Shamima Afrin :
We are often coming across some events that are questioning the moral and ethical value of the students studying in the most prestigious institutions. Morality and ethics are closely interrelated since both occur in parallel. Ethics is defined as a moral ideology, which defines what the ideal human nature and conduct should be. It is also a field of study that deals with moral principles. These principles are generally known as morality and viewed as standards of behavior that will help know right apart from wrong. Human beings are not born ethical, they need to develop this characteristic as they grow and it happens in the growing period amid family, surrounding, and early schooling. Then comes the question of how comes morality of a reputed university-going student be questioned. They were supposed to have the best thinking mind, conscious about things going around. But the reality is the opposite.
The problem is at the root level where a child is taught about success in life but not the value of being a good human being. Here success is measured on the scale of good marks in examinations and getting admitted into a reputed institution for higher education. Moreover, where the examination and assessment processes are questioned the outcome will always be filled with default. There is a group of people who encourages youngsters to run behind good results saying the rest of the things will be made up by their result in exams and by the tag of their educational institution. In midst of this sick competition, they forget to become good human beings and don’t adopt moral ethics at the core of their heart. This cycle goes on and on.
A huge number of these morally degraded students get into good institutions and institutional pride is born among them. Institutional pride is considering thyself above others and judging others and behaving with others according to that. People suffering from such pride often forget morality and think themselves always right and think people would consider all of their horrible deeds as they are from reputed institutions. Almost every day social media gets flooded with such news and status concerning the moral degradation of these students. Their disturbed mentality is badly affecting others too as they are the victims.
If a girl from any university is asked if they feel truly safe around their batchmates, the answer will be in the negative. Because of the poor morality of their fellow batchmates. Activities like an extremist terrify the other students to speak up. Even some of these students are so extremist that they share opinions in support of the opinions shared by rapists, abusers. Sexual harassment, bullying, cyberbullying, body shaming, etc are the common form of harassment students are facing from them. No matter how pathetic a situation, it has become a trend to make trolls regarding it. Their morality is so weak that they don’t even realize this can hurt the feeling of the person they are trolling. This can severely affect a victim’s mental wellbeing.
In practical life, the language of some youngsters is so questionable that is not speakable for a person with strong morality. All these are indicators of weak morality. Universities say these students were supposed to learn morality at school and college levels. But none of the educational institutions can get away from the blame of failing at the task of educating properly with morality and ethics.
As social platforms have become the mirror of our activities, they represent what people think at some points. Negativity spreads at the fastest rate on these platforms. As soon as a celebrity post a status here or a news goes viral, many people fill the comment section with such negativity that makes questioning their education, moral value. More surprisingly, a significant portion of these horrible commentators is from a good educational background. Making people feel worse than them gives these morally degraded persons a devilish pleasure with feeling superior. This cyberbullying culture is sending a bad message about Bangladeshis in the outer world.
A huge number of young people are influenced by some specific cultural groups that are creating obsession among them. They become so obsessed that they can’t even differentiate between liking them and being over-obsessed with these particular cultural groups. Such obsessions are increasing relativism among them. Mostly Generation Z is highly affected by such obsession.
Whenever something wrong happens it can be stopped or minimized if people raise their voices immediately. Most people stay silent until they become the victim. This is also an indicator of weak morality and one of the main causes of increasing moral degradation. Families should prioritize making a child good human beings before pressurizing them for good results on examinations. Family is the ultimate place for the personality growth of a person and it should be used effectively.
(Shamima is studying MBBS at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical
college, Dhaka).
