaults and damage to university infrastructure running into millions.

As an innovative way out, Professor Wijeratne claims damages from the miscreants themselves-quite a successful endeavour emulation worthy by his counterparts in other universities as well.

Attributing the lack of behavioural refinement to more than one reason he said, “well, competition is one of the reasons. It has changed in toto the students’ attitudes and behaviour. Greed, envy, jealousy, animosity and other things - all rolled into one has made students more and more aggressive.

Then there is also politicisation of students’ unions. This apparently pressurises students into becoming virtual pawns in the hands of external elements, particularly the political parties. There is also intolerance of dissent. The ability to discuss in peaceful means has been replaced by physical brawls. Adhering to laws and rules is a thing of the past.

Professor Wijeratne firmly believes that the tax payers have a right over students’ conformity to university rules because it is they who fund their education.

These monies could even be used to increase farmer subsidies and other developmental programmes. Therefore students must acknowledge this fact and not resort to vandalism. They have a mission to fulfil.

“They must learn and leave these premises as educated, peace loving citizens.”

Yet, what is it that stands in the way of these objectives? The atrocious behaviour of some legislators themselves among other reasons hurdles students’ behavioural growth.

If in a highly sanctified place such as the country’s legislature where laws are made, some of the law makers themselves go berserk, very little or nothing at all can be expected from youth.

The absence of positive role models is therefore a great loss to our youth. Additionally, what the media doles out also lacks substance and no longer exemplary.

Against this backdrop, the youth that come off universities - when they enter their different vocations - they in turn become very violent.