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Thurs. 29th March, 2007	Search this site

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Vision: The Obalade legacy - By Lanre Oyetade

PTDF scandal and the rest of us - By Sina Oladeinde

Yayale Ahmed’s ‘palpable integrity’ - By Nosa Osaigbovo

OBJ, Atiku and the Code of Conduct Tribunal- By Dolapo Okunniga

FOR THE RECORDS- By Debo Abdulai

As it was ... Eight years ago - By Tunde Fagbenle

Possibilities Unlimited IV - By Smith Bam

UNICEF hosts partners on education and national reconstruction Federal and state government officials and students drawn from South-south Nigeria at the President’s inter-SUBEB primary school debate held at Port Harcourt recently. Representatives from major bilateral foundations, civil society groups and other education partners will soon meet in New York to discuss the role of education in national reconstruction efforts in Liberia. Hosted by UNICEF on behalf of the Government of Liberia, the one-day meeting comes on the heels of the Liberia Partners’ Forum, a high-level donors” conference held in Washington DC, between February 13 and 15. The New York event seeks to highlight the transformative role that education can have in addressing the challenges of national reconstruction and development in Liberia and to secure the engagement and support of a wide range of education partners. Years of civil conflict have inflicted extensive damage on Liberia’s population and its infrastructure. Education, especially for girls, has taken a particularly heavy toll. It is estimated that nearly half a million children, or approximately half the student population, have had significant interruption in their education and are too old for their school grade. Net primary school enrollment currently stands at 74 per cent for boys and 58 per cent for girls. At the secondary school level, these rates drop to 22 per cent and 12 per cent, respectively. “It is essential to address the needs of the adolescents and young people who missed out on education during the more than 14-year-long civil war,” said Cream Wright, Global Chief of Education at UNICEF. “We need to reclaim the potentials of these children because they are the greatest hope for Liberia’s development. Ensuring that Liberia’s children get an education is essential not only for their own well-being but for their country recovery.” UNICEF has been present in Liberia throughout the conflict. As part of its general mandate to ensure schooling for children, including in times of armed conflict or natural disasters, UNICEF has worked closely with the government and other partners to help students in Liberia by setting up special educational programmes for children formerly associated with the fighting forces, supporting girls’ education, organising training for teachers, especially female educators, and distributing school supplies to hundreds of thousands of students. The children’s organisation will be playing an even more enhanced role inthe post-conflict reconstruction phase, in particular following a major grant from the government of the Netherlands in December 2006 to fund education pro-grammes post-crisis countries. “Liberia is an example of the challenges that face countries and the community in general in a post-conflict situation,” said Rozanne Chorlton, UNICEF Representative in Liberia. “We need to support the development of schools that will allow the government and its partners to provide a variety of essential services to all children in Liberia. We also need to use education as a rallying point for all groups and ensure that the tensions that fuelled so many years of conflict do not resurface.” Background: The Liberia Partners’ Forum is co-hosted by the World Bank, the United Nations, the African Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, US Government and the European Commission and aims to review progress made by the Liberian Government on the reform agenda and to discuss financing needs to enable the country to meet reconstruction and development challenges. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is leading a delegation of ministers to this event. US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz are among the key participants. UNICEF will co-chair the education session at the two-day Forum. The Liberian Ministry of Education used the opportunity of the Forum to request that UNICEF convene a meeting of major partners on education and national reconstruction in Liberia. Christine JAULMES Chief, Communication Media & External Relations, UNICEF Nigeria Country Office

Is university too late to teach morals? Name: Ann Dominic School: University of Ilorin GSM No: 08034908181 ADDRESSING a group of students at the University of Georgia, a professor spoke of the importance of an ethical climate campuses. He called for a campus-wide expansion of an already successful ethics programme. A few days later, there appeared a letter to the editor on the university bulletin written by a student asserting that students’ ethics are already pretty well determined by the time they reach higher institution. This raises a vital question, one that has been asked many times before: “Can ethics be taught?” Today, after a year-long numbing experience of watching one business executive after another fall victim to corruption and fraud, everyone seems to be calling on colleges and universities to do something about the ethics of organisations and leaders. As a business ethics educator, I have been asked often if ethics can be taught. My short answer is “Yes, of course. I’ve been doing it for over 20 years.” In reflecting further on this question, however, perhaps a bit more has to be said. This is not a new issue. In my field of business ethics, it is an on-going question and we address it frequently at professional meetings. Today, we spend more time on the “what?” and “how?” questions rather than the “whether?” question. History tells us that over 2,000 years ago, the philosopher, Socrates debated this issue with his fellow Athenians. Socrates, believed that ethics consists of “knowing what we ought to do,” and that this knowledge can be taught. Maybe the appropriate question is not whether ethics can be taught, but whether ethics can be learned. In considering my own personal experiences and the experiences of many others I know and have observed, it is clear that ethics can be learned. As an experiment, think about what you believed was right and acceptable back to when you were a teenager and then think about how you believe today. Case closed. I doubt if there is any of us who believes we have not grown ethically over these ensuing years. Many psychologists today would agree with Socrates and with those of us who think ethics can be taught and learned. To be sure, all that is learned about ethics is not learned in the university classroom. But that is true of virtually all subjects we teach on campus. In the field of moral development, psychologist James Rest has asserted that dramatic changes occur in young adults in terms of the basic problem-solving strategies they use to deal with ethical issues. These changes are linked to basic changes in how a young person perceives society and his or her role in it. Further, the extent to which change occurs is associated with the number of years of formal education, along with other factors. And deliberate attempts to formally educate students in awareness of moral problems and to influence the ethical reasoning process have been successful. The research of the late Harvard psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg is often cited by Rest as support for the view that moral development does take place within all of us. Contrary to the belief of the student who wrote the letter to the editor, a person’s ability to deal with moral issues is not developed all at once or exhausted by college age. Rather, moral development does take place within most of us, and formal education is one of the most important factors. Discussion continues as to the best way to teach ethics. Should it be done in a specialised course? Should it be infused into many relevant courses? I believe both should be done. Over the years I have monitored “what” students say they learn from my business ethics course. The top responses are “to be more aware of the ethical aspects of a decision situation,” “ethical concepts that will be helpful to me,” and “that there are a number of ethical principles that can help me make better decisions.” I strongly support elevating the teaching of ethics on campus, and I invite others to think about how this might be done in their programmes. Courtesy: Journal of College and Character www.collegevalues.org
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