ethics

Plagiarism: An international education bubble

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Prof. John Stackhouse writes about plagiarism on his blog.  He writes:

Plagiarism is a vital problem in academic work, since the academy is a culture of both honour and honesty. (Don’t get me started on how dishonorable or dishonest the academy can be—I’m talking about ideals here.) Without honour and honesty, we can’t do our work since so much of it depends on trusting each other to tell the truth, including truth about our sources.

In my time as prof (both in Africa and Canada), I have given what I think is a disproportionate number of “F’s” for plagiarism, not because I was too hard but because too many of my students were ill-prepared for their studies at the undergraduate or master’s level.  Generally I found that my academic deans were halfheartedly supportive, for it was disruptive of the process of higher education for one of the professors to mark students so hard.  I am of the opinion that some cases of plagiarism merit immediate dismissal; other students should be sternly warned and should fail the paper or class without remediation.  But in every case, I was advised to wield a lighter hand and to allow the students second and even third chances.

In my opinion, there is an international education bubble.  We have too many schools and too many people who graduate from the schools whose diplomas don’t indicate any real competence.  I know that I’ve passed a few students who had no business being in school.  I even had one case where a student repeatedly failed remediation in a course with me, a course which was necessary for his undergraduate degree; and yet the dean still allowed him to enter into a Master’s program and to defend his thesis while never having passed my course!  He is in Congo-Brazzaville now– I heard he became a professor in a faculty of theology there.

Paranoid fear of government

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Craig Carter wrote an insightful post at his blog, “Applying the hermeneutic of suspicion to the state.”  Liberals, he says, are afraid of big business but trust the state.  He shows that such trust is utterly unfounded.  In my view there is insufficient fear of government.  Consider if you were a car manufacturer.  Now you are competing with Obama Motors (GM, Chrysler) and the US government is your competitor.  Wouldn’t it be frightening if all of a sudden your company was being investigated because of floor mats? I mean it isn’t as if everything in my GM cars works all the time.

Lord Conrad Black is in a federal prison today because he received non-compete payments which are perfectly acceptable in Canada. The Canadian media was urging the confinement of this Canadian because he is rich and a conservative.  But if you are terrorist in Guantanamo or subject to extraordinary rendition, or if you are on death row, the Canadian media gets out the handkerchiefs and begins weeping for you.  But with Lord Black, it was, “Throw him in prison and lose the key!”  Black’s conviction has put a huge dampening effect on my desire to do business in the United States.  In fact, forget it.  I told my brother on Saturday that I wanted to settle my 19% interest in our limited partnership in Austin, Texas, before the end of 2010.  It is too much hassle for me to conform to all the tax regulation.  I have enough problems worrying about what the CRA is going to do to me.  I want to stay out of US federal prison.  But I assure you, dear Reader, that the US federal government already has the power under the current federal law to throw me in prison for a very long time–not for substantial crimes but for procedural errors.  Not that the Feds would want to throw me in jail–there are bigger fish to fry–but the very existence of such powers makes me afraid, very afraid.

We test drove a RAV4 last week.  We made an offer and hopefully our new vehicle (for my wife) will be delivered by Saturday.  It was built here in Ontario.  It is our first “foreign” car (before we were married I owned a Mitsubishi pickup).  Currently we drive a Chevy Malibu and Pontiac Montana (which I’m keeping).  The 2002 Malibu has an appraisal value of $900 CDN from the original price of $28,000.  The A/C and heat don’t work, the ABS brakes are faulty, and the electrical system diagnostic light is malfunctioning.  Apparently, our new car is much more likely to maintain its value over the long haul.  As consumers, we are voting against government owned car companies and we believe that it is incorrect for the government to harass the competition. Therefore, we are using our own funds to support a NGCC (non-governmental car company).  We believe that the government should not have the power to eliminate their competition through unfriendly regulation and harassment.

Do contracts mean anything in Africa? II

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My earlier post on contracts (originally at Palabre) resulted in quite a level of defensiveness on the part of respondents. However, I am not alone in my assessment that the frequency in the violation of contracts is a significant factor in sub-Saharan poverty. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal offered a column entitled, “Why Africa Is Poor: Ghana beats up on its biggest foreign investors“, which is republished at Ghana’s The Statesman. The article cites the treatment of Texas-based Kosmos Energy, which has arranged a sale of part of its oil field in Ghana to Exxon. The Ghanaian government threatens to buy back oil fields at a cut rate; this would then give them the ability to sell the field to a third party at a huge profit. But it is a violation of their contract with Kosmos:

When Kosmos began its project under the then-ruling New Patriotic Party, the business environment seemed relatively stable with adequate protections for foreign investors. Under Ghana law, consent for a deal such as the one between Kosmos and Exxon can’t be unreasonably withheld, delayed or denied. Such contract protection began to dissolve in January 2009, with the election of the leftist National Democratic Congress.

