The link between deterioration of academic degrees and poverty is very strong in the former Soviet block

This article describes the corruption in the system of graduate education, which grants academic degrees. Author proposes to start creating a network of professionals to promote alternative education system, which compiles with the requirements of the Western PhD.

Postgraduate degrees are now being offered or bought, not earned all over the former Soviet Union, especially in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The situation has become critical. Postgraduates still learn the same literary content studied during the Soviet Union. There is no natural scholastic progress. Examination commissions have become a gate, blocking true researchers and passing those who can quote verbatim a few Marxist idioms. The tragic result is inadequate graduates with doctoral degrees, who in their turn, are coming back to the education system as professors. These professors become a filter for blocking liberally minded and creative students, who dare challenge their culture.

Another heritage from the Soviet system is the practice of ordering articles and dissertations for a few bucks or other services. An emerging class of «dissertation writers» supply politicians, professors, and businessmen with a steady flow of acclaimed articles. The professor only has to put his name on the paper. This kind of academic corruption has hindered learning, corrupted many minds, and made the Kyrgyzstan’s Higher Education absolutely absurd.

It’s time to initiate an alternative accrediting and degree granting system for the former Soviet Union, and I propose to start building a network of alternative education policy makers for the former Soviet Republics. Please register at http://cie.netifrms.com if you are interested in the topic.

Askarbek Mambetaliev, June, 2008, Kyrgyzstan