Students at the undergraduate level will now be taught a new subject “ethics and values.”
The Odisha higher education council has prepared a detailed syllabus for launching new subjects at Plus Three level in colleges. All universities have approved this new course in their respective Board of Studies (BOS).
Stating the objective of introducing the subject while unveiling the first part of the syllabus on Saturday, higher education minister Arun Sahoo said: “Our aim and objective is to build a good human being.”
Vice-chancellor, Utkal University, Sabita Acharya told The Telegraph, “It’s a welcome step by the government. The students are exposed to many things. After parents, it’s the teachers’ responsibility to see that students turn out to be good citizens. The new subjects will be able to achieve those goals”
The education department in a press release said: “The idea was to demonstrate the concept of contemporary ethics and value system to our students through analysis of a few selected examples of social, personal and professional conflicts that confront the youth in their daily lives.”
The release also said: “Since the course was visualised as a compulsory course for all disciplines, it was to be dealing with practical aspects of ethics and value systems applicable to day to day life and decisions. The sole objective is to develop an awareness and sensitivity in the students about their interactions with the society at large and to empower them to distinguish good from evil, justice from injustice, fair practice from unfair practice as well as motivating them to internalise their duties, obligations, and rights as responsible citizens.”
The syllabus is divided into six units and each semester will have one unit in the three-year programme. Each unit carries 25 marks. There will be 15 periods in total for units for all the streams and disciplines.
The contents of the subjects are women, social institutions, and practices, values and good citizenship, issue of drugs and tobacco addiction, ethical values for life, vulnerable sections of society-understanding their issues and environmental and techno ethics.