former Member Secretary, Planning Commission; former Chairman UPSC
There is a universal understanding about goodness of ethical practices in all fields of human activity including academics.however, violation of ethics is also widely prevalent.Since hardly anybody disagrees about the goodness of ethics, influence of teaching and preaching about ethics will be limited.There are three elements which an individual weighs against each other and trades off in terms of his own scale of values:
a) immediate individual gain from breaking the ethics
b)long term social and individual gains in maintaining the ethical practice
c)risk of being caught and punished
Legal remedies and other such ways of dealing with the problem including guidelines for prevention belong to element (c) above.Yes, these need to be strengthened and tightened. But they they have not proved to be very effective in the past because of huge size of the academic system in India, and its fast expansion now and its variety in terms of public and private system and in terms of region and locations might make these measures even less effective in future.This needs to be discussed.
Element (a) and (b) need to be focussed particularly in discussion in this forum because these are generally ignored in discussing academic ethics, and their impact is considerable.
Our policies, prescriptions and guidelines for academic institutions, rules for recruitments, promotions,etc.,go a long way in raising or reducing the gains from academic ethics.
Broader elements of education policy such as permitting establishment of institutions providing education for profit also have a profound impact on re-interpreting the question of ethics and the value system.