Other foreign investors are also getting the Kosmos treatment.

The WSJ concludes:

Attracting foreign investment has been a pillar of Ghana’s development strategy, with the government pitching itself as the “Gateway to West Africa.” Spooking new investors by repudiating contracts will rapidly ruin the country’s prospects for long-term development.

The following comment to the WSJ article was made at the Statesman (sic):

Kwadwo mpiani the former chief of staff awarded contractas on humanitarian grounds and out of sympathy to foreign nationals and the NPP dont think these people needed to be probed. If any invester has a problem with following due process then we dont want him in our country. I think the writer of this article is so foolish that he would rather defend a foreign invester instead of his own country. The writer of this article is just as stupid as an ASS. James Bell , Accra , 18/02/2010 5:10:59 P

Unfortunately, Mr. Bell, corrupt practices like these create risk factors which are out of control, and no investor should ever be interested.

One-child policy favors the rich

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A couple of days ago, Diane Francis of Canada’s National Post wrote a disgusting column in which she advocated the world-wide application of China’s one-child policy. She of course is completely ignorant of the consequences that this policy has had on the psychology of China. One such consequence is as follows:

One of my very best friends is Chinese. A young man studying engineering in a Canadian university, he has informed me that no girl would ever be interested in a poor man. Apparently, this notion is widespread amongst young men in China. Why? There are now many more young men in China than women, because if you are allowed only one child, you will abort a baby girl. This has led to an imbalance in the Chinese population. What this means is that girls can be extremely selective in whom they will marry. So when there is parity in the population, a girl would choose sometimes a poor person, because she would otherwise be left a spinster. But now, if every girl has two or three boys from which to choose, she will naturally pick one who is better off financially. The result is that poor young men have much less chance of finding a suitable partner.

Another reason that one-child favors the rich is that the poor depend on their children in their old age, not upon a retirement portfolio.  Poor people with one child are in great danger of complete abandonment in old age because their one child may die or rebel against them, and they will be left destitute.  But also, upon a single married couple falls the burden of four elderly parents (in 60s), and potentially eight elderly grandparents if they survive into their 80-100s.  This is more than any couple can handle, unless they are wealthy.  One child favors the rich.

Do Contracts Mean Anything in Africa?

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I have been musing about what keeps sub-Saharan Africa in poverty.  One thing that I’ve observed is that contracts, whether written or oral, don’t seem to mean very much.  I know of an African who signed a contract that he would return to Africa after his training but apparently never intended to do so and remains here in North America.  Oral contracts also have little worth because bait and switch tactics are not uncommon:  for example, a friend who grew up in South African and now lives in Canada once sent a large sum of money to youth minister back in Capetown with the belief that it would be used to purchase a automobile to be used for ministry.  Instead, the youth minister used it to pay a bride price so he could marry.  My friend said that he broke all communication with the youth minister when this happened.

We can be critical of Western individualism, and Africans are very good at putting people first.  But many Africans envy the West without of knowledge of how it actually works.  Every aspect of Western economy depends on the sanctity of contracts.  The vast majority of the time, these contracts work.  For example, if I go down to my local Staples and buy an item, I know that I can return it within 30 days for a full refund.  That is a contract.  And it works, and I’ve exercised my 30-day option many times.  As a result, I am a loyal patron of Staples; I will gladly pay more for item knowing that I have the option to return it if it is unsuitable for me.  In everyday life, we live according to many such contracts:  with our employers, with the phone company, with the gas company, with our bank, with our investment advisors, with Mastercard and Visa; when we buy house, or when we buy a furnace, a new kitchen, or windows for the house.  Without valid contracts, life in North America would cease to function and chaos would ensue.  And yet, in dealings with Africans, keeping a contract seems to be optional.  Is this not one reason for the chaos that exists in much of Africa today?

Contracts that don’t function in North America are reason why we have courts to deal with disputes.  In the final analysis, here in Canada I have made hundreds of contracts that work well, but I’ve only had a few that didn’t, such as with my sports club, the Pavilion in Thornhill, where it took over 4 months to get them to honor an oral contract.  Yet when it comes to Africa, I’ve come to think that the exception is the rule; I have had a much higher percentage of contracts with Africans that did not work than I’ve had here in North America, and I’ve come to believe that the lack of priority given to the honoring of contracts is one of the main reasons Africa does not have a well-functioning economy.

Yet we talk a lot about the growth of Christianity in Africa.  Christians however should be willing to honor contracts.  So one would think that the more Christian Africa becomes, the more contracts would be worth something.  Admittedly, cultural transformation takes time.