La Ley de Inquilinato, dispone que:

As future business leaders, engineering students would stand as role models for those placed below them in industry. Since the engineer belongs to a profession whose objective is to improve the conditions of human life by changing the physical environment and the systems of human life, the engineer has a great responsibility to society. In order to express these responsibilities, soft skills are of critical importance to an engineer. Collier & Esteban (2007:19) reinforce the social responsibility of employees in that the success of businesses depends on their ‘willingness to assume responsibility for social and environmental consequences’.

not pay enough attention to the fact that engineers need to develop more than technical competence. Therefore, it is critical that a communication skills course for technical people should include environmental, cultural, economic, legal, social and ethical impacts on society to allow them to understand the great responsibility they have to communities. Tertiary establishments need to ensure that potential employers are aware that their establishments provide graduates with these critical life skills in addition to their degrees.

Narsee (2001:5) also posits that ethical communication means understanding and developing the values of the community in which we live and work. Since ethical behaviour is not merely a matter of acting correctly and doing good deeds, the role of communication, both outside and inside the organisation, is not the medium for expressing a high moral tone, but the vehicle through which we come to share an understanding about issues which concern us. Ocholla (2009:80) emphasises that rights are determined by the rights that human beings have. The social science and humanities courses will help to develop each student’s awareness of communication ethics and provide the student with an effective means of arriving at decisions about what these rights are and which reflect high moral and ethical standards. Class discussions and projects could emphasize ethical practices when making decisions and reporting information.

The discussions would have to set the standard for ethical climates in business. The leaders’ own values would play a role in determining a business’s policies and strategies (Paine, 2000:321). As such, these values would have implications for the actions of a company. South Africa has signed The Washington Accord that is ‘an international accreditation agreement for professional engineering academic degrees’. It acknowledges that part of an engineer’s training should include communication, teamwork and ethics. The knowledge base and abilities required of an engineer are reflected in the diagram below:

(Hanrahan, n.d.)

Figure 2.2 A conceptual model underlying the graduate attributes

As can be seen in Figure 2.1, Hanrahan (n.d.) states that the education of professional engineers consist of two parts: firstly the academic training in their particular fields according to an accredited engineering programme, and secondly the graduates’ abilities

to analyse problems, investigate, synthesise and design solutions, evaluate the impacts and outcomes of engineering solutions and take responsibility for decisions’ are dependent on their management and communication skills. They should be able to deal with ‘ethical, social, economic, environmental and sustainability considerations’.

Communication, teamwork and ethics as shown in Figure 2.2, are therefore recognised by the Washington Accord as being integral to an engineering qualification. In addition to the improvement of their spoken and written skills, students need to develop many life skills that will form a platform for the development of values, thinking skills and behaviour.

According to Sanyal (2004:2) now, more than ever, because of globalization, material progress and biotechnology, the human race faces a need for an ethical culture of tolerance and peace. The United Nations established three pillars for our society in their Charter in 1945: peace, justice and freedom. The specialised agency for Science, Education and Culture, UNESCO, wished to ‘promote collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture, in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world’ (UNESCO,1945). Sanyal also quotes the ‘Integrated Framework of Action’ of the Ministers of Education at their International Conference on Education in 1995 stating that:

Education, it is emphasized, must develop the ability to value freedom and the skills to meet its challenges; it must develop the ability to recognise and develop the ability to communicate, share and co-operate with others; it must develop the ability of non-violent conflict resolution and promote the development of inner peace in the minds of students so that they can establish firmly the qualities of tolerance, compassion, sharing and caring.

(UNESCO, 1995)

In recognition of the wishes of UNESCO, Harris, Pritchard and Rabins (2000) outline goals of the Online Ethics Centre of the National Academy of Engineering:

 encourage students to identify their own values and to appreciate a range of values;

 sensitize them to identifying, moral problems and dilemmas;

 help them to identify and understand problem facts;

 challenge to consider alternative actions;

 envision consequences;

 map out a ‘moral road map’; and

 choose an action that best promotes the moral community, and prompt them to reflect upon and reconsider their decisions.

of engineers.

Two of the goals of the 2004 Joint Interim report of the Council and the Commission on the progress of the Education and Training 2010 work programme are, ‘to identify and define the key competencies necessary for personal fulfilment, social cohesion and employability in a knowledge society. Secondly, to support member states' work on ensuring that by the end of initial education and training young people have developed the key competences to a level that equips them for adult life, and that adults are able to develop and update them throughout their lives (Commission of the European Communities, 2004:5)’. This will be based on the values of tolerance and mutual respect, irrespective of ethnic, cultural, and religious or language background. Today’s students will create tomorrow’s society. This type of environment will be created by the imagination of the teacher.