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BIG NAME: Tang Jun, President and CEO of New Huadu Industrial Group, delivers a speech at the Fifth China International Service Outsourcing Cooperation Conference in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, on June 18. Tang apologized for falsifying his Ph.D. degree (CFP) |
Recent academic frauds brought to light loopholes in China's overseas talent recruitment process.
Xiong Bingqi, Vice President of the Beijing-based 21st Century Education Research Institute, said in his blog that although China's overseas talent recruitment programs have rigorous application procedures, these procedures tend to be brushed aside.
Xiong said that in the case of Lu and Fu, it should be very easy to detect forgery, since China's Ministry of Education offers accreditation service to help employers to ascertain the authenticity of foreign diplomas and degrees.
But Xiamen University did not verify Fu's diploma with the education authority. The university admitted a lapse in the recruitment process. It explained that in 2004, Fu was hired as an adjunct professor who was required to teach in the university for only one month in a year. Since this was not a full-time faculty position, the university did not ask Fu to have her doctoral degree certified by the Ministry of Education.
In 2008, Fu was hired as a full-time professor. By that time, she had already taught in Xiamen University for four years, and the school still did not verify her credentials.
"In Lu's case, the publications he listed are in biomedical science, whereas Lu's major is engineering and material science, which should have aroused evaluators' common sense suspicions," Xiong said.
Another way to verify the credentials of overseas returnees is to contact their overseas referrals, said Yang Ling, a professor at Xiamen University.
In addition, if a recruiting university asks internal or external experts in an applicant's field to personally interview the applicant, it is not easy for a forger to get away with the misconduct, Rao Yi, Dean of Peking University's School of Life Sciences, told China Youth Daily.
Then why didn't these recruiting universities check candidates' credentials carefully?
Xiong believes it is because involved universities are too eager to recruit talented people from overseas and have them qualify for such programs as the 1,000 Talent Program.
"Entry into national and local overseas talent recruiting programs is a great honor not only to individuals but also to the universities," Xiong said.
Moreover, Xiong said that since overseas talent programs are administered by various levels of government, the programs are vulnerable to bureaucracy and formalism.
As the people found with fraudulent achievements fell from the altar of fame, some people felt sorry for them.
Yu Hailiang, a professor at Shenyang University in northeastern Liaoning Province told China Youth Daily that although Fu did not have a doctoral degree from Columbia University, judging from the quality of papers she published in Nature and other science journals, she should be able to qualify for a doctoral degree.
Xiamen University said in the past three years, Fu instructed 10 postgraduate students, published six academic papers, obtained four patents, and presided over research projects.
Two years ago, a debate on ability and credibility was touched off when Fang accused Tang Jun, President of Microsoft China from 2002 to 2004 who was popularly dubbed "the most successful employee" in China, for falsifying his Ph.D. degree.
Tang claimed that he had a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in his popular 2008 autobiography My Success Can Be Replicated, but Fang said that he could not find Tang's name in the university's alumni list nor an index of doctoral dissertations. Tang denied making such a claim himself. The book's publisher later issued a correction, blaming the book's co-author for the error.
Tang told the public his doctoral degree was from another California-based university, the Pacific Western University. The latter university, Fang pointed out, has been named a diploma mill by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
After keeping silent about the scandal for two years, on June 19 while giving a lecture in Beijing, Tang openly apologized for making a mistake in buying the degree with $3,000. He also cautioned a young audience not to imitate him in doing so.
After Tang was accused of fabricating his educational background, his supporters argued that he did not need a diploma to prove his ability, which had already been proven by his professional achievements.
Yet what at question here is not one's ability but credibility. Wang Zhizhen, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that one's success or ability cannot mask their misconduct.
Email us at: wanghairong@bjreview.com | 
