Educating ethical citizens is a priority for universities

“Africa needs a new type of citizen, a dedicated, modest, honest and informed man [citizen]. A man [citizen] who submerges himself in service to the nation and mankind [humankind]. A man [person] who abhors greed and detests vanity. A new type of citizen whose humility is his [or her] strength and whose integrity is greatness.” – Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana.

The fast growth of the number of higher education institutions and enrolment in Africa has two major implications. First and foremost, it suggests that more young Africans are now enrolling in and accessing higher education than before.

These young people are the future African politicians, managers, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, scientists, researchers, journalists, innovators, commercial farmers, accountants and technologists. What kind of citizens do we envisage them to be? What kind of values do we expect them to possess and practise as citizens?

Second, increased enrolment in higher education suggests that Africa’s universities and other higher institutions are strategically important places for initiating transformative changes in the continent through the creation of a new breed of citizenry.

Expanding the mission of higher education

Every African higher education institution, regardless of its size, field of focus or location, claims development education as its primary purpose. This relates to producing human resources that it believes will help in addressing African development challenges.

Nonetheless, mere knowledge and skills development is grossly insufficient for the kind of citizenry needed in Africa in the present epoch.

In fact, Africa needs ethical citizenry committed to progressive leadership and excellent public services oriented toward transforming the African continent into communities that value peace, democracy, personal integrity, environmental responsibility and social justice.

The former president of Ghana, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, envisaged ethical citizenry as being crucial to the economic, political and social development of Africa.

Ethical citizenry eschews the exploitation of our fellow citizens, opposes tribalism in all its manifestations, detests corruption, tenaciously upholds social justice, uses power responsibly and is committed to achieving the highest level of professional and personal integrity.

The former president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, also spoke of the need for ethical education when he said: “The education provided must, therefore, encourage the development in each citizen of three things: an inquiring mind; an ability to learn from what others do, and reject or adapt it to his own needs; and a basic confidence in his own position as a free and equal member of the society, who values others and is valued by them for what he does and not for what he obtains.”

Ethical citizenry is distinguished from political or civic citizenry. The latter focuses on mastering the tenets of human rights, techniques of civic participation, democracy, voting rights and political engagement involving discussion, debate and negotiation.

Thus, while political citizenry deals with issues of politics, ethical citizenry concentrates on moral rectitude and values such as a good work ethic, peace, tranquillity, reconciliation, social justice, honest stewardship of community or state resources, deference for state laws and community rules and regulations and compassion and respect for fellow human beings.

So while political citizenry and ethical citizenry share some commonalities, such as active citizenry, they are, in practice, oriented differently.

It is an acceptable notion in Africa that pre-university education should have a strong ethical component. This is based on the belief that ‘morally disciplined youth’ are crucial to social stability, a law-abiding society, economic development and growth.

But what about young people who are matriculated in higher education? Don’t they equally need moulding when it comes to their character or disposition for a citizenry committed to the transformation of African society? African higher education institutions, particularly universities, are well positioned to contribute to creating ethical citizenry in Africa.

My longitudinal observation is that the roots of most African development challenges can be traced to or have some bearing on ethics. By ethics, I mean principles and practices of conduct and behaviour, fairness, justice and respect for fellow human beings.

The present state of citizenry

Public services in a number of African countries are poor and of substandard quality because those carrying them out often lack diligence and commitment to what they do.

People often have to pay bribes to get access to public services to which they are duly entitled. Public services are given to the highest bidder, leaving the poor and vulnerable segments of the population without any access to services.

For example, poor people have accused the Nigeria Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of murder, extortion, torture, rape of their family members, friends, neighbours and relatives – the opposite of what the SARS was established to do, ie deal with crimes related to robbery, car theft, kidnapping and firearms.

In addition, there are numerous alleged instances when an African nation state has awarded a road construction contract to the same contractor without that contract being fulfilled. There are equally situations where no work has started on school construction contracts for years without the contractor being held to account. The beneficiaries keep silent because they do not see anything wrong with the behaviour of the contractor.

Further, it is impossible to develop a nation’s economy when inventors and entrepreneurs who need the nation state to protect their inventions are distrustful of public servants or government officials. Moreover, the nefarious practice of public servants fraudulently altering land title documents is so prevalent that a piece of land can be sold several times.

