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that students could not return to clinics and laboratories.
Several Indian medical students told Times Higher Edu-
cation (THE) that their Chinese institutions, under pressure
to issue degrees within a particular time frame, resorted
to sending Power-Point slides or online videos in lieu of
clinical practice for essential skills such as surgery. Even if
degrees are granted, they would be practically useless with-
out actual training in treating patients.
One student, who is enrolled at a Beijing medical school
but stuck in India, says “decisions are all over the place.
Some (Indian) states allow (Chinese-enrolled) medical
students to do internships, while others consider Chinese
degrees null and void.” Another, who had gone into debt
to study in China, says that “without clinical experience, I
cannot be board-certified in India. And if I cannot practise, German graduates: pandemic era degrees cloud
I cannot become a doctor and pay back my loan.”
The problem has also affected researchers in other sub- the notion that the swift application of ad hoc online testing
jects. A North African Ph D candidate told THE that she during 2020 has led to negative consequences for academic
had prepared simulations for an engineering experiment integrity,” says the paper.
in China, but cannot make the prototype because of a lack Universities were often forced to switch online in a mat-
of laboratory access. Her main problem is a four-year term ter of days and “maintaining academic integrity often be-
limit in her admission letter. “I only have two years left, and came a secondary priority compared to maintaining some
I have to publish two journal articles, which is impossible sort of instruction and managing limited resources”.
without lab experiments,” she says. “The problem in China The researchers found that 874 of survey respondents
is that the rules are rules, and there are no exceptions.” She took only on-site exams during the 2020 summer semester;
doesn’t fault her professors, saying that one even took time 385 took only online exams and 349 participants took them
on his weekends to coach her. online and in-person.
The CISU poll shows that 64 percent of students sup- Stefan Janke, an educational psychologist at the Univer-
ported better credit — or accreditation — transfer arrange- sity of Mannheim and one of the preprint’s authors, says
ments between China and their home countries, which “the pandemic and the lockdown came very suddenly. Stu-
would allow them to finish clinical and laboratory work in dents were confronted with a new kind of learning environ-
nearby facilities. ment with which they were not familiar and would have
Curtis Chin, a former US ambassador to the Asian De- felt additional pressures and stresses. Online examinations
velopment Bank, told THE that “the inconsistent treatment without additional safety procedures may have provided
of international students has been a soft power failure for students with the sense that they can cheat without being
China… What is important is that international students detected.”
are treated with consistency and compassion. Clear com- Dr. Janke suggests that universities should consider
munications and transparency are also critical. And here, more collaborative approaches to assessment, or allow
China, in the eyes of many students, has come up short.” open-book exams that permit Internet research. Such re-
The number of foreign students in China had tripled in a forms will help students to develop skills that are highly
decade, from 162,000 in 2006 to 492,000 in 2019. valued in the workplace, he suggests.

GERMANY UNITED KINGDOM
Online exams cheating spurt Brexit hits research

STUDENTS ARE TWICE AS LIKELY TO cheat in UK UNIVERSITIES COULD STRUGGLE TO
online exams following the rapid switch to digital fill key professorial and postdoctoral researcher
assessment last summer, suggests a survey. A sur- roles amid growing frustration among European
vey of 1,608 students in higher education institutions across academics at Brexit-related bureaucracy and costs, Times
Germany found that 61.4 percent said they had used “unal- Higher Education has been told. Since the end of the Brexit
lowed assistance and/or engaged in direct exchange with transition period in January, European Union nationals
other students” during online exams over summer 2020. have been subject to the same immigration rules as people
For on-site exams taken over the same period, 31.7 per- from the rest of the world, requiring them to apply for visas
cent admitted to this sort of behaviour, according to a pre- to work in the UK.
print published on PsyArXiv. “The overall results speak for While the cost for a three or five-year visa is just £55 for

JULY 2021 EDUCATIONWORLD 59