From the Readers

Diplomas nothing without proof

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-06 08:02

Comment on "Change way of thinking to progress" (China Daily, July 21)

Commenting on Chu Yu's book, Criticism of Chinese People's Thinking, Zhu Yuan writes: "While it is quite easy to talk about the deficiencies of the Chinese in a general manner it starts to become painful when one includes oneself as part of the problem."

He then quotes Lin Yutang's observation that, "all Chinese share a fondness for moral platitudes and vague, abstract terms such as benevolence, kindliness, propriety and loyalty".

I have wondered about the same problem myself and the alarming fact that while most Chinese claim they either admire, follow or worship Confucius and Confucianism, I have met few educated Chinese who can actually quote what Confucius is claimed to have said in The Analects beyond some vague references to loving one's family.

While this may seem rather irrelevant in the larger scheme of things we can see this morally lax and ambiguous attitude in panorama when it comes to the fake PhD's and the "fancy foreign diploma" scandal.

All the rage and righteousness has been focused on Tang Jun and other high flyers but no attention has been paid to those who allowed and even encouraged this to happen.

That is, who bothered to check the credentials of any of these PhD's and diplomas? I am quite certain it wasn't any Chinese college, university or any other organization, for that matter.

When I came to China to teach I brought all the things with me that were necessary to get a professional position in any developed country.

No university or college in China, however, was interested in my academic transcript, checking the validity of my PhD or sought to contact any of the six professional referees listed in my curriculum vitae. Each educational institution I have worked for in China just accepted what I said and wrote on face value.

In such an environment it is no surprise that fake credentials, plagiarism and paying experts to take other students' exams and IELTS are rampant!

Ross Grainger, via e-mail

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(China Daily 08/06/2010 page9)