Sly students

Too many students are graduating from tertiary level institutions with questionable ethical values, according to top officials from Barbados’ premiere learning institutions.

In fact, officials have warned that some young graduates have been showing a troubling propensity to employ fraudulent practices in their pursuit of academic success.

While addressing a workshop for tertiary education providers at the UWI Cave Hill Campus, Executive Director of the Barbados Accreditation Council Valda Alleyne indicated the speed of change and ease of communication in a technologically-driven world have been accompanied by declining ethical standards.

In fact, Alleyne complained that integrity in the professional world is being sacrificed for expediency, speed and greed.

“Trust and honesty are under threat in a world where more and more the ‘art of telling lies’ was gaining ground and not just little white lies, but bold-faced, public, president-sized untruths,” she complained.

“This miasma is spreading like a virus. The disease manifests itself in fake news, alternate facts, foreign intrusions, forged documents, false credentials, bogus certificates, diplomas, university degrees and a host of counterfeit products.”

During the accreditation council’s one-day workshop, tertiary level educators were provided with much needed tools to guide the country on a path toward the sustainable 2030 agenda.

Included were representatives from the UWI Cave Hill Campus, UWI’s Open Campus, Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology, Erdiston Teachers’ Training College, the Barbados Vocational Training Board and Barbados Community College.

In addition to the concerns expressed by the Executive Director, Chairman of the Barbados Accreditation Council Anne Hewitt said educators had an urgent obligation to guide the ethical standards of their students.

“I think that we are trying to live up to [academic] expectations but I also think that we have gotten so caught up in examinations and marks and quantitative measures that somehow or the other we might not have paid enough attention to the qualitative measures,” she said.

“The evidence of this is seen in the rising level of violence in school, out of school and in the streets. That is a signal that something needs tweaking, improving and making right. For me, what we need to do is go back to the drawing board and recognise that the goal of education should be human excellence.”

Pointing out that humans are three-dimensional and required education of their minds, hearts and hands, Hewitt suggested that moral education be incorporated into formal academia.

“If you have a technological giant who is morally weak, you have created the devil. You don’t want that. We want to make sure that as we are intellectually very sharp, we are also spiritually very well grounded.

“It is not just about making a good living, but leading a good life with goodness, compassion, kindness and responsibility for others. We the teachers, lecturers and instructors must demonstrate what we want to see in the world we live in,” she said. kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb