TOPIC 2

BY

KALIAMAH A/P RAMASAMY

MARIAL SUJATHA R. SELVAM

attributes concept of a
profession
Elite socio-economic status
The existence of high academic ability and a long period
of education and training
The existence of a corpus of theoretical and specialized
knowledge
The autonomy to conduct its affairs
The promotion and maintenance of standards to ensure
quality
The existence of an organized professional association
Legal and public recognition of its professional status
The existence of a service principle based on the ideal
of collective altruism

The ethical basis of

educational
management

PROFESSIONALISM

PROFESSIONALIZATION
The process by which an
occupation becomes a
profession and the changes
in status that are implicit in that
process

The quality of practice describing

conduct within an occupation -how
members integrate their obligations
with their knowledge and skill in a
context of collegiality and contractual
and ethical relation with client

Is the professional
(in the status sense)
behaving as a professional should
(in the sense of practice and its standards)?

Mengapa Etika Penting?

Conceptual Analysis: Education cannot be

separated from judgments of values;

Schooling is moral education. Moral
considerations are imbedded in practically
every administrative action, decision, and
in organizational and education policies
within the institution.
Goal: To prepare students to assume the roles
and responsibilities of citizenship in a
democratic society

Mengapa Etika Penting?

The Students: Most have little choice about

whether or where they learn and have small

voice in determining either the quality,
content or purpose of the curriculum they
experience in their role as students.
Society: The activities of educational
institutions have consequences for society,
therefore, educators being responsible for
the processes and outcomes of schooling is
also obliged to the larger community.

Moral considerations are embedded in practically

every administrative action and decision, as well as

in organizational and education policies within the
institution

Educational

administrators experience ethical

dilemmas on a daily basis as they perform the duties
and responsibilities of their office, and that they
often experience frustration and conflict in resolving
and managing these dilemmas

the roots of
academic leadership is
about connecting people
morally to each other
and to teir work
(Sergiovanni, 1994)

Individuals will ignore ethics if they see major

breaches of, for example, codes of conduct

routinely ignored by the management
(Whitton, 2001)
Leaders must be the center of gravity in

developing and sustaining a culture of integrity

(ethics) Leaders must be the first to step up
and serve as the personal exemplar of
integrity from which subordinates learn
(Jacocks & Bowman, 2012)

School principals experience ethical dilemmas on a daily basis as they perform

their duties and responsibilities, and they often experience frustration and
conflict in resolving and managing these dilemmas.

Types of Ethical Dilemmas Experienced by School Principals

Dilemmas of choice among competing standards of good practice

rooted within the profession of education

Dilemmas associated with the implementation or consequences
of decisions attendant to an ethically preferred choice among
alternative courses of action
Dilemmas of choice associated with conflicts between systemlevel organizational rules or policies and consideration at the
institution-level
Dilemmas which stem from idiosyncratic beliefs or concerns of
individual educators regarding the consequences of their actions
and decisions
Dilemmas of choice rooted in fundamental ethical principles of
conduct
Other dilemmas matters related to teachers work; morality of
pupils behaviour regarding school and work; common rules in
school; and rights of minority groups

AGEN MORAL

~ is a moral exemplar
~ is devoted to standards
of best practice and
conditions of competence
to be maintained and
promoted

AGEN MORAL
~ has a special responsibility to be a
conscientious moral actor, to
deliberately make decisions and take
actions in a distinctly moral manner
~ reflects upon and considers the
moral consequences of his decisions,
actions, as well as the policies and
practices of his institution

AGEN MORAL
~ has the capacity to reflect
successfully on conflicting
matters (problem-setter),
i.e. developed informed
and responsible judgments,
and choose the best among
defensible options
(problem-solver)

~Legal issues about teacher morality centre

on two statutes:
* the denial or withdrawal of certificates from
individuals who are deemed not to be
persons of good character
* teachers may be discharged for immorality
~Two crucial points about the enforcement of
the above statutes
* teachers may not be discharged for
exercising
their
constitutional
rights
(privacy, civil liberties)
* teachers may have significant rights of due
process that must be respected in attempts
to pursue a charge of immorality (extensive
hearing on the matter)

Sexual

misconduct
involving students
Physical abuse of students
Habitual public
drunkenness and drug use
Felony convictions

THE LAW FAILS TO DEAL WITH ALL MATTERS PERTAINING TO TEACHING,

NAMELY:

Standards that are to govern the characteristic activities

of teaching
~ intellectual activity or freedom
~ intellectual honesty, tolerance or respect for
appropriate diversity
~ due process in such matters as discipline and grading,
fairness in punishment and equity in the distribution of
educational resources such as the teachers time
Ways that respect the values and mores internal to
subject matter
Connect the characteristics and behaviour of educators
with the aims and objectives of education

Codes are imperfect. They overstate.

