My take on the fake PhD saga: The case of Dominion Christian University
By Teddy Foday-Musa, Accra, Ghana
Introduction
The giving and receiving of honorary degrees emerged in a variety of situations. However, attempts by the wrong institutions to offer fake honorary PhDs to people have become annoying especially to those in academia who have done research and academic formalities to acquire their PhDs.
This article is the outcome of a recent honorary PhD award graduation ceremony held under a mango tree in Kerry Town, Waterloo, in the eastern part of Freetown, Sierra Leone, on Saturday 2nd April 2022. This has sparked public debate among various schools of thought. Given the vulnerability of news on our social media platforms, this article aims to clarify a few issues related to obtaining a classroom research PhD and the honorary PhD type. The article also examines the origins of the tradition of awarding honorary degrees. I will start with the main differences between a classroom research PhD and an honorary PhD.
What is a PhD?
The Doctor of Philosophy Degree, also known as the PhD, is a research degree that is one of the most common types of doctorate degrees and is awarded to graduates in various fields. According to Rüger (2016), most universities worldwide award a PhD degree for demonstrating the ability to conduct independent research to academic standards. He further noted that a successful PhD candidate typically demonstrates this ability by:
a) Having studied a specific area within a subject for three to four years, depending on the study institution.
b) Having made at least one discovery or contributed to the knowledge of a sub-area within the subject’s chosen area of study.
c) Having written a thesis/dissertation on that topic, contextualizing one’s own independent, novel contribution, and critically comparing it to other approaches and theories.
d) Having successfully defended the thesis in the so-called viva, a discussion with examiners who are subject matter experts.
The PhD coursework
Doctoral students must do the PhD coursework before their oral exams. The length of time varies according to the institution. Certain institutions, however, have chosen alternative methods in place of the PhD coursework. PhD candidates at the University of Ghana, Legon, complete their course work through intensive classes, assignments, literature reviews, and short studies under the supervision of recognized supervisors and a research advisory committee The University of Ghana has designed the coursework component to ensure that students receive the highest academic and methodological training. According to Owusu et al. (2013), the PhD coursework is intended to supplement knowledge gained in Master’s level courses with more practical and interactive training in preparation for writing your PhD thesis.
Writing a PhD thesis
The PhD thesis spans a much longer time scale. It covers a much broader subject area, necessitating far more care than any previously written thesis or dissertation during your undergraduate or Masters programs. According to Faryadi (2018), the thesis also explains and justifies the work done to decide on the hypothesis in sufficient detail. He noted that a PhD thesis typically entails additional literature research, theoretical analysis, experimental design, data collection, experiment execution, and conclusion drawing. Consequently, Rüger (2016) noted that a good thesis also specifies the limitations of the work, the conclusions reached, and potential future research directions. The PhD thesis is a monograph or a self-contained piece of work written entirely by the PhD candidate. It describes a specific problem that the candidate worked on, possibly as part of a larger team and with the help of one or more academic advisors. It motivates and defines the problem, reviews existing approaches to the problem, identifies a clear gap for a possible novel academic contribution through critical analysis, and spells out a hypothesis, which is a proposed explanation for the problem or a proposed solution to a problem.
The PhD viva
The standard PhD viva, also known as a defence, is an oral examination of the PhD candidate’s thesis. Rüger (2016) noted that in the United Kingdom, it is usually conducted by two examiners, one of whom is a member of the university where the thesis was produced (internal examiner). The other is typically an expert from another university (external examiner), with the PhD candidate, which brings the total number of participants to three. The viva examination is divided into three parts: the first occurs weeks before the viva. The examiners independently read exam copies of the submitted thesis and express their individual opinions of the presented research.
An honorary PhD?
Dhondt (2013) defined an honorary degree as "an academic degree conferred by a legally constituted university institution, on its initiative, at no cost to the recipient, to honour someone renowned for his or her merits in the field of science, culture, politics, economics, religion, or defence, without examination."
In essence, an honorary degree is an academic degree for which all the standard requirements have been waived by a university. This type of PhD is known as an honorary PhD or "honoris causa", and it is typically awarded to well-known members of society Dhondt (2013), without conducting any research or academic formalities.
Origin of honorary degrees
Historians agree that the awarding of honorary doctorate degrees began at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Historians such as Kirwan (2016), who focuses on early-modern German academic promotion traditions, argue that the desire to deviate from the strict rules and conditions for conferring a doctorate and thus honour someone by awarding this degree based on their merits can most likely be traced back to the origins universities themselves.
