Ethics and Morality

I may not be the best person to talk about this, but this semester, we have been extremely careful about ethics while doing everything. Especially in the coursework procedure but what happened today made me realize how much we Maldivians lack in discipline (myself included).

Yesterday we had to make slides without any pictures because we couldn’t contact anyone from Wataniya to get permission to use their logo. A semester ago, we would never have even thought about permissions. I am proud to say that we have come a long way from those days. But today, a lecturer from FE, lets name her Ms. X for now (a higher secondary personnel from the ministry I suppose) along with two more lecturers came to give us survey forms to fill about financial plans and money matters. One of the lecturers introduced herself and asked us politely that they would appreciate if we took time to fill the form. I was rather happy because we’ve just learnt about ethics in Marketing Research class the week before. Then she and the other lecturer left, and Ms. X gave us the survey forms. We were halfway through the first page when she started meddling with the form filling process. She came to some students and asked them that they should truthfully write, and went as far as pointing out someone’s income figure saying it was too low. She started asking about course fee and that we should write it honestly, and if not she can check it from the registry or something like that.

While I was filling, Z my classmate was next to me, and he wrote something in his parents occupation, and Ms. X came and asked him what it was. By then, I was so angry and sad that this is the kind of teachers in MNU. After I filled it and gave it back to her, she read my form! It was supposed to be private but she read my atoll, and asked who’s form it was. She then pointed to me and told me my A in RAA looked like an O, and that it looks like Roo, not Raa. She went all the way to ask me if I write my exam papers that horribly and told me that I probably get low marks because I have poor handwriting.

I felt ashamed, but more than that I felt sad that she had no idea how wrong she was to invade my privacy. Anything I write in the form, is supposed to be private and confidential, specially when it was about financial capabilities. I didn’t argue with her, I just stayed there while she finished telling me how horrible it is, then went to someone else and asked them to fill a sector that they didn’t fill.

I know, I don’t have perfect handwriting and the heart to tell her how wrong it is to force people to fill forms. But it made me realize how all of us are so determined to make sure we get to stay in the top, we have to be all mean and forget about things such as honestly kindness, moral values, etc..

Being a business student, I learn new things about ethics everyday, and this experience will hopefully help me be a better person when I conduct my marketing research for the assignment and applying things in my day to day life.