Additionally, women have been invariably the object of their husbands’ brutality, with men being let off after paying bribes. This creates a sense of impunity when it comes to domestic violence.

Furthermore, another important issue is the kind of mob justice prevalent in West Africa, of which women are often the victims – falsely accused, beaten up, stripped naked and sometimes murdered in cold blood by the mob while a crowd that watches shamelessly cheers the mob on.

The question is: how do African higher education institutions create ethical citizenry?

In terms of policy instruments, both Nyerere of Tanzania and Nkrumah of Ghana used their oratory powers in spoken or written communication to try to persuade or influence a segment of the population to behave in a particular way.

But this is a grossly inadequate way of creating ethical citizenry. As a result, Nkrumah turned to systemic change, establishing two institutions to promote ethical citizenry and nationalism: the Ghana Young Pioneers and the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute.

Awareness raising

African higher education institutions should be committed to assisting their students to acquire skills and knowledge and inculcate in them the principles, norms and practices of ethical decision-making, raising awareness of the need to serve society and the people and condemn injustice whatever form it takes. One way of achieving this is through the design and teaching of a conscientisation course.

A conscientisation course aims principally to change students’ behaviour, character and attitudes towards their fellow citizens to encourage them to become ethical citizens who are honest and dedicated to selfless service to their communities and nation-states.

Such citizens value personal integrity, humility, negotiation, compassion, peace and reconciliation. There are also additional benefits of a conscientisation course, including leadership and career preparation.

Accordingly, in the conscientisation course, students will learn ethical theories that consist of a combination of applied African, American and European philosophies, such as consequentialism, deontology, justice, personhood and ubuntu.

Personhood is an African philosophical thought that posits that a person attains the status of personhood through moral development and discharge of moral obligations. Ubuntu is also an African ethical philosophy that emphasises togetherness or communalism and how action or inaction impact others and society as a whole.

The conscientisation course should provide students with frameworks for reasoning and making sense of their thoughts and actions to determine which actions are right or wrong.

Finally, the conscientisation course could employ active learning as one of its pedagogical tools. Students would be engaged in the learning process via thinking, discussing, investigating, individual and group presentation, reading and writing.

In such active learning classrooms, students would be asked to practise skills; apply knowledge to solve problems, struggle with the complexity of existential questions, propose solutions or recommendations and explain ideas by analysis and synthesis, writing, speaking and discussion.

More than 30 years of empirical research and scholarship have demonstrated that active learning approaches to learning in higher education assist students to learn more effectively than transmission approaches in which the lecturers or professors lecture by ‘telling’ while the students merely copy notes or listen.

A conscientisation course may either be integrated seamlessly into core higher education curriculum programmes or stand-alone courses as part of graduation requirements.

Developing students’ ethical skills

The central purpose of a conscientisation course is to assist students to assess and develop ethical decision-making skills.

Ethics is not the exclusive purview of any religion, though some religions have enshrined ethical principles in their core belief system. Thus, ethics is for everyone, including those of Christian, Islamic, Buddhist or no faith.

In addition, law and ethics may be synonymous in some instances, but they are not necessarily the same thing. Therefore, being ethical may go beyond the tenets of the laws of a community or society.

Nevertheless, a conscientisation course may be viewed suspiciously as a way of indoctrinating young people.

For this reason, it is vital to stress the point that every education system is inherently ideological. Thus, advocating a conscientisation course in higher education as an intervention for creating ethical citizenry is no more ideological than any other courses in African universities.

It must be stressed that a conscientisation course is not the silver bullet for creating ethical citizenry in Africa. It is advocated in consonance with Nelson Mandela’s saying that: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.

As with any social problem, multifaceted approaches are needed. The required laws should be passed to deal with corruption and crime and stiff punishments enforced to serve as a deterrent for potential violators.

In addition, people who have exhibited exceptional ethical behaviour or who model ethical leadership in serving their communities should be identified and recognised by the nation- state. Such symbolic rewards are needed to motivate young people to strive for ethical citizenship.

Dr Eric Fredua-Kwarteng is an educator and policy analyst in Canada.