In 2002 I went to work at the second best language institute in Beijing, known as Erwai, or the Number 2 Foreign Language Institute. I was the Director of Studies of an English university preparation programme. Students aged 17-21 attended a nine-month intensive. The hope was that they would then be able to gain admission into a foreign university in a western country.
It was something of a shock for me to find myself leading a programme which had little or no academic merit, and which served no purpose but to give the students a piece of paper. It was credentialism at its worst. The students paid a lot of money to attend the school, and they expected to pass. Not to be disrespectful to them, but many – probably around half, were lazy and unmotivated.
It was my first exposure to education for the credit, a pervasive problem right across China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, where I have taught. It is a problem in many nations across the world.
In such a system, learning is no longer a process of personal growth, but of inflation of ego and social status. It is not surprising that plagiarism is rife in the Chinese system. One recent survey found that 40 percent of Chinese PhD students had plagiarised at least part of their doctoral thesis. Amongst academics, plagiarism is similarly common, and accepted. Many foreign teachers I know of in China have commented that academics simply copy large parts of their papers from other previously published papers. They do it because nobody cares. Many universities have become diploma mills.
One day at Erwai, I received a book report from a student. It was of Treasure Island, a perfectly good book for any non-native English student to have a crack at. The report went something like this (remember, this kid could barely string two sentences together).
Join our intrepid travelers of the seven seas, as they venture into unknown lands. Marvel at the fearless courage of little Jim Hawkins, as he battles that dastardly villain of the high seas, Long John Silver! Agh, me hearties, there’s gold on that thar island!
Needless to say, I wasn’t fooled by the student’s cunning back cover copying. In class, I handed the paper back with a fail grade, and a note saying he had to do it again. I didn’t single him out, as that would have been a big loss of face. Still, he wasn’t happy! He became extremely angry, and demanded to know what was wrong with the paper. I simply told him that it was copied, so he had to do it again. He stood up, pushed his desk aside and stormed out of the room. To make it worse, his uncle came to the campus the next day (with the students standing right behind him), walked up to me, and started screaming at me in Chinese, wagging his finger in front of my nose. He said his nephew was so upset he was threatening to kill himself.
