**3.4 African students' appraisal of their initial moral values on first-time entrance in public universities**

The HLIs are populated with students from various cultural origins. Higher education, therefore, enrolls larger segments of populations with complex interactions of ethical and moral values. In literature, demographic diversity is considered prestige and strength of any university according to Ford and Patterson [22]. Yet, universities have not taken considerable time to resolve the encounters first entrants face that impact their values. In fact, Ford and Patterson on ethnographic diversity found that universities with the lowest rates of ethno-racial diversity were more likely to engage in practices that enhance the appearance of diversity than universities with the highest levels of student diversity. In this regard, an individual student is confronted by a situation of how to moderate and stabilize with appropriate disposition on the change, while retaining viable core principles of the previously founded ethical and moral standards. It is logical to think that while students should adapt to positive changes, they should retain the socially and culturally viable attributes with regard to the future requirements of the qualities of graduates suited to formal work. Without being naïve, one should recognize that while holding the formal values and beliefs as the secular curriculum ingredients, some local values, beliefs, and attributes that most of the university elites would call the indigenous identities would be essentially beneficial in holding and maintaining public office ethics deemed good. As the enrolled candidates include a mix of full-time students and others who work parttime, as well as other cohorts and calibers, such as married, parents, who seek sexual relationships, business people, priests and members of different religious affiliations, and politicians [13], moral ethics can be standardized on codes and bylaws, and the formulation should consider the cultural ingredients of the concerned students.

The student governing bodies in universities are primarily concerned with keeping students in compliance with the HLIs' goals of learning. As highlighted in preceding sections, public universities operate in value-free education settings, where the faculty could not impose a particular culture on a student, but rather a student should develop the full identity and capacity to choose to do what is right. In practice, cultural interactions which Colby warns the curriculum design should take note of; face conflicts of compliance with the question of what is right way to do and wrong [13].

This question, what is right and what is wrong is still the widest ethical debate, which writers consider an ethical dilemma. An ethical dilemma is contrasted with an ethical issue and problem by Giannou for the sake of the current discussion [16]. Accordingly, an ethical issue would be a situational controversy on what individuals can do with regard to legal or technical perspectives, and what ought to be done from an ethical perspective. This is a total conflict between the legalities, bylaws, and technicalities with what can be ethically and socially justified by the HLIs' members. The difference with ethical problems confines to the practices, where someone knows what they ought to do but their moral decisions become difficult to apply. Ethical dilemmas in HLIs occur where choices between two equally unwelcome alternatives relating to students' welfare make encounters, which may involve conflicts of moral principles the choice of which must affect one part between the alternatives to some degree.

Implicitly, students may be confronted by ethical dilemmas, where the choices of the right course of action are to be executed amidst the moral and ethical beliefs at crossroads. In a real sense, they should first undergo standardization of expectations of their ethical conduct, which can principally be subjective or relative. Ethical subjectivism manifests with individual students creating their own morality firmly holding that there are no objective moral truths, that is, appraising only individual opinions [5]. This perspective would have resulted in conflicting moral practices, particularly with students of strongly held religious and denominational affiliations in HLIs. The conflicts of interest at individual and community levels would base on the issue of whether the change influenced someone, or should they influence the change. The consequential experiences can be waived by reliance on guidelines and bylaws. However, the institutional guidelines and bylaws help to resolve such problems partly. It is regarded that moral evaluation should be rooted in experience, beliefs, and behaviors portraying a stipulated institutional culture with regard to the fact that what is wrong in one individual culture may be right in another, in the so-called cultural relativism [5]. The question of how should such guidelines include

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

the individual cultural ingredients satisfactorily into their framework remains unresolved. However, the basic plan of such guidelines and bylaws should focus on the goals of the education curriculum and the national philosophy of education. Some scholars such as Colby have thought about the possibility of the HLIs affecting the moral understanding and behaviors of the students [13]. Accordingly, they may affect students' moral appraisals by empowering them to face highly challenging moral dilemmas, intellectually serious way of moral issues that arise in academic disciplines, participate in service to the community, and reflect on what is learned in the process, adhere to high ethical standards regarding academic integrity, and other issues of honesty and mutual respect.

