Buy a doctorate and put our academic credibility on the line
The issue is not one merely concerning the careers of individuals, but the credibility of the Irish higher educational system as a whole.
If the Taoiseach thinks it acceptable for his advisers to buy doctorates, why should our top Irish graduates (among them many brilliant students with years of hard work behind them) bother to enrol for PhD courses at Irish universities which will involve many more years (in my case it was eight) of demanding research?
We have got used to serious underfunding at Trinity College in Dublin over many years, but how can we be expected to compete internationally with universities in America (Harvard, Yale, etc) and Britain (Oxford, Cambridge) if the falsification of PhDs is treated in so lighthearted a fashion at the highest governmental levels in Ireland?
We ought to be in no doubt about the seriousness of the offence.
In some American states it is (not unreasonably) a criminal offence. I had thought up to about a week or so ago that the advertisements for bought degrees (along with Viagra and watches) on the internet was a joke since I did not really believe it was a problem for us. Now there is no doubt that we do have a problem, and I congratulate the Irish Examiner in general, and Michael O’Farrell in particular, for treating the matter with the seriousness that it deserves.
The buying of degrees is much worse than plagiarism for it threatens the whole system of awarding of degrees rather than the work of individual scholars. What must the many Irish students with PhDs be thinking today of the value placed by the Government on their work and their achievements when the falsification of degrees is not a matter for immediate resignation when it comes to light?
The crisis of child abuse in the Catholic Church is a crisis not so much of the deviance of individual priests but the betrayal of the victims by those in high position in the institution.
We cannot allow the hard-earned reputation of Irish universities to be undermined by the benign acceptance of fraudulent PhDs. We must show the world by our actions that there can be no comparison between a PhD from Trinity (or UCC, or UCD, or UCG) and Pacific Western University.
Dr Gerald Morgan
School of English
Trinity College
Dublin 2
