Telos of higher education: a character builder or a qualification provider

Abstract

The last few decades were marked with several events that denote lack of morality that allowed the display of unethical behaviour. The latest is when our global world was rocked with the markets meltdown that dramatically transformed into the 2008/2009 global financial crisis. There have been calls for revamping the higher education to meet the challenges of the risk society we are living in. Following Enron’s, scholars (e.g. Ghoshal 2005 amongst others), have attempted to analyse the reason behind the immoral or the unethical decisions taken by some of our business leaders. Swanson and Frederick go even further to pose the question ‘are business schools silent partners in the corporate crime’. This presentation will commence by providing a backdrop of the current situation, moving into questioning the telos of higher education, and whether higher education is an end in itself or is it a mean to build a better character of current students who are the future leaders of our society and international community, providing some pointers as to how higher education can take positive steps towards achieving this goal.