They understate. They distort. They
leave out. They address only issues that
are already part of our consciousness.
They are necessarily limited by the
modes of thought of the era. They
reflect systematic and personal biases.
They say nothing about situations that
have never arisen.
(Burstow, 1992)

Although codesare very

important and useful, like
any set of rules, they do not
cover every situation, they
often conflict and they
require considerable
interpretation.
(Resnik, 2010)

Publishing a code of ethics

by itself, will achieve little
it is an insufficient effort.
Other efforts are essential if
codes of conduct are to be
worth more than the paper on
which they are printed
(Whitton, 2001)

 Sejauh

manakah
anda
akan
menggalakkan kebebasan intelektual
murid?
Adakah anda mengamalkan kejujuran
intelektual, toleransi atau menghormati
kepelbagaian dalam kalangan murid?
Apakah
tahap
keprihatinan
anda
terhadap pertimbangan tentang perkara
seperti disiplin dan pemberian gred,
keadilan dalam dendaan dan ekuiti
dalam
mengagihkan
sumber-sumer
pendidikan seperti masa anda?

Dalam

keadaan bagaimanakah
anda
sepatutnya
tidak
memaklumkan sesuatu perkara
tentang
murid
kepada
penjaganya?
Adakah
anda
bermasalah
dengan hal-hal kerahsiaan dan
isu-isu sensitif?
Apakah
sepatutnya cara-cara
anda melindungi right to privacy
murid daripada penjaganya?

Patutkah

anda menghormati
tanpa
menyoal
hak
rakan
sekerja bertingkah laku sesuka
hati di dalam kelas?
Apakah garisan pemisah antara
kesetiakawanan dan toleransi
terhadap rakan sekerja yang
kurang profesional?
Patutkah anda menjadi model
dan contoh teladan kepada
murid?

Kebertanggungjawaban
pentadbir
(accountability)

Perihal sifatyang
sempurna berteraskan
nilai murni seperti jujur,
benar, amanah, adil,
telus, cekap,
kebertanggungjawaban,
dan bijaksana


accountability, accuracy, adherence, allegiance, balance,
certainty, chastity, cleanness, clearness, coherence,
completeness, consistency, constancy, credibility,
decency, dignity, directness, duty, entirety, equity,
ethicalness, exactness, excellence, fairness,
faithfulness, fidelity, finality, fortitude, forthrightness,
goodness, harmony, honesty, honor, identity,
impartiality, impeccability, incorruption, independence,
innocence, justice, lawfulness, loyalty, morals, merit,
modesty, nobility, oneness, openness, order,
peacefulness, perfection, precision, principle, probity,
purity, reliability, right, righteousness, self-respect,
simplicity, sincerity, soundness, steadfastness,
temperance, togetherness, totality, trustworthiness,
truth, truthfulness, unity, uprightness, veracity, virtue,
wholeness, worthiness

 answerable
give

reason/explanation for
a particular action
willingness to accept
culpability for ones
own action

1st An agents
responsibility is to a
provider (beneficiary)
and measured by the
results produced
through the agents
skill in handling
resources. The agent
may have
customers/clients, but
to none the agent is
accountable except to
the provider

2nd The accountability

of the agent is not
only to the provider
but also to client
beneficiaries and
professional peers
for results achieved
and for the quality
of standards
maintained through
occupational
practice

Contractual

accountability to
provider or employer
Intellectual
accountability

under a discipline imposed by

the intellectual criteria and the
structure of the subject taught
Professional accountability to
oneself and colleagues
Moral accountability to clients

The administrator/manager has

multiple constituencies to whom
an account is due, and this
context implies a difference of
demand,
therefore, he is a

moral agent.
WHY?

what the public

interest may
demand is not
necessarily reflected
in private wants or
individual rights

Public Control
(overregulated and restricted classroom functionaries)
Distrust of teachers by the public
Professional incompetence among teachers
Need to cap public expenditure
Subscribe to bureaucratic theme/model regarding the moral
responsibility of school
Professional Autonomy
(empowered and deregulated professional teachers entrusted with
greater autonomy in school-based management)
Bring improvement to the status and power of teachers related to the
professionalization of the occupation of teaching.
The school and the teachers must be seen as accountable agents.
Therefore, must construct an accountability system where a
professional is behaving as a professional should.

