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Journalism of Courage
Many cash-strapped universities in the UK are selling degrees to keep funds flowing and even some prestigious institutions are involved, media reports said today. The ‘‘degrees-for-sale’’ scandal stretches from the most prestigious institutions to the former polytechnics and includes undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, foreign and home students, The Observer claimed.
Lecturers at institutions across the country, including Oxford, told the scandal is undermining academic standards, but they cannot speak publicly for fear of losing their jobs.
In the most blatant example of the financial pressure to pass failing students, Professor Richard Wynne, Head of Bournemouth University’s design, engineering and computing department, e-mailed staff telling them to ‘‘minimise’’ the number of failures because of a drop in applications, the report said.
