Radio România Internațional

Tag: PhD

  • Plagiarism in the focus again

    Plagiarism in the focus again

    Commonly an exclusive prerogative of academic elites, the originality, authenticity and value of PhD theses has become a topic of debate for the media, public opinion and the political class. On Monday, the Senate of Romania, which is Parliaments decision-making chamber on this matter, decided that a PhD could be withdrawn only by the university that granted it and that the Council for Doctoral Degree Certification would only play the role of an appeal forum.



    On behalf of the technocratic government, the secretary of state with the Education Ministry, Laurentiu Vlad told the Senate that, although at a declarative level the new draft law was aimed at decentralising the PhD decision-granting and withdrawal process, in fact it threatened to undermine the quality of higher education.



    Laurentiu Vlad: “At the moment, there are over 50 institutions accredited to organise doctoral degree programmes in Romania. Some of them are able to take full responsibility in providing doctoral studies, others do not.



    The head of the Education Committee and a former education minister, the Social-Democrat Senator Ecaterina Andronescu retorted that the draft law increased the responsibility of universities and that nowhere in the world is there a separate institution that grants a PhD but a university. Furthermore, the National Council for the Certification of Academic Titles, Degrees and Certificates will still exist as an institution.



    Ecaterina Andronescu: “The Council will be the appeal body for all PhD theses for which the PhD was granted under a ministers order; the PhD can only be withdrawn under a ministers order, so the National Council for Certification is the decision-making forum in case of irregularities.



    President Klaus Iohannis now has to promulgate the amended Education Law as passed by the Senate, although initially he had sent it back to Parliament, warning that there was general distrust in the analysis of plagiarism notifications. Shortly after the Senators had cast their vote, Iohannis described as questionable the hurry in which action had been taken to amend the Education Law with no substantial debates being held, at a time when everybody expected integrity and performance.



    The presidents consternation is shared by the media, all the more so as the Senates vote came three days after the PhD theses of former interior minister Petre Toba and of Florentin Pandele, the mayor of Voluntari, a satellite town of Bucharest, were found to be the outcome of plagiarism. That is the conclusion reached by an expert commission that has analysed the two theses, and confirmed by the Education Ministry last Friday. Dr. Toba and Dr. Pandele thus become a topic of ongoing heated debates in Bucharest on the allegedly plagiarised PhD theses of such public figures as former prime minister Victor Ponta, deputy prime minister Gabriel Oprea or the chief prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Directorate, Laura Codruta Kovesi.

  • PhD Regulations

    PhD Regulations

    The long entrenched debate on PhDs has been rekindled these days by the new education minister, Adrian Curaj. Willing to step on firm soil and to put an end to the successive quakes registered during his predecessors’ terms in office, minister Curaj is firmly and unequivocally calling for amending the legislation on PhDs.



    All envisaged changes have been collected in a draft law, currently under public debate, which is meant to strengthen the autonomy of universities and implicitly to render more transparent the process of getting a PhD title.



    Adrian Curaj: “We have taken into consideration and intend to amend five of over 300 articles in the Education Law. The changing we are operating is made exclusively on those articles related to PhDs and ethics. What we’ve managed to achieve is to approach systemically a system issue”



    Minister Curaj has reiterated that granting and withdrawing PhD titles are, from now on, the exclusive responsibility of the organizing institutions, namely universities and the Romanian Academy, whereas the National Council for Attestation of University Titles, Diplomas and Certificates will act as appeal body. Furthermore, all orders granting a PhD title will be posted on the site of the Education Ministry. All this set of proposals is to be enforced as of mid March.



    Updating the laws on PhDs is vital, because, in its current form, it is incoherent and chaotic, minister Curaj explained his approach. He didn’t hesitate to harshly criticise the interference of the political class in the Romanian education system and its impact on the path followed by education after the Romanian Revolution, failing to create a robust framework of development and to offer it a much needed autonomy.



    And reproaches continued. The minister also brought into the focus of attention what he called double standards, which politicians enjoyed while writing their PhD papers and after getting the PhD title. Furthermore, minister Curaj said the criteria based on which the titles were granted were not strictly applied. Most likely then not, the best-known case is that of the former Social Democratic Prime Minister Victor Ponta. In 2012, suspicions of plagiarism regarding his PhD paper were confirmed by the National Council for Attestation of University Titles, Diplomas and Certificates, according to which tens of pages were grossly copy-pasted.



    The scandal gained magnitude also because the coordinator of the paper was none other else but Ponta’s political tutor, Adrian Nastase, himself a former prime minister, sentenced to prison on corruption charges. However, in Ponta’s case, the proven plagiarism of his paper was not a strong enough reason for him to step down, as is natural, in the case of a high level politician in a civilized country.