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Mahesh

09/01/24 06:45 AM IST

Push for ethics in Higher education

In News
  • Mulya Pravah 2.0, a modified version of Mulya Pravah, which was notified in 2019 by UGC .
  • It seeks to inculcate human values and professional ethics in higher education institutions.
Unethical practices
  • The most prominent of these are “favouritism in hiring, training, pay and promotion; sexual harassment; gender discrimination in promotion; inconsistent view on discipline; lack of confidentiality;
  • Gender differentiation in compensation; non-performance factors overlooked in appraisals; arrangements with vendors for personal gain; and gender discrimination during recruitment and hiring”.
Emphasis on transparency
  • Mulya Pravah 2.0 underscores the need for utmost transparency in administration and highlights that decision-making in higher education institutions must be solely guided by institutional and public interest, and not be vitiated by biases.
  • It seeks to abolish the discriminatory privileges of officials and urges the administration to punish the corrupt. It lays stress on the criticality of ‘encouraging persons at all levels to think and give their advice freely.
  • The guideline expects higher education institutions to ‘ensure integrity, trusteeship, harmony, accountability, inclusiveness, commitment, respectfulness, belongingness, sustainability, constitutional values and global citizenship’. This is a laudable and timely intervention, as these values are receding.
  • The authorities in and officers of universities must ensure that the provisions of their acts, statutes, ordinances and regulations are strictly adhered to in letter and spirit.
  • The guideline requires higher education administration to conduct matters ensuring accountability, transparency, fairness, honesty, and the highest degree of ethics.
  • It reminds them to act in the best interest of their institution, create a conducive culture and work environment for teaching, learning, and research and develop the potential of their institution.
  • It further asserts that officers and staff must ‘refrain from misappropriating financial and other resources, and refuse to accept gift, favour, service, or other items from any person, group, private business, or public agency which may affect the impartial performance of duties’.
Issue of confidentiality
  • The emphasis on the need for and the importance of maintaining the confidentiality of information is bemusing as it runs counter to the right of information as an instrument to ensure accountability.
  • Higher education institutions must, in fact, be mandated to voluntarily disclose all critical information and subject themselves to public scrutiny.
  • The committees must put up their annual reports and audited accounts in the public domain. This will deter malpractices and go a long way in restoring public confidence in the workings of the institutions.
  • Asserting that teaching is a noble profession, and that teachers play a crucial role in ‘shaping the character, personality, and career of the students’, it requires them to ‘act’ as role models and set examples of ‘good conduct, and a good standard of dress, speech and behaviour, worth emulating by students’.
  • It asks them to abide by the provisions of the acts, statutes, ordinances, rules, policies, and procedures of their universities but maintain silence on the issue of teachers’ associations.
Unions and support
  • Mulya Pravah 2.0 expects staff and student unions to ‘support the administration in development activities and raise issues in a dignified manner’, although this sounds like suggesting that they act and be the team B of the administration and desist from raising issues concerning their members.
  • Associations and unions of stakeholders are pressure groups to exert collective influence to protect the rights and interests of their members.
  • Higher education institutions are communities of scholars where no one should be more equal than the other. Each stakeholder must be allowed to proactively participate in protecting, preserving and promoting the culture and standards of their institutions.
  • The idea of collegiality must require the administration to engage with and consult stakeholders in decision-making.
  • Mulya Pravah 2.0 insists that staff and students unions must ‘raise issues in a dignified manner’.
  • As the guideline does not define or delineate what ‘dignified manner’ entails, the provision could be misused to threaten, shun, silence or at least undermine the collective voices of the stakeholders.
Source- The Hindu

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