Critics

In a non English language country that deliver English taught programs, do you know you may have foreign students who may good at local language as the second language but don’t know how to communicate with conference chair or editor of the journal in the English world, except using translation tools or asking fellow students? Do you know a local students may not judge by the same criteria for entering into the doctoral program, for example, local students or foreign students but have their master degree from that non-English spoken country may not need to have the same English proficiency as those schools require to those foreign students.

Of course, these critics may reflect one fundamental issue that whether English should be a dominant language in the academic community?

I would rather to say if one school insists to have English taught program, it should better fair judgment all registered students with the same criteria, that even local student and foreign student who can use local language all need to be evaluated the same language requirement as other foreign students are required. Otherwise, those English taught programs are just faked to attract poor foreign students, especially while they offered juicy financial support. Or how can one program discriminate its student at first?

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One major differences in doctoral programs in US and other universities is there is no written document to regulate the criteria for getting the degree, except claiming those dissertations need to have the contributions to the subject field.

However, many doctoral programs in China and Taiwan, maybe in other countries that I don’t aware yet, do have formalization those criteria, in term of the number of journal article doctoral students published and the quality of journals they require.

Even some may critics those kind of regulations are too rigid and may limit the scope of research, I do believe it is better to have such a written document, in avoidance of too much human bias and unequal discrimination.

Unfortunately, not all doctoral programs in the world have that kind of written documents, but that individual or few professors dominate that kind of requirement. Therefore, sometimes we can see one graduated doctoral student can have his/her degree without any confirmed publication, but others who may have some published works but still can’t get their degrees.

Reference

Sheppard, J. P., Nayyar, P. R., & Summer, C. E. 2000.  Managing your doctoral program: A practical orientation. Production and Operations Management, 9(4): 414-437.