

A Quick Study - Fake degrees in China - CaptainZapp
http://www.economist.com/node/21558318

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stupandaus
While this is certainly a significant issue, I will say that experience has a
significantly larger impact than a diploma in China. Specifically, when
multinational companies hire in China, they value work experience much more
than the diploma, as the diploma itself is not worth as much in China. For
example, a 4 year US engineering degree is considered by our HR group to be
equivalent to a 4 year Chinese degree + 3-4 years experience.

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yen223
I'm guessing those companies have been burnt so much by fake qualifications
that they simply choose to ignore them.

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yaix
That is all pretty common in China. I know a number of people victims of
various such scams. Building the economy on copying western and japanese stuff
fires back when it creates a society where everything is acceptable as long as
it makes money.

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excuse-me
“A diploma is worth actual money, whereas an education is not.”

Don't developing countries grow up so fast these days. It's taken a century of
cynicism for most American colleges to recognize this and the Chinese have
reached the point in only a few years.

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eumenides1
Cynicism is something the Chinese have in spades. The thing is that I know
that Americans will eventually realize that education is what's important and
not the diploma. But the Chinese, they will latch on to the concept of a
"diploma" forever.

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Alex3917
"But the Chinese, they will latch on to the concept of a 'diploma' forever."

Actually, the Chinese are the ones who invented 'meritocracy'.

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gaius
You mean Confucious' notions of the bureaucratic class? Because you were still
born into it. And then there's the whole business of imperial dynasties...

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Alex3917
"Because you were still born into it."

That's no different than college today. That's why I put meritocracy in
quotes: it's basically a scam that's designed to perpetuate the ruling class
and keep down minorities while appearing fair on the superficial level.

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seanmcdirmid
To be fair, there were times duing the Sui, Tang, and even Ming dynasties
where the imperial exam was taken seriously and quite an innovation against
current practices, where at least you could move up the social rank if you
could do well on the test.

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JDShu
I think what the grandparent was implying is that only landowner families
would have had the means to take the exam and become a government official, so
it wasn't a fully meritocratic society. Of course, these things are all
relative and there was probably more social mobility in this system than other
contemporary nations.