It is ideal to state that students in HLIs are exposed to moral processes, which demand them to accommodate by classifying, merging, and disorienting moral and ethical issues. Such processes should consider students' social, religious, and personal perspectives, mediating the achievements of educational goals stipulated in the university guidelines, curriculum, and backed up by students' bylaws. To bring about such achievements, the campus-created cultures may need to provide active roles to the faculty to exercise observer and critical position on students' behaviors [13]. Such roles focused on cultivating self-determination within and outside university campuses, and should empower students' personal development on one hand and dual relationships on the other hand. With self-determination, students should respect and promote others' rights to make their own choices and decisions, irrespective of their values provided this does not threaten the rights and legitimate interests of others [16]. This stance puts exceptions on self-determination and the freedom of one's choice when another's right to well-being is at stake. Implicitly, the subjective moral experiences of individual students should not victimize the rights of others complying with the guidelines and bylaws. In fact, Giannou presents dual relationships that it should offer protection against the damage done within the social systems, particularly on personal and social life of others, promoting dependence, reversing roles, mutual acquaintances, and joint affiliations and memberships [16]. It seems to be a logical presentation as students immerse in populations that they have to adapt, associate with, and accredit the values and beliefs at individual and group levels.

Appraising individual morals amid ethical dilemmas would therefore require attention to accommodate others from multiple perspectives. Though the compliance may not be ethically conclusive, it would at least set conditions for coordinated work to achieve the goals of education. Some ethical questions, such as questions on racial and gender equality [11], and sexual discrimination and prohibitions rooted in cultural beliefs and cemented by laws [23] among others, would be resolved with regard to the rationalized values. The problem with globalization is the channeling of influential cultural perspectives, which must be applied by others in response to the demands of human rights activists, legal workers, and advocates of equity and inclusion against public sentiments withholding what is right in traditional opinions. The HLIs are agents of cultural change, especially in the developing world where economic development needs to influence cultural change in the direction determined by foreign interventions. Some changes seem to be viable and inevitable, such as actions to equate and equalize gender roles and economic freedom, but those that seem threatening to indigenous cultures, such as sexual orientations and racial prioritization, have received opposition and prohibitions in SSA countries. Cross presents that some HLIs have run under the existence of unethical conduct, while pretending to neutralize and fight them, while Msuya warns that the female gender is highly affected negatively in such circumstances [11, 23].

It is, therefore, imperative to conclude on the notion by Rich that individuals may allow their emotions to overtake good reasoning, with social initiatives destructing good foundations for ethical decisions through social emancipations praxis [5]. While some cultural values to be held by students may be good to keep life in order, real emancipations may sway away from valued ethical principles in cultural heritage to hybridize them based on new thinking. In that case, there would be both positive and negative consequences. The positive consequences would be justifiably noted on the relieved sides of the ethical dilemmas. However, it has been noted that hybridizing cultures may impose seriously negative consequences on the means of association among groups in HLIs, and conspicuous distinctions from the general public. It is sound to argue that moral and ethical assessments and choices of practices should make a balance of emotion and reason [5]. Every movement to effect cultural change should base on the genuine cause of reason acceptable for ethics and morality among persons, and basically with the universal golden rule profound in the world religions: Doing unto others that which you think is good if done to you [12]. This thinking calls for the evaluation of daily life practices for improvements that must stress on human dignity; the core principles of good living, which maintain viable human species in safe and secure perpetuation.

## **3.5 Future possibilities through learning with new values and standards geared by globalization in African context**

The most important component of the curriculum of instruction and philosophy of education statements should be the direction of the nation to be cultivated by education itself. As a learning social caste, the students in HLIs can form a component of the wider social system imposing steep change on the national culture development realized through educational institutions. Though this needs its own space in education discussion and research, learning from universities, such as the Porland State University, good faculty interventional programs are inevitable to protect national identity through regular talks to ensure all voices are heard in discussions of moral, political, and policy issues, aiming at maintaining what can be valued and keeping the wrong away [13]. As argued previously by Colby that students' choices might be inconclusive and unripe, and there should be ethical guidelines to provide the directions, which must be protected for the right future [13]. As rational beings, students have the ability to create universal laws and follow them [16]. It implies that any gap left would result in the course of actions that might distort the meaning of the valued education and its products—in the case of confusion on what social educational outcome should the processes provide.

Vividly, scholarly works by Mohlake on unattended social responsibility [12], Kumasey and Laba on ethical malpractices [24, 25], and Cross on cultural mutations [11] are true indications of the failures of education systems in SSA countries to provide quality products on moral and ethical perspectives. Mohlake notices faulty training in education systems, which has produced graduates lacking core values enshrined in our valuable cultures. Researchers have exposed issues, such as reported rampant cheating in exams, where students' motive is not to master their course and get skills for future work but to get certificates [26, 27]. This is a warning that the education systems in SSA countries need to curb the implications rooted in academic malpractices for curricula contents in HLIs. Should HLIs standardize students' moral and ethical principles to suit the requirements for future African livelihood or live the issue hanging. The authors of this chapter propose that more discussion is needed on

