The increasing favour shown by local officials towards the Master of Public Administration degree (MPA) has sometimes put Gu Jianguang, the professor in charge of the programme at a prestigious local university, in a difficult position.

The MPA, designed to prepare professionals for their entry or advancement in the field of public affairs, attracts a large proportion of its students from government sectors.

"It is a good thing if the cadres apply to study with the goal of improving their own capabilities. But if they come just so the MPA can embellish their records and ensure a promotion, then that can be a disaster," said another MPA professor, refusing to be identified. "Yet, unfortunately, there are always some officials belonging to the latter type."

Some officials exert their influence to require universities to lower their entry standards. And in China, the system allows looser control on graduation than on entry means that so long as a student has entered the course, he is almost certain of a degree.

The country has recently transferred the MPA enrolling rights to each university qualified to teach the programme. But the school must publicize the number of students, the average entrance marks and the lowest entrance mark on the Internet. If the school has for three consecutive years rated as the last in terms of entrance marks, it will lose its MPA teaching qualification.

Despite the limitations, central control is becoming looser. It is now up to the university to resist corruption of its degree courses.

Yet it seems that not all universities consider the issuing of corrupt degrees as being wrong.

The ongoing heated debate on the issue has split universities providing MPA programmes into two groups.

One side holds that the MPA is designed for public servants. The enrolling of some high-ranking officials can help to enhance the reputation of the university.

The tougher side of the debate represented by Gu holds that the lowering of requirements in favour of officials will, in the long term, degrade the value of the MPA, and the reputation of universities.

However, fixing the problem always seems easier to say than to do.

Sometimes the schools have to yield to the pressure from their "official" students and, at other times, to the temptation of the huge benefits offered by them.

Fast-track Learning

"Absence from classes is a frequent occurrence with many of these 'official' students," said a cadre from the Shanghai Public Security Bureau who is pursuing MPA study at East China Normal University, another famous Shanghai university.

"Most schools demand that the classes that a student misses must not be more than one third of the total and that the average marks for examinations mustn't be lower than 75 points. Otherwise they will not get the degree. Yet if your influence is great enough, all these restrictions are just meaningless," he said, refusing to be identified.

Some of his classmates, who are officials in neighbouring cities, have also come to the university for the MPA. But as they live faraway, the university decided to compact one-term of study into one and a half months. Students work from morning to night in the intensive course.

Yet, even if they do not miss a single class, whether they really learn something from such intensive study is doubtful.

Jason Li, a computer teacher with a local university, remembered once teaching a high-ranking official computer skills.

"He had met all the other requirements for a promotion except a computer certificate when he came to our university," Li said.

"He promised to pay a huge amount so long as we helped him to pass the exam, and our school leader paid great attention to this 'mutually beneficial' affair and asked me to try my best help him pass the test."

Li collected different types of questions from past exams and spent one week teaching the official from morning to night.

The official passed at last and got his promotion. But Li said he would definitely forget all the things he learned in less than a week.

"Although there are no lines proving a direct link between promotion and degrees or diplomas, a higher education background is seen as an important factor when appraising the capability of cadres," said Wang Xiaoqin from the Shanghai Personnel Bureau.

That is why corruption degrees and diplomas is an ever-present phenomenon.

Corruption Diplomas

Compared with people who illegally buy a fake diploma from criminal vendors to help them find a better job, the actions of officials is harder to detect because the diploma they hold is a real one and is acknowledged by the Ministry of Education. The bad effect it can have is also more serious than the actions of desperate job hunters.

"Apart from the serious effect on the social appraisal and credit system caused by fake diplomas, the special identity of government officials will finally result in the general distrust of the public," said Li Wenhai, a professor from Renmin University, when interviewed by Southern Weekend newspaper.

"It is easy for people to imagine an official who has a fake diploma may using his power to falsify other things. If the matter is not well treated, it will, in the long term, affect the prosperity and stability of society."

Fortunately the country has detected the problem. A nationwide drive to check the validity of diplomas and degrees held by cadres is underway.

After a period of sifting, officials with dubious qualifications are emerging one after another.

The latest news is that some 55 officials in Shenzhen were found to have forged diplomas. There were also about 825 doubtful diplomas.

In Chengdu of Central China's Sichuan Province, 450 cadres were found to have dubious education certificates.

Many of the problems found were to do with cadres and official exaggerating their education background. Some claimed that they had obtained bachelor degrees from full-time university study when, in fact, they had gone to correspondence school.

Some officials have only a certificate saying they had completed a graduate courses but they had written in their resumes that they had a master's degree.

As for those who bribe a university to gain entry and then have their secretaries take classes and write papers for them -- not rare in China -- they are almost impossible to detect.

"So far Shanghai hasn't found any of these problems," said Chen Wei, from the Human Resources Development Department of the Shanghai Personnel Bureau. His department does a large part of the work in checking up on educational qualifications in the city.

As far as Chen is concerned, officials with fake or dubious educational qualifications is not a problem in Shanghai.

However, several universities interviewed by the Shanghai Star, said they would give a green light to influential government officials.

"Usually we don't check a government cadre's diploma until we receive a report from the public," Chen said.

"So far we haven't received any reports of this nature."

Nowadays, with the help of the Internet which puts information about all students from universities on Websites, the problem of detecting fake diplomas is easier to handle. But rooting out corruption by 'official' students going for diplomas, seems to have a long way to go.
 
(Shanghai Star August 28, 2003)