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| Tuesday, 30 December 2003 |
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Bogus doctorates and bogus professorships Prof. Sunanda Mahendra The passing away of venerable Soma, gives rise to some of the significant academic issues that trouble the common reader. We see time and again several issues pertaining to the conferring and awarding of 'doctorates' and 'professorships' to individuals from time to time by mushroom organizations and pseudo academic institutions. All of a sudden we see and hear people honoured with doctorates, with pictures adorned with cloaks. When questioned the calibre of the awarding institution happens to be manned by unqualified people who are for the most part running a boutique like institutions gathering money from fairly known people in the pretext of meeting the expenses of their business dealings. In this manner we observe that people connected with culture fields such as music, media, education, films, radio and television, business, tuition classes have obtained doctorates, and the so-called recipients are shamelessly using the title 'Dr.' for several monetary gains. I know of a journalist, who also happened to be a lyric writer got people to call him 'Dr' and add the tag 'Dr' before his name in all cultural matters. In fact it is said that when the 'Dr' tag is dropped the particular person gets angry and would raise a big cry to say that 'I am a Dr. and I insist you use it!' But to the best of my knowledge a 'Dr' honour is either earned via research which is titled 'PhD' or Doctor of philosophy or 'DPhil'. This is one side of the matter. The other is the conferring of a doctorate on the part of a university for a particular lifelong achievement may it be music, art, film making or technology to cite a few. Dr. Martin Wickramasinghe, Dr. Lester James Peries, Dr. Premasiri Khemadasa, Dr. Amaradeva, Dr. Paranavitana are a few who have thus achieved this status for their contribution, which is being assessed by someone in the academic sphere. This is a factor that cannot be easily undermined for there is a marking scheme accepted by scholars. Doctorates could be earned from universities only. The very same universities are responsible for conferring the same on particular individuals who so are deemed as worthy. This point is laid down in the constitutions of each university. Those who fail to understand these facts feel that a doctorate could be conferred to any person, for we never check the unit concerned from where one gets it. I once saw a news item that read as one gaining 'professorship' from a university titled 'International university of development studies'. As I was interested on knowing where the university was situated, I made several enquiries to find that such a unit was none existent and the person (the so-called recipient) happened to create one for himself. I am also known to a certain 'padanama' or 'foundation' as it is called which confers annually 'doctorates' to individuals. I made enquiries on this matter as well, and found that the so-called director calls himself a 'professor' and is solely responsible for making an annual list of recipients from whom he collects at least Rs. 80,000 as initial expenses. Wilfully enough, we are a nation of academics, who keep their mouths shut, for other wise the result would be severe. We are forced to keep our gaps shut. These bogus doctors and bogus professors are respected by the common man, as they are ignorant of these psudo dealings. If you raise a protest cry someone behind you would ask, why do you want to make such a big issue on these trivialities?' and the matter dissolves then and there. But I don't think the issue looks so simple. The university grants council and/or Ministry of Education should be vigilant of such bogus activities in the name of education. My friend Lucien Rajakarunanayake said the other day that there is one medical doctor who awards doctorates annually through a private organization. There are quite a number of deserving individuals, who should be awarded doctorates by the universities. It is the duty of the University Grants Commission (UGC) or the Ministry of Higher Education to make it known to the public the list of 'genuine' recipients and a list of gratuitous recipients. The condition is equivalent to the calibre of quack medical practitioners, who from time to time kill patients who come to take treatments. They earn a living posing themselves as 'doctors', but in actual reality they know next to nothing about medicine. This is what happens around us. I sincerely feel that however clever Rev. Soma was, he too was misguided by some quacks. In the past terms like, 'Guru' 'Mahakavi', Pandit 'Visharadha' were added as terms of honourable address for people who were well versed in a particular branch of knowledge. The masses knew who they were, and the titles were never polluted as the case of pseudo doctors and pseudo professors! |
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