UNILAG Don Advocates Teaching of Moral Character in Pre-tertiary Institutions

By Uchechukwu Nnaike

A Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of Lagos, Jim Unah, has called for the teaching and inculcation of virtue ethics, creative, critical logical thinking and African moral values in a sustained and systematic manner to children from infancy to adulthood.

He urged African scholars and researchers on an African soil “to make the problem of our leaders and peoples, the problem of corruption and immorality of the leadership elite our real concern by taking ownership of the teaching of positive moral character and creative thinking to Africans in a sustained and systematic manner in the school system just the way we have acquired our training in our respective disciplines from infancy to adulthood.”

Unah, who said this recently, while delivering the Faculty of Arts Distinguished Professor Lecture Series titled ‘Is It Leadership or Character?’ stated that the move has a potential to produce and galvanize young people of character and clear vision, and even imbue them with the consciousness to promote and propagate well inculcated African values that could agitate and sack regimes of profligacy, corruption and mediocrity in African states.

According to him, poor leadership culture has been blamed for most of the problems confronting Nigeria and other African countries, like corporate failures, economic recessions, social woes, political upheaval and security challenges, among others, however, considering how the concepts of training, education and leadership have been applied and used in contemporary literature, an essentially core aspect of leadership training and leadership education had been neglected all along.

“This all-important core of leadership that deviated from the norm of classical leadership characteristics is the training and learning of character. Consequently, the failure and poverty of leadership calls for the teaching and learning of character right from the elementary and secondary schools to tertiary education.

“The task is herculean, and should not be seen as that of Philosophy alone; but that of all stakeholders of education who desire sound moral character for Nigerian children and peaceful society for all,” Unah said.

On the recent causes of moral decay, he said notwithstanding the colonial and neo-colonial disruptions and devious distortions of identities, “the reality of modern-urban living, within the demands of which parents and relatives become too preoccupied with the arduous task of making a living, that the responsibility of educating and bringing up the child was transferred from the community to specialised institutions (kindergartens, nurseries).

“And in recent times, this responsibility has also been unintentionally transferred to the media. The former, that is, in the reconstructed, semi-conscious process of transference, attention was given to the intellectual aspect of a child’s development to the utter neglect and detriment of the moral side, which got (and still gets) little or no mention in the curriculum of modern African schools.”

He regretted that the country now has a generation of largely intelligent young people who are obviously morally hollow. “When therefore these younglings mature and rise, by virtue of their intelligence, to become political and business leaders, they are unable to be upstanding morally against the alluring blandishments of nepotism, corruption and official graft. The recent cyber and drug-related crimes reported against Nigerian youths in parts of the world attests to this position.”

The Distinguished Professor noted that at that point when theit deplorable characters are already fossilized, no amount of corporate governance theories, professional ethics orientation or even international pressure can douse the immoral fire in them or get them to reconsider their cavalier lifestyles.

According to him, some of the challenges militating the integration of moral character training at the pre-tertiary levels of education include economic circumstances of and demands on parents; infusion and inculcation processes in schools, religious. indoctrinations and fundamentalism, subsisting imperial culture and attitude of dominance, the question of political will, socio-cultural relativism, among others.