Search Page

Academics and students around the world at this very second are being subjected to infringements of their professional and human rights, and most of these violations are going unnoticed. Violations of this kind are not limited to countries with poor human rights records. On the contrary, in the post 9/11 world even the most transparent democracies are showing signs that are a cause for concern. Many institutions and academics in the West are subject to an increasingly sophisticated infrastructure of surveillance, intervention and control.

Transparency International's 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) highlights the fatal link between poverty, failed institutions and graft. But other notable backsliders in the 2008 CPI indicate that the strength of oversight mechanisms is also at risk among the wealthiest. In low-income countries, rampant corruption jeopardizes the global fight against poverty, threatening to derail the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). According to TI's 2008 Global Corruption Report, unchecked levels of corruption would add US $50 billion (€35 billion) - or nearly half of annual global aid outlays – to the cost of achieving the MDG on water and sanitation.

"Degree mills" are impeding the efforts to assure quality in higher education—a significant national issue for some time and now an international concern. In response, the US-based Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) recently joined with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to bring together an informal group of higher education and quality assurance/accreditation leaders to focus on degree mills. Issues on the traits and the perils of degree mills, and on the national and international policies to curb that phenomenon will be discussed.