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

this matter. Nevertheless, the first entrants are the best to start with because are still malleable. An observation from Jansen was presented by Mohlake to be noted that:

*…we are breeding a new generation of youthful South Africans who are learning early to be angry, deadly angry, without adult intervention and without political or pedagogical correction…we fail to …educate youth minds broadly in ethics, values, reasoning, appreciation, problem-solving, argumentation and logic [12]*

This presentation on South Africa captures several cases happening as failure of the education systems to prepare the students for moral and ethical qualities required to compete in the labor markets and societies, in general. It is a true indication that HLIs lack the completeness of expected ingredients to be imparted to graduates morally, ethically, and academically. It could be the case that much emphasis is made on academic content than social interaction competencies bestowed in cultural endowments to humanity. Non-stressed moral and ethical guidance might impose the wrong formulation of universal laws and logic, as the case may be in this regard. Similarly, Kumasey's work on ethics and values in Ghana notices frequent occurrences of unethical behaviors, such as fraud and abuse of resources, moonlighting, falsifying records, waste and misuse of official time, apathy, sexual harassment, payroll irregularities (ghost names in payrolls), and cash and procurement irregularities as the pitfalls of trained workers in public offices [24]. The demonstration of such cases puts in question the position of installments of the moral and ethical principles and guidelines through education channels strengthened by the HLIs. A simple logic would be held that traditional moral and ethical values would be sufficient to empower working free from such incidences but are not being emphasized, and academic training demonstrates good quality performance.

The presentation by Laba shows that identified malpractices in past and present in the HLIs, particularly in the admission of students, plagiarism, and dishonesty in writing exams go beyond the academic life to graduates' malfunctions in future society [25]. One would suppose that the doctor is too sick to treat the patients. Implicitly, the machineries are not well set to impose required ethical principles and moral guidelines on students. Laba further cautions that the present state of higher education in Africa, and the shift in fiscal priorities in the context of the government having the monopoly on higher education is disastrous [25]. Many countries in SSA have the government either owning or dictating the operations in HLIs. With exceptions of the religiously founded government regimes, the governance of the institutions would be justified through legal justices that do not necessarily satisfy the social expectations of cultural prioritization on one hand. On the other hand, secular education in public HLIs operating under value-free processes may impose students to serious inadequacy of moral and ethical development. With globalization forces operating in ethical processes, hybrid institutional cultures may lead to lethal cultural mutations [11]. This is particularly important to observe when the processes of the whole institutional culture are affected by the changes in the student's body or organs. It is worth to note that non-managed moral and ethical development of youth students in HLIs may lead to future evolution of hybrid moral values and ethical standards, which the desirability may not be guaranteed. One would therefore speculate on the possibility of future extinction of initial moral and ethical principles, the fact which was however not the focus of the current discussion.

Notwithstanding, based on the utilitarian approach moral actions are determined as good or bad by learning from the consequences [16]. What is it that is good or bad

consequences? According to classical utilitarians, the ultimate good is something that most people will desire that which gives happiness or pleasure. This would imply that the nations would move in blind ethical directions left in hands of the students in HLIs driven by globalization forces. In that case; therefore, a call for moral and civic responsibility inclusion into the higher education curriculum statement has been made [3, 13]. The assumption is that when the development of the student's moral and civic responsibility is the goal of the institution, then the idea of value-free education is a dead end in itself. This means there should be efforts to refocus students' achievement goals to morality, character, patriotism, and social justice across ideological lines and open communication. Students should clearly stipulate what they should live with protection from indoctrination in future life. Such curricular inclusion should emphasize on critical thinking and open-mindedness with an interest to pursue ideas, and backing up their claims while expecting others to do the same. Of course, being knowledgeable and having a perfect will to do the right things and do things right should enable them to think independently, hold their positions, and ensure commitments to moral and ethical principles.

It could be argued based on the observations that moral education was highly required in university training. There should be a given set of morals and civic engagements, which students should learn in order to comply with a society in which they are going to live and work. It is critical to state that individualized moral standards are subject to changes with time and space over the preexisting ethos. For example, Colby presents that a woman who self-described as racist into her thirties, became a leader in the black civil rights movement in her late thirties and early forties through a series of transformative experiences over several years and that an immoral financially successful businessman became a tireless advocate for poor in his middle age, in Roanoke Valley of Virginia [13]. The thinking that moral education should be imparted in higher learning curriculum is of utmost importance though highly challenged by the contexts in which should be, given the varied opinions and cultures of the institution members [13]. It implies that the existence of different culturally derived HLIs' members does not disapprove the formulation of moral education training in HLIs. Well-researched moral standards can be imparted and practiced by the institutional members and can be taken by the students, which should suit and positively improve livelihood in their domiciles. In particular, the moral standards for respect, roles, and duty are important ingredients of students' preparedness to take charge of responsibilities in family, community, and society. As much as ethics and norms would depend on what someone has to offer, this contention would be right if learning new things would be related to learning new ethics and morals, which is the absolute confusing reality in HLIs. On the other hand, open admissions would not restrict institutions to bring in singly culturally confined students. This would imply that; technical interventions were required to create training in the curriculum of HLIs, which would standardize the morals, which students have to rely on for their livelihood.