There must be one particular condition TRUST

Trust has
an outside: clients have the opportunity to trust the system or have the
confidence in the system can predict about such things as
individual attitudes, reactions, technical competence, consistent role
behaviour, and perceived agreement about ends is also necessary
through clear formal procedures.
on the inside: a relational condition of the inside life of a school,
between individual teachers and pupils, among colleagues, between
the head and staff, etc. an active and meaningful interplay of
people and their roles inside the school.
The educator is to contribute to creating trust in the system (the
outside) by working at trust inside the school. How can this
condition (trust) be described? Only in terms of virtues that
constitute trust, namely, fidelity (strict observance of promises,
duties, etc., loyalty, faith), veracity (honesty and an absence of
deception, truthfulness), friendliness and care.

It is a known fact that some teachers do not encourage

intellectual activity and freedom in the classroom. Some of
them do not practise intellectual honesty, tolerance or respect
for appropriate diversity. There are also some who do not
adhere to the due process in such matters as discipline and
grading, fairness in punishment and equity in the distribution
of educational resources such as their time. All these matters
pertaining to bad teaching in the classroom are beyond the
arms of the law. There are also teachers who are unable to
instill the respect for the values and mores internal to their
subject matter, or to connect their characters and behaviour
with the aims and objectives of education. In short, the law
fails to deal with issues related to the standards that are to
govern the characteristic activities of good teaching.
Hence, the limited influence of the law on the conduct of
teachers in the school, particularly in the classroom, has
necessitated school principals to act as moral agents. How
would school principals sort out cases of unethical acts (that
cannot be handled by the law) among the teachers?

It is not wrong to say that the bureaucratic theme is more dominant

in Malaysian schools. If this view is right, then school principals who
are in favour of the professional or fairness model will inevitably, in
certain situations or cases, face dilemmas when they disagree with
particular policies of MOE related to, for example, teacher
recruitment, teacher training, continuous professional development
programmes, the school curriculum, and such like. These school
principals, being moral agents, have to set, and then solve, whatever
problem or issue that they have with MOE. The dilemma for these
school principals is whether to obey administrative (or political)
directives and accept without complaint policies and procedures they
find morally objectionable. However, school principals who subscribe
to the bureaucratic theme regarding the moral responsibility of
school will definitely have few dilemmas as they will support the
government policies on education. Be that as it may, some examples
of moral dilemmas that may arise from having different views as to
the moral responsibility of the school are as follows:
You are on whose side if there is a conflict between MOE and the
parents or your teaching staff?
Should pupils be given the right to determine courses or activities,
outside the curriculum, which they want to pursue?
Would you allow two of your staff to pursue a part-time Masters
course knowing very well that it would disrupt the running of your
school as presently you are facing shortage of staff?

Quite often school principals will face situations which pose

issues and conflicts, and in resolving these dilemmas, school
principals may find the work ethics and code of conduct are
brief and general in nature; hence, they cannot be utilised as
standards that can function for cases that are not clear cut or
grey in nature. Indeed, there are situations where references to
work ethics or code of conduct cannot provide school principals
with the answer or solution. Such a situation arises when there
is conflict between duties, or when there are competing values
in a situation. The following questions reflect such situations:
Do you, as the school principal, feel stressful if you are forced
to choose between the obligations to take of your pupils
interests and the pressure to ensure loyalty towards your peers
or staff if these two collide?
Under what conditions that you should not inform something
(relted to confidentiality, sensitive issues or right to privacy)
regarding your pupils to others (parents or other persons of
authority)? Do you have problems with confidentiality and
sensitive issues?
What do you do when you see your colleagues or staff doing
something unprofessional?

Based on the explanation regarding accountability in education from

the ethical point of view, (and the tatasusila profesion perguruan),
the implication would be that school principals have multiple
constituencies to whom an account is due, and this context implies
a difference of demand, and therefore, school principals are moral
agents. Why is this so? What the public (provider or employer, that
is, MOE) interest may demand is not necessarily reflected in private
wants or individual rights. In other words, there may be conflicts of
interests between the provider (MOE) and the other beneficiaries
(clients), as well as among the beneficiaries themselves (for
example, between colleagues and parents, between parents and
pupils, and between colleagues and pupils). Hence, school principals
have to play the role of a problem-setter and a problem-solver. The
following questions, for exmple, illustrate the kind of dilemmas
faced by school principals related to accountability in education:
Have you faced a dilemma arising from conflict between the values
of MOE (the provider) or your institution and those external values
brought along by your other beneficiaries (pupils, parents or other
stakeholders)?
Are you willing to give prime consideration to pupils above all else?

is a moral exemplar
is devoted to standards of best practice and
conditions of competence to be maintained and
promoted
has a special responsibility to be a conscientious
moral actor, to deliberately make decisions and take
actions in a distinctly moral manner
reflects upon and considers the moral consequences
of his decisions, actions, as well as the policies and
practices of his institution
has the capacity to reflect successfully on
conflicting matters, i.e. developed informed and
responsible judgments, and choose the best among
desirable options
Hence, a problem-setter and a problem -solver