Your Education is Just a Formality
Today I was thinking about a topic for my new article when, unexpectedly, the right thing fell straight into my lap. I almost wish it didn’t because you’re trying to ignore this particular issue but sometimes it’s simply virtually impossible. While scrolling through Instagram, I ran across a profile which was basically a service selling pre-ordered school essays, bachelor and master theses. Just name the overall subject and deadline and we’re in business. This scheme obviously works because there are lots of people who deal with education only because they need that piece of paper for a job they don’t care about but it’s fixed and the paycheck is decent.
There are even students bragging about the quality of medical research papers that they paid for and their professors didn’t suspect a thing. Imagine ending up on their operating table. I’d rather be opened up by Jack the Ripper than one of those charlatans. Makes you feel like a fool for trying to do it properly since teachers are aware of it.
They can’t or won’t do anything about it and it’s all a mockery of what education should be about. It’s not like donating sperm: you know exactly what you’re dealing with and it comes down to how much of it you can take before you snap. My friends working in education know it’s a losing battle. Only a serious reform can influence it but that’s a political question few are willing to deal with.
The system we were schooled in is perfect for pub quizzes: you’re familiar with details and things you don’t really need in your professional life yet you’re an IT engineer who can name all the countries of the former Eastern bloc or tell the difference between Shakespeare and Shaggy. We like to mock Americans for thinking Queen Elizabeth is from Egypt.
But why do we need the information anyway? I don’t need to know how many Kardashian sisters there are yet they’re in your face all the time. This is the reason why there’s a market for academic ghost writing. A new approach is long overdue. If important steps in the educational process are treated as just a hurdle on the way to finishing line, we’ll be left with experts who have no idea what they’re talking about but they certainly look the part.
Recently a scandal unfolded where Sebija Izetbegović, head of the state hospital in Sarajevo turned out to have a CV lacking details about parts of her education. Her academic hopping between Sarajevo, Zagreb and Istanbul left a few blanks on her academic resume which collapsed with a domino effect after her MA thesis was revoked.
Now she’s like a fish on dry land, squiggling and struggling to save face but at least for now that ship has sailed. The humiliation provided satisfaction for people that were dealt a harder card in life and you can hardly judge them for it. Ever since the French Revolution, few things are as joyful as giving the ruling classes a taste of their own medicine. Or in this particular case, free treatment by an internationally unqualified doctor.
The aforementioned gostwriters on Instagram have a following of more that 7,000 people, but presumably because their target audience isn’t as big as it would be if their native language was English. To be fair, there’s so much more to the issue than just the scandal that put into the headlines.
Some public universities formally collaborate with unacredited schools, and yet their degrees still hold some weight though not nearly as much as it should to be taken completely seriously. If local education would be compared to a supermodel, you could say it’s like Kate Moss during heroin chic in 1990s. The difference to Eton is merely a lack of English tradition.
There are teachers who give 110% and make a difference in the life of their students by creating a standard they’ll try to keep up with in their own future as well. But those are few and far between, otherwise there would be no market for forged papers. Society is responsible for the perspective with which we view important things like education.
If there’s nothing to suggest you can’t get away with bending rules and cheating your way into success, people are going to do it. When there are no consequences to actions, it’s not a surprise you are less likely to behave properly. The story with the disgraced doctor created too much noise to be dismissed merely as a Clintonian nothingburger. This is more like the whopper at Burger King.
What’s more, she’s been stripped even of her PhD in the meantime as well. Being the wife of a high-ranking political official, the quicksand of embarassment she’s now drowning in is out there for everyone to see. In the long-lasting saga of corruption and quid-pro-quos in local high education, this is only the most prominent example among many others. Young people I talk to are aware that academic criteria exists for a reason. But when those are betrayed and toyed with, even students who want to play by the rulebook lose their hopes.
In this Socratic nightmare, the democratic idea is perverted to its limits: the rules might be proscribed for all, but there’s a small group that has the privilege to bend them. It’s almost like those murder mysteries where a small mistake reveals the culprit that pulled the trigger.
Had it not been for one step too far, this would all be water under the bridge by now and we’d go back to the usual anxiety-inducing headlines we’re already used to. Like our ambassador in Prague who doesn’t even have a bachelor degree but has promised to graduate over there. I’m sure she’s busy with it in between protocol obligations, but you know I’m joking.
In the movie Indecent Proposal a financially desperate Demi Moore gets a proposal from a billionaire that could get her into his bed but out of money troubles. I was never approached with an offer like that nor would I take it seriously because the only thing that looks good on me is my face. One time though I was offered a painting in exchange for a college paper on Dante’s Inferno. It was indeed a sort of an inferno to decide what to do. Not that it wasn’t obvious, just a matter how much I needed the reward.
The world of higher education is an inferno of its own kind. A bubble of criteria, discourse and hierarchy on a safe distance from reality yet insisting on playing a decisive part in it through networking with politics and powerful influencers none of which are primarily rooted in social media.
Now that skills are increasingly praised over degrees, it comes as a surprise that you would still need conventional channels to earn a good living. In fact, I’m convinced that a plumber with a loyal customer base earns more money than someone in a high academic position. Because you can’t unplug your drain pipe with your degree.
I have a pal who’s a travelling pizzaiolo and whose bank account probably matches the size of his gut by now. If he opened a pizzeria in Harvard, ghost-writers and professors alike would be patrons at the place, I’m sure. And one night, after one too many drinks, the writer would accidentally spill the beans about his own patrons, leading to a headline or two on the campus and consequences in the classroom. For now this remains in the realm of wishful thinking. Because without principles, there are no rules, and all that remains is anarchy. In an age of skills, it takes special skills to turn anarchy into a rule instead the exception. Where’s there’s a will, there’s always a way.
If you’re sitting on someone else’s laurels, you’re going down as soon the leaves start to shake. I’m sure the pseudo-academic cartel on Instagram is just a drop in the ocean. But it might be a good place to start. Trees don’t stop growing just because you ignore them.
This tree of deceit is definitely one of those that should be cut at the root. It’s not going to be easy because there’s way too many of them to deal with. A school is only as good as its reputation. Something so abstract and yet so frail, it depends on many different factors to be upheld and maintained.
There’s a reason why universities are called alma mater. It’s the source of your values and ideas and a place where you develop long-lasting social circles. And it’s up to all of us whether it will be a private daycare center for the elite or a gateway to equality and inclusion.
If a student feels bad for not being able to afford a forged Master’s degree, we have failed to reiterate something so simple that it wouldn’t need to be but obviously it does: a university is not Walmart, where you pick something from the grocery isle and pay at the checkout. Actually, when I think about it, it kind of is. Because you need a bank loan for it, you pick a preferred subject and work on it till the checkout also known as graduation. Similarly, both the checkout clerks and graduates wear special uniforms.
Dwelling on this suddenly makes me want to move into a mountain convent where monks walk barefoot and spend their days in prayer and hiding an erection that refuses to give up in spite of the self-imposed celibacy. You don’t really need a convent for it. Just a digital detox and getting off dating apps. Chatbots are now able to reinvent your whole biography, and a plumber can become an acclaimed anthropologist.
If this is the algorythm of the future, pseudo-academics are the least of our worries. Environment isn’t the only threat we are facing. Even worse is being exposed to people whose expertise is as impressive as a piece of pineapple on a pizza. They know the jig is up. But they also know it no longer matters anyway. Otherwise you wouldn’t need a pidgeon with bad diarrhoea to remember it’s time to clean the windshield again.
