‘Significant anomalies’: China tightens scrutiny over dubious degrees from overseas
- Chinese students on edge after education authorities put 13 lower-ranked institutions on verification list over questionable diplomas
China has ratcheted up scrutiny of degrees from lower-ranked universities overseas in a bid to crack down on academic short-cuts often taken to boost careers.
A total of 13 universities in the Philippines, Mongolia and India have been singled out for more stringent verification of master’s and PhD degrees, the Chinese Service Centre for Scholarly Exchange (CSCSE), under the Ministry of Education, announced last week.
The centre is responsible for certifying academic qualifications obtained overseas, which many Chinese students use to get an edge in the highly competitive domestic job market, or to apply for further studies or household registration, known as hukou, in big cities.
Usually the verification process takes 10-20 working days but the centre said it would take at least 60 days to assess qualifications from those universities, citing “significant anomalies” found in application data for master’s and doctoral degrees from those institutions.
The centre said six of the universities were in the Philippines, five in Mongolia and two in India.
