**3.2 Relevance of students' ethical standards to public university cultures on firsttime entrance**

The HLIs stipulate their cultures in chapters in which students become followers. Such cultures are formalized to assist the university to achieve the goals of education which their attainment processes bring together students and resources to learning activities. Students may enter the HLIs without questioning their ethical and moral

<sup>4</sup> A pattern of beliefs, attitudes, self-definition, norms, and values organized around a theme that can be identified in a society [3]

foundations, and with little experience of other contravening ethical and moral backgrounds. This reality was revealed and described by Colby's writing on "whose values anyway" [13], explaining the experiences of students at Messiah College5 . Accordingly, Christian students were exposed to a secular education system similar to public institutions operating in value-free academic freedom with regard to their previously founded dos and do nots. The Christian faith was thus imposed to relative standards on the basis of various denominations, among others Roman Catholic, Protestants, Lutheran, Anglican, Pentecostal, and Charismatic grounds operating in a circular education system. This, in particular, formed a true representation of the context facing first entrants in HLIs, whose ethical standards may not necessarily comply with new experiences. Each student's worldview; however, brings a student into HLIs with internalized values that affect how a student confronts value-free academic freedom in HLIs. A student's worldview facilitates the education goals attainment process for the controls and choices that a student makes in ethical dilemmas. As Hirsto analyzed the aspects of student's worldview among Finish university students, worldview is normally integrated with a student's background regarding the history of that society, political, social, economic factors, human relations, and student's religious affiliations or beliefs [14]. Moreover, in confronting an ethical dilemma, worldview is important for preserving students' well-being because it strongly affects students' choices, goals, and their certainty in careers [14]. This lesson from a finish education system, where theology is considered as one of the core courses, revealed how students with religious background were more certain in ethics and life goals. Where the faculty created a tolerant environment for minority groups, students did not experience microaggressions except female students, who were disturbed by the class discussion on women ordination. In the era of globalization, students tend to learn a lot of things through different media, including broadcasting channels and internet, which sharpen their individualized values and beliefs. Early formal training adds to the compounded effects on moral development with firmly held theoretical bases they have acquired since high school education, such as Darwinism (evolution of man), Weberian (political), Marxism (economic), and Michael's social dominations doctrines, against the originally founded ethical bases [15].

It is logical to think, for example, the training given prior to university education that associates man with other animals must have an effect on the moral implications of man on viewing man as opposed to other objects and animals. The use of scientific logic as opposed to supernaturalism in solving problems emerged in the post-modernism period between seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which was characterized by the prevalence of science, regarded as the age of reason because science represented something absolute, certain, and genuine. The scientific culture evolved prioritizing research of concrete things and strictly organized, and well-managed methods of enquiry to gain people's trust and put forth objectively driven values and rationalism as absolute values [16]. It is through such practices that collection of evidence could found doctrines on the fit and non-fit animals, including members of the human species, thinking of competitiveness to resources, and survival of the fittest. Weighing through the contravening implications of natural indifference, and fit and non-fit theories would lead to the assumptions on negative influences of formal education, particularly in HLIs on the development of moral ethics traditionally founded in the SSA cultures. It is however not clear as to how the doctrines on competition for survival and the concept of the unfit may leave a gap in training leading to

<sup>5</sup> Strongly Christian college of the brethren in Christ Church

### *Perspective Chapter: University Entrants' Moral Ethics at Crossroads – Students' Behavioral... DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109506*

the public resources grabbed by the trusted elites from the HLIs processes, bearing in mind that uneducated ones rarely access national treasuries management and related bursary channels. The existence of misconducts, such as corruption cases and other malpractices, in the hands of post-HLI candidates, as described in one of the subsequent subsections; however, it implies that the conscience for humanism and formal protocols are less products of the exhibited and nurtured outcome of the value-free education in HLIs. The problem of the elite syndrome motivated Julius Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania, to urge African leaders to rethink the aims of education in the postcolonial era. Nyerere argued that national education after independence remained under the colonial influence, in regard to the kind of graduates it produced [17]. That education did not transmit values. Instead, it inculcated in the elite's mind obsession and passion for individual material wealth and domination of the weak, the elite being the stronger, particularly in the economic aspects as criteria for social merit and worth. Graduates tended to lack humility and a sense of appreciation for what normal citizens had sacrificed for them to get educated. Therefore, public universities need to figure out how to socialize first entrants into the university toward ethical preparedness before they graduate.

In the same way, utilizing man as the instrument of achieving political objectives has always downgraded civilians in most SSA countries where postsecondary education may leave a vacuum contributing to firm ground for such practices. In fact, political, economic, and social dominations imposed by the educated elites are subjects to test against the ethical procedures in most SSA countries, where HLIs products are claimed to have acquired hybrids of morals to favor unethical living, including the escalating problem of grand corruption. What cure does the HLIs in SSA countries have to offer in training? As argued previously on cultural syndromes, it would be challenging to offer singly a cure on a case that contravenes with people in a mix of cultures. In the case of relationship and courtship matters in one nomadic culture in SSA countries, for example, seducing a girl to an agreement would seem to be a weak husband, as man must show virility power to acquire wives. Subjecting this behavior to legal ethics derived from standardized thinking based on human rights would mean that the respective student has to learn issues that must be advocated to the domicile communities. However, someone must think about how powerfully held is something taught and practiced from childhood, especially talking about matters related to owning wealth, dominating socially, financially, and politically from which the rules to achieve may be relatively derived. The convergence of the arguments would be on the need that students must be taught good moral and ethical conduct at all levels, including HLIs.
