Via the NYT: Rioting in China Over Label on College Diplomas
many students paid the college’s rich tuition — at $2,500 a year one of the highest in China — primarily because Shengda promised that their diplomas would bear the name of its parent, Zhengzhou University, a more prestigious national-level institution, and not mention Shengda at all.So when the graduating class of 2024 received diplomas that read “Zhengzhou University Shengda Economic, Trade and Management College,” students erupted last Friday, ransacking classrooms and administrative offices, shattering car windows, scuffling with the police and staging one of the most prolonged student protests since the 1989 pro-democracy uprising that filled Tiananmen Square in central Beijing.
[…]
“We bought a Mercedes-Benz and they delivered a Santana,” said one angry graduate, Wang Guangying, referring to a low-priced Volkswagen sedan made in China. “By that night, school officials had totally lost control.”
I find this story quite fascinating, as it is an extreme version of issues we face within higher education in the United States, specifically the ideas of getting a degree as credentialing for the sole purpose of resume enhancement and the pernicious problem of viewing one’s education as a commodity that is purchased (and the commensurate “student as customer” model).
Indeed, this story reminds me of a story I commented upon some time back about students attending the Harvard extensions program. While the overall context was quite different, the bottom line was what the same: the student’s ultimate goal was about what school’s name was on the diploma.
In the context of Chinese higher education, given the obvious corruption in this case, it also brings to mind the story I blogged on plagiarism by Chinese academics. There was also a recent NPR story that debunked the notion that China was producing far more engineers than the United States (in response one of those typical hysterical “we are falling behind” stories). The story noted that much of what was going on in China was the credentialing of under-trained individuals who were classified by the state as “engineers” but who were hardly qualified to hold that title. While not directly related to this story, it does fit into the overall situation of Chinese academia.
So much for the “they’re the main threat to our security” meme we keep seeing. It’ll be a miracle if they are still around in anything resembling thier present form a generation from now. That’s a very good thing given the nature of the regime.
Comment by Honza Prchal — Thursday, June 22, 2024 @ 9:04 am
People don’t riot because they’re poor. People don’t riot because they feel cheated.
People riot because they are being oppressed.
Comment by KipEsquire — Thursday, June 22, 2024 @ 11:27 am
Help! Help! I’m being repressed! (Ahhhh, Python.)
For some reason, I was reading “diplomats” as “dolphins”. So I was wondering about what the dolphins were rioting about . . . then I read the title correctly.
Comment by B. Minich, PI — Thursday, June 22, 2024 @ 4:26 pm
Graduation Can Be A Riot
…especially in China.
Trackback by The Moderate Voice — Friday, June 23, 2024 @ 12:18 am