The newspaper "The Herald", owned by the state of Zimbabwe, reports that first lady Grace Mugabe was awarded a PhD in sociology by the chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe, her husband and ruler of the country Robert Mugabe. The Guardian, enhancing the story with many details, points to The Standard's quite critical report. It seems that Mrs. Mugabe's first degree, in Chinese, was awarded in 2011 on the basis of a correspondence course from the People’s University of China.
It is not clear how the former secretary, who apparently dismally failed a Bachelor of Arts program at the University of London in 2001, completed the necessary coursework in sociology, conducted the research, and wrote the thesis. The registration for the degree happened just a few months ago. One does hope that the thesis will be published, so that the scientific community can have a closer look at the research - and the writing.
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Have you ever heard of the (similar) case of Elena Ceausescu, the wife of Romania's dictator Nicolae Ceausescu?
ReplyDelete"Despite leaving grammar school at the age of 14, Ceausescu graduated from the University of Bucharest with a PhD in polymer chemistry and top in a class of 100 women with the honor of summa cum laude. [...] Critics consider it unlikely that a textile worker — especially one whose formal schooling ended at 14 — would have been able to write a thesis in chemistry." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Ceau%C8%99escu)
And another page dealing with that case: http://vaisamar.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/the-greatest-intellectual-fraud-in-romanian-history-on-elena-ceausescus-doctoral-dissertation/