PhDs tarnished by power and money

China's graduate programs have developed rapidly over the past 35 years, nurturing more than 500,000 PhD graduates, Huang Baoyin, an official from Ministry of Education, said at an academic forum in Beijing. But the quantity outweighs the quality, says an article from the Beijing Times. Excerpts:

In 2008, China surpassed the United States to boast the largest number of PhD holders. However, China's increasing number of PhD graduates results from its lower admission criteria and academic quality. For example, in some Western countries, the dropout rate for PhD degrees can be 30 percent; for some subjects, the rate can be as high as 70 percent. But it seems that no PhD students ever drop out in China.

This is why some claim that China has become a PhD factory, with few masters. Some also mock China for awarding the largest number of doctorates while having no chance of winning a Nobel Prize in science. Although that argument does not stand up to scrutiny, the overall academic level of postgraduate education in China does lag behind other countries.

The rising number of PhD degrees can be attributed to people's worship of education and their desire for high degrees. For example, in hospitals, colleges, and many other professional fields, a PhD is a basic requirement for promotion. In reality, doctorate education seems to have become derailed from academia and is now bound up with different interests.

But what's worse, academia has been tarnished by the influence of power and money. As more officials are vying for promotion with their doctorates, an illegal market for selling diplomas and degrees has emerged. This has severely impaired education and academic equality.