Fostering Ethical Behavior and Culture in Nigeria Schools

Abstract

The paper highlights the range of ethical behaviour problems of school personnel that frequently confront educational leaders. It seeks to highlight and proffer solutions to problems associated with lack of trust, lack of proper value orientation; lack of integrity and responsibility in, and of school organization. It also seeks to recommend measures for building and sustaining school corporate ethics and values. Ethics and relevant moral values should be transmitted, promoted and protected as the school corporate culture by words of mouth indoctrination and power of tradition, and by setting forth a code of ethics and values in written document. Once set forth, they should be ingrained in the school policies, practices and actual conduct; they should not be window dressing or just a show.  Values and code of ethics should be implemented by incorporating the statement into staff and students’ training and educational programmes; giving explicit attention to values and ethics in recruiting and hiring or screening out applicants who lack compatible character traits, communication of values and ethics code to all employees and students and explaining compliance procedures.  Most important of all is strong leadership commitment and endorsement of excellent ethical examples in their own behavior – Principal must be able to reprimand those who have been laxed in monitoring and enforcing ethical compliance and must not hesitate to remove, or recommend removal of people who are guilty of violation. When successful implemented, ethics improves the organisation’s survival prospects, enhances its mission achievement opportunities and its reputation.