12 - 18 April 2001
Issue No.529
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 12 - 18 April 2001 Issue No.529 |
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Moral tribulations
The educational authorities have decided to introduce a new discipline to the curriculum as of the coming academic year. To be called Morals, this subject will instruct school children in ethical behaviour, politeness and good conduct. Officials have already started assigning authors and producing books in preparation for making Morals a compulsory stop on every child's educational path. Many questions, though, remain unanswered: what will be the nature of assessment? Will it be possible, say, to fail Morals? If it turns out that students must take an exam in Morals that affects their total grade, will that subject too turn into a fertile ground for the thriving industry of private tuition and hence for cheating at exams? How might the teachers of Morals be selected? Where, indeed, might such teachers be found?
This curious innovation, it is said, is due to concerns about the decline in morality among young people, as evidenced in widespread bullying, cheating, complete disregard for laws and regulations and the beating up of teachers. To remedy this malaise, it was decided that formal education should include the rules of proper behaviour, competitions should be conducted and awards handed out to the most outstanding pupils. It was thought, further, that the religious dimension must be incorporated. The problem with this kind of superficial idea is the assumption that it is enough to teach a subject called Morals at school for morality to improve, and for wayward and irresponsible behaviour to vanish. In the same way, some had thought that it would be sufficient to teach the principles of democracy, patriotism, freedom and tolerance for democracy to spread, extremism to disappear and feelings of belonging and loyalty to prevail.
All these are naive, empty gestures; nobody will benefit from them except some employees at the Education Ministry. This is because morals can only be learned in practice; and it is well to realise that respect for law and order or for another's right to practice the freedom of expression will never be a function of school lessons, which students forget as soon as the exams are over. A single instance of cheating overlooked, indeed any evidence of wayward behaviour on the part of teachers or parents (e.g. the recent case of bias towards certain students in medical school exams) is sufficient to bring down the perfect moral edifice young men and women might be building up, confusing them so much that values and principles no longer hold any meaning.
It is the teachers' respect for law and order that comprises the most essential preamble to any chapter on ethics or deportment. Respecting other people's possessions, understanding the limits beyond which individual freedoms infringe on the freedom of others: these are the principles from which young people learn their morals. In the context of the family, it is each individual's respect for the privacy and possessions of others that fosters morality. If the family learns to discuss its concerns constructively as a team -- in which decisions are not exclusive to the parents but involve every member of the family -- then the first steps in direction of democratisation will have been taken. The same applies to schools.
None of this can be achieved given the absence of equal opportunities for students, particularly at the earlier stages of education. Class differences are increasingly reflected in the degree and quality of education received, and the expansion in private tuition and foreign education has created a rift that will prove hard to bridge. It is easy to add one more discipline to the 13 or 14 subjects in which the students are examined. But there is no reason to believe that the extra subject will not be spoon-fed and memorised, regurgitated at exams then forgotten -- without any gain in terms of morality, freedom or democracy.
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