Others, such as Downward et al. (2019), believe that this form of academic advancement was only introduced around 1800. It was carried out only after the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 – particularly in the higher faculties, for example, among jurists. Historians studying the universities of Oxford and Cambridge believe that the first examples of honorary promotions date from the late fifteenth century. According to Storey (1992), Lionel Woodville, Dean of Exeter Cathedral and Edward IV’s brother-in-law, received an honorary degree from Oxford University in 1479. Cambridge followed in 1493 with an honorary degree for poet John Skelton, who had previously received the same honour from Oxford five years earlier (Van Dierendonck, 2011). There are, however, several criteria for honouring someone with a PhD.
Criteria to honour someone with a PhD
An honorary PhD degree may be awarded to deserving individuals. Drawing from the Spring commencement of honorary awards made by American institutions of higher learning, Stankus (1985) insisted that recipients should meet one or more of the following criteria: eminence in a field or scholarship, in public service, or an artistic, literary, governmental, religious, financial, and other endeavours. Social media commentators and extremists continue to make provocative remarks about the recent recipients of the Dominion award and previous recipients of similar awards, the majority of whom have exhibited these standard qualities in one way or another, qualifying them for an honorary doctorate. This and other issues will be addressed in the following section.
Discussions
This article aims to clarify issues related to acquiring a classroom research PhD and the honorary PhD awarded to persons who have not taken an examination. To this end, various questions have emerged. These questions will serve as the discussion points to address the objectives of this article.
-Can a PhD be acquired without an examination?
As stated earlier, the Doctor of Philosophy Degree (PhD) can be legally acquired through the honorary degree pathway. Since the inception of universities, honorary degrees were bestowed upon individuals by popes and emperors, mostly their disciples or their representatives. They were also given to deserving professionals who wanted to circumvent the strict rules for academic promotion by obtaining an upgrade in absentia. Recipients of honorary doctorate degrees do not earn the degree through academic achievement. Instead, they receive these awards based on generous and selfless actions or lifetime accomplishments that benefit a community, nation, or humanity. Therefore, to offer an honorary doctorate, recipients should have express eminence in a particular field or scholarship. This can be in service to the public, government, or a religious circle. In return, recipients of such an honour should note that much is expected to whom honour is given.
-Which institution should offer an honorary PhD?
The award of honorary doctorate degrees is the prerogative of a legally registered university accredited to confer honorary degrees. In Sierra Leone, the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) grants legal registration status to universities. The TEC has the legal mandate to regulate all tertiary institutions in Sierra Leone and to ensure parity of esteem of the institutions and products.
-Why the rush for an honorary PhD?
Earning a PhD remains a societal honour and academic pride. This is underscored by the flood of highly placed dignitaries gravitating toward receiving an honorary PhD without checking the legal status of awarding institutions. Therefore, those who have earned the classroom research PhD are considered a unique set of people with a badge of honour and should be treated with dignity. They are accredited to write the prefix: "Dr" before their names and can indicate the acronym "PhD" in a bracket at the end of their name. They can be publicly referred to as "Doctors".
Conclusion
This article has addressed the issue of earning a classroom research PhD and receiving an honorary PhD. The article has clearly distinguished between earning a PhD and receiving an honorary doctorate. When you earn a PhD, you demonstrate your academic prowess and contribute to knowledge. Your contribution to human capital development is laudable. On the other hand, when you receive an honorary PhD, you demonstrate your worth and eminence in a particular field from which a community or a nation benefits. Your achievement becomes outstanding in the good books of history.
Recommendations
Against this backdrop, this article has generated the following recommendations put into categories:
Recommendations to TEC:
The registration of universities should be conducted with a thorough background check.
Applications by universities for accreditation should be published in the media to allow public vetting.
A certificate of accreditation should only be issued after the background check is completed to satisfaction.
Verification should also be extended to faculty members and infrastructural facilities of the applicant university.
An accredited certificate should specify whether the accredited university can confer an honorary doctorate.
Recommendation to Government:
A policy should be enacted through the Ministry of Education against fake doctoral degrees and fake conferment of an honorary doctorate.
Recommendation to those seeking honorary degrees:
Some of you have worked hard and deserve to be honoured with a doctorate. This is your right and a choice you can make. However, instead of putting your reputation at stake and exposing yourself to social media mockery and laughter, it is good for you to thoroughly investigate the authenticity of the awarding institution before you make your final decision about the honour.
About the author
Teddy Foday-Musa (photo) is a PhD candidate at the University of Ghana at Legon, Ghana. He is also a lecturer at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, a journalist, writer and social activist.
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