Character Education: An Ethical Choice for Institutions of Learning

Michael Ochula

The difficulty with ethical reasoning among Kenyan youth today sounds an alarm signaling the need for purposeful character education in our homes and institutions of learning (schools and universities). As the national school curriculum reform gets underway, if character education does not form part of it, we will find that adults will not have the character and the values needed to be decent members of the community.

Since independence, educators have emphasized educating the whole student as a primary goal of the profession. Today, as tribalism, bigotry, violence, drug and substance abuse, assault and sexual harassment persist in our schools and on university campuses, stakeholders in the education sector must assess their approach to education of the whole student. Currently, a purposeful approach to character education, “the training of heart and mind toward the good” is re-emerging as an effective way to develop higher ethical standards in our students.

Parents, educators and academicians alike widely understand character to mean a cognitive and behavioral conception of what is right. Good character, has the distinction of “knowing the good, desiring the good, and doing the good”. In desiring good, a student is able to reach a level of commitment to what is right in order to cement himself or herself to the ideals of good character.

Assisting our youth to understand, desire, and act on what is right is the essence of educating for character. A fundamental part of attending to the whole student, character education is “the development of ethical conduct in students as well as ethical reasoning and understanding”. Furthermore, character education aims to “enhance the capacity to defer impulses and make the right judgment. I honestly believe if we challenge our students, if we are willing to take risks, if we are willing to take positions on issues, if we are willing to share our values-then [we are] promoting the moral development of our students.

Policy makers in the education sector have an obligation to provide sound character education if they are to be true to the mission of the profession. Educating the whole person inherently means educating each student for character, fostering within him or her the abilities to assess and act on what is good. Whether values are taught formally in the curriculum or not, the attitudes, conduct, and beliefs of students have always been influenced by their institutions of learning

For over a century, educating for character was a primary mission of education in Kenya. Through the early years of mission schools and independence, character training in the form of ethics and values remained central to the core curriculum. The commitment to character education was evident in the mission statements of schools, colleges and universities across the nation which emphasized the development of the capacity to think clearly about moral issues and to act accordingly. Educating for character was, at this time, a purposeful venture teaching students the fundamentals of moral reasoning through regular academic course work.

However, the focus of secondary and higher education in Kenya began to shift. Character education moved to the background as schools put more emphasis on academic excellence while colleges and universities began to emulate the research habits and commercialised higher education. Thus development of students’ ethical and moral reasoning virtually disappeared in the shadow of academic mastery. Manipulation of facts, examination malpractice, forgery of academic papers and plagiarism became the end of academic life; mastery of the world took precedence over mastery of self.

The Kenyan society today is demanding that educators reverse their hands-off, value-neutral approach to character education. The cultivation of virtue is inherent to school and university education. Institutions of learning are obliged to help students learn how to lead ethical and fulfilling lives and adhere more purposefully to their original mission statements which expressed a clear commitment to the development of character.