There have been 37 cases over the past four years involving 27 universities in which students’ diplomas were revoked, Ministry of Education statistics showed on Sunday.
Seventeen of the cases, or about 44 percent, involved thesis plagiarism, while a majority of degree revocations happened to students studying in in-service master’s programs, the data showed.
There have been 70 university degree revocations over the past 10 years, involving students from National Taiwan University, National Chengchi University, National Tsing Hua University, National Taiwan Normal University, and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, the data showed.
The cancelation of a degree usually involves two types of students: those who fake qualification documents when enrolling at the universities and those who acquire course credits via dishonest means, the ministry said.
Another type is students whose theses, works, achievement certificates or any kind of academic and technical reports are faked, manipulated, plagiarized, or written by others, it said.
The ministry called on universities to investigate any complaints of inconsistency between students’ thesis topics and the academic specialty or expertise of the graduate institution that the student is enrolled in, saying that it constitutes academic dishonesty.
If such inconsistency is found, the graduate institute should punish responsible faculty, the ministry said, adding that otherwise it would reduce or suspend the institution’s student enrollment, or disqualify it from certain ministry subsidies.
While advisers of fraudulent theses should be held accountable, there is no mechanism in place to give university professors demerits, so universities could handle such issues by refusing to rehire implicated professors, it said.
Universities should draw up more stringent regulations and prohibit thesis advisers who have violated academic ethics from assuming similar duties or strip away compensation such as flexible salary rewards, it said.
The number of students studying in in-service master’s programs in Taiwan has increased from 225 in 1998, when the programs were first introduced, to 52,533 last year, about 30,000 of whom were enrolled in public schools, and about 10,000 in private ones, it said.
Students in in-service master’s programs can acquire their master’s degrees via diverse means, as besides a graduate thesis, they can submit a technical report, professional practice report, an achievement certificate, or give an exhibition or a performance, it said.
Private School Educators president Yu Jung-hui (尤榮輝) criticized the ecosystem of in-service master’s programs in Taiwan, saying that it has ostensibly grown into a “business,” as many people — such as elected representatives, government officials and corporate managers — attend the programs, because a graduate degree would benefit their careers.
Several universities, in return, are willing to lower the bar for academic requirements for enrollment and graduation, so that they can cash in on the demand, Yu said.
To keep a closer eye on universities, the ministry said it would supervise the performance of a university’s mechanism for reviewing graduate theses, and include the results into the factors determining how many graduate students the school can accept each year.
The results would serve as a reference when the ministry assesses the qualification of education subsidies for each university, it added.
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