#### **3.6 Observations for implementations of ethics education and training**

Implementation of moral and civic education in HLIs is challenged in public HLIs with the emphasis on value-free education curriculum. In fact, moral and civic education in HLIs is challenged on two major issues. First, it is thought that college time is too late to offer moral and civic education [13]. Such thinking is based on the argument that college students are more likely to be regarded as adults given the current times of globalization forces. However, Colby considers it wrong to think that offering moral

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

and civic education to students in HLIs is too late [13]. Of course, one should agree that there have been noted changes in the perception of adulthood attainment in the post-early to mid-twentieth century. For example, Colby notices that higher learning institutions in the United States operated in loco parentis, at least until the early 1970s [13]. The faculty assumed the roles of the parents to help students manage time, and observe the rules on behavioral issues—to ensure that students observed behaviors and comply with social and moral norms. Presently, students have demanded to be treated with adulthood identities due to changes in global forces geared by politics and legalities through globalization—which the assumption is not correct with regard to Colby [13]. Consequently, the rules for freedom of choice in the case of children, youth, and adults have exacerbated the problem of mismanagement of ethics and morals demonstrated by the youth in value-free HLIs. This situation is a product of global movement assisted by globalization forces, and the education curriculum itself. For instance, universal codes on human rights, freedom of expression, and decision-making have left parents detached from their students in HLIs regardless of the student's age. Most of the universities, therefore, including some in SSA countries have instituted the offices of the Dean of Students to do the counseling roles—providing the student's with arrays of options to choose on the case of decision-making. The modern university education; however, put forward the facilitation of autonomy in college students rather than imposing moral choice on an individual [28, 29]. According to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) [30], tertiary colleges and universities are in-charge, move beyond the long history, and assume the role of creating knowledge or carrying out research and engagement in the development [28], which can only flourish in free and autonomous learning environment. However, it has been reserved on the basis of the distinction of counseling from real guidance that the former takes away the parenting roles on the basis of professionally supporting the students to choose what is right from wrong. Students in this case reserve the right to choose the course of actions they presume to be right, in order to provide pleasurable circumstances.

Accordingly, for the ages 18 to 22, which most of the undergraduate students may possess and which all of the major developmental theorists refer to represent the transition to adulthood, encompass the range associated with great moral and ideological exploration, ferment, and consolidation, as could be expressed that:

*At this time in their lives, young people are questioning their epistemological, moral, political, and religious assumptions, making critical career and other life choices, and rethinking their sense of who they are, which is important to them. There could hardly be a time riper for moral growth [13].*

The assertion above is of utmost importance for considering the freedom of the youth to choose the moral standards to live. It seems that there is a high possibility of such students being confronted by challenges to take the right path, hardly exercising the expectations of societies in their future. The reason here is that they have to learn new things, which might not be related to what they have to live. Choosing from an array of alternatives is highly challenging even for early and middle adults. This has led to the conclusion based on the most sophisticated level of moral thinking by Kohlberg, that post-conventional moral judgment does not occur until early adulthood and continues to increase at least until the end of formal education, and beyond for those participating in activities that challenge their moral thinking [13]. As a mechanism to establish a common national culture, the moral and civic education should be instilled even at the lower grades of learning. Some countries, such as

Japan, had implemented such education and abolished it in lower grades of elementary schools with a belief that children could not comprehend it and could not exhibit exceptional commitments characterizing their lives until adulthood, but the lethal aftermath forced reestablishment of the training to the children at the same level of schooling [3, 13]. Teaching children about what to live should be held as effectively as it is for guiding college students as youths. This is because both levels complement each other in imparting values and right moral choices.

Second, the value-free education practice holds on assumption that moral and civic education in HLIs is an intellectually weak undertaking [13]. Implicitly, such an assumption can be interpreted that moral and civic education programs undermine the intellectual rigor of the academic experience, which scholars represented by Colby proposes that it is not the case [13].
