Online Issues

Ethics is essential in forming and impacting many aspects of human life, including people’s beliefs and behaviours. Since the ethics ensures a fruitful teaching-learning process, promote a polite and encouraging institutional climate, and strengthen the bond between educators and students, ethical values are essential for educators. Using a validated Likert-scale questionnaire grounded in literature and expert review, the study employed a descriptive correlational research design. The study sought to understand perspectives of teachers from of Baltistan on practicing ethical values and assess their adherence to these values. The findings revealed a high overall commitment to ethical values, with a mean adherence score of 0.907.Among identified dimensions, “Devotion and Critical Thinking” had the highest mean (0.893), indicating a strong faculty alignment with intellectual and professional integrity. In contrast, “Inclusiveness and Empathy” with the lowest mean score (0.736), highlighted a need for development in promoting an academic climate that is more inclusive and empathetic. Correlational analysis indicated no statistically significant relationships between ethical adherence and demographic variables (gender, age, marital status, education level, or political orientation). The study underscores the importance of reinforcing inclusive and empathetic practices in university settings and recommends the development of targeted professional development programs to address these gaps. This study provides practically insightful framework for educators, policymakers, curriculum designers, and community leaders to strengthen ethical culture and address ethical challenges in higher education.

Identity politics and ethno-political mobilization have attracted enormous scholarly attention. But despite its multiethnic complexity, Pakistan has received little attention in literature. Furthermore, only a few studies have focused on understanding the phenomenon of identity politics through the lens of nationalism theories, such as primordialism and instrumentalism. Hence, this study set out to determine whether the ethnopolitical demands for the creation of new provinces in Pakistan’s Saraiki and Hazara regions are based on primordialist emotions and sentiments or if ethnic affiliations are being politicized for political and socioeconomic gains. It uses primary evidence gathered through a public opinion survey. The findings show that no single theory adequately explains the ethnopolitical mobilization for territorial autonomy in the selected regions of Pakistan. Furthermore, the comparative findings indicate some similarities as well as differences between the two cases. While the Saraiki province demand is primarily grounded on regional disparity, the Hazara province movement is more concerned about the identification and preservation of Hazara identity. It is argued that the territorial aspect of Saraiki identity has contributed to its growth and long-term survival. However, the Hazara identity has failed to grow since it relied solely on the Hazara identity while ignoring territorial issues. Hence, it can be inferred that the primordial impetus for the masses to mobilize politically is not long-lasting, insofar as the political agenda revolves around the protection or promotion of socio-cultural value systems and linguistic distinctiveness. In fact, ethnopolitical mobilization gets momentum once the ethnic elites politicize and manipulate ethnic identities.