Degree is a Degree
I think I know what was the ‘philosophical’ thinking of our ex-chief minister of Baluchistan, Mr. Raees Aslam Raisani, when he made the statement “Degree is a degree, whether original or fake”.
There are many degree holders, MA, MPhil and even PhDs who don’t actually know much about their subject and academically will not be able to justify their degree.
This is most probably due to our education system that allows people to legally get higher education degrees without actually doing justice to the subject. That is why you will find thousands of triple MAs (who have done MA in three subjects) but hardly knowing how to teach any one of them! I personally have met many people who are MA in English (forget FA) but are unable to speak the English language correctly!
Similarly one will find thousands who hold masters degree in political science, Islamiyat, history, banking, basic engineering and medical science subjects etc but when asked the simplest of questions are unable to give the answers. They can’t even deliver proper lectures in their subjects!
Reasons are many and include faulty examination/evaluation systems including use of unfair means in examinations, which is scaringly still very common in many centers throughout the country.Then the use of links with authorities high-up in the hierarchy to achieve ones goal of just getting the degree, by hook or by crook.
Such educated degree holders who become doctors are the most like to commit mistakes when they go into the practical field, and the ultimate poor sufferers are the patients. Most of the time minor and even major mistakes and even blunders committed by doctors go unchecked or unnoticed due to the illiterate masses and everything that happens to the patients is considered as “God’s will”.
There are many M. Phil and PhD teachers who having cooked up some minor research in a minute (less than 0.1%) part of the subject, get the MPhil or PhD degree and then proclaim they know more than 110% of the subject! They copy more than 50% of their dissertations/thesis from colleagues or other sources and submit them as such. Many of them don’t even know how to write an application, let alone have the basic skills of imparting lectures!
So, we may well then ask what is the difference between these “original degree holders” and the “fake degree holders”? Nothing, both of them don’t know their subject!
However, in another perspective, there are many people who are knowledgeable, competent and have a strong hold and command over their subject, and are the most hard-working but due to certain reasons have not been able to get the degree as yet. They are well appreciated by their students for their work but unfortunately taunted by their superiors for their lack of a degree.
They are often made to realize by continuous taunts and humiliation by their bosses and seniors that ‘degree is a degree’ no matter how many books one has written, no matter how well one teaches, no matter how much command one has of the subject, one is useless without the required degree.
Thus there are people with degrees who don’t probably deserve one and at the same time there are people without a degree who really deserve it. And often it becomes difficult for students and even teachers to truly differentiate between two such types of teachers about which one has a degree and which one does not!
If our honorable ex-Chief Minister Mr. Raisani was thinking along these lines, I would say he really is a clever and wise person. So from now on we must stop making fun of him and realize that the boot is on the other foot!