From Programmers to Change-Makers: Mr. Mukesh Kumar on Instilling Ethical Awareness in Students

What do you think is more valuable in the long run: teaching students to program their creations efficiently or teaching them to understand the societal impact of the software they create?

While programming efficiency is a crucial skill, understanding the societal impact of the software they create is far more valuable for students in the long run. Efficiency can be improved over time and several resources online can help them achieve better efficiency, but the ability to foresee how technology affects people, communities, and the world requires a deeper level of awareness that can be instilled in them only by a teacher in their early stages of education. By teaching students to consider the broader implications of their work, we prepare them to build technology that not only functions well but also serves society responsibly and ethically.

Software doesn’t exist in a vacuum—it touches nearly every aspect of our lives, from healthcare and education to communication and privacy.  When they understand the potential positive and negative consequences of their work, they are more likely to understand the power they hold which equips them with a sense of responsibility for the world they are building. 

Today’s technology is often intertwined with complex ethical challenges—think about data privacy, AI bias, or the environmental footprint of massive data centers. Students who are trained to think critically about these issues will be better equipped to navigate and solve these problems in the future. Programming efficiency is a technical skill, but ethical decision-making is a life skill and one that’s increasingly vital in our interconnected world.

When students are taught to understand the broader consequences of their work, they become more than just coders—they become thoughtful innovators. In today's day and age, there are many transformer-based large language models, ready to efficiently program and solve problems. What separates our students from them is this sense of empathy and ethical reasoning which ensures that they prioritize solutions that are sustainable and ethically sound.  

That said, programming efficiently is certainly a valuable skill—it leads to better performance, scalability, and reduced resource consumption. However, efficiency can always be improved with experience, new tools, or better algorithms. It’s a technical mastery that evolves and develops over time. The ability to write efficient code will always be part of a strong foundation in computer science, but it’s the mindset of considering the societal impact that will drive lasting, meaningful innovation.

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