Editorial: The dishonourable doctorate

CHENNAI: The intent behind honorary degrees may be lofty and bona fide, but its use and efficacy is increasingly becoming dodgy and often defeating the purpose itself.

The system is so vitiated that it is becoming difficult to separate the chaff from the grain with the proliferation of shady entities which are literally selling fake honorary doctorates to gullible people who are prone to seeking dubious distinction and recognition that a doctorate is supposed to bring with it. The DT Next exposé published on Wednesday blew the lid off an ongoing scam involving the sale of honorary doctorate degrees for hefty sums of money.

Originally, reputed educational institutions were awarding honorary doctorates to eminent personalities as recognition of their contribution to their respective fields and have had a lasting impact.

It was meant to showcase role models for students. Many institutions have a rigorous internal process, including documentary evidence, for nomination and selection. The awardee’s life and service is said to be similar to years of dedicated academic work, which fetches one an academic doctorate.

Even in genuine cases, there is a problem of nomenclature. The honorary doctorate given to eminent personalities is more like an award and less like an academic degree. To precisely avoid such confusion, the honorary doctorates are told to add the parenthetical suffix “hc” which stands for honoris causa, (Latin for "for the honor") clearly indicating its true nature.

In fact, quite often those who really deserve an honorary doctorate may not actually need it, given their accomplishments which speak for themselves and therefore may not need validation by an educational institution. Also, many of them many not find any practical utility like leveraging it for making new connections or networking.

Another related issue is the perceptions of bias. Despite having wise persons with integrity in the selection committee, it is often felt that the list of awardees does not have due representation of accomplished persons belonging to marginalised and disadvantaged sections of the society. There is maybe a need to redefine the criteria to make the process more inclusive.

But the bigger problem relates to the selling of honorary doctorates, which are either fake or not worth the paper they are printed on. The culprits are dubious organisations against whom stringent action is not taken. According to experts, giving fake degrees is akin to forgery and cheating and should attract relevant provisions of the law.

That the problem persists indicates that there has been some laxity in dealing with these scamsters, partly because people do not come forward and admit that they were naïve enough to be scammed by a snake oil salesperson. Another reason is that it is seen a white collar crime at best and therefore not taken seriously. It becomes more difficult to curb scams which either operate in the virtual world or from foreign countries.

In order to maintain the sanctity of honorary doctorates given by reputed educational institutions, there should be detailed and rigorous guidelines for nomination and selection of awardees. Special provisions should be there to prevent the misuse of the honorary doctorate system to award it either for undeserving candidates or for political and commercial reasons.

The University Grants Commission, in the past, had mooted such an idea. A cap on the number of doctorates an entity could award would help enhance its value. There is, no doubt, a strong argument in favour of not only regulating the awarding of honorary doctorates, but there is also considerable merit in doing away with it altogether.