A qualified, uneducated elite

OK, perhaps we’re guilty of being a little naive. Maybe this happens all over the place, not just here in Colombia. But we weren’t aware of it. Well, we never really asked questions about it to be honest.

'How much is a master's?' 'How much have you got?'

Apparently, though, a host of the country’s brightest and best obtain degrees and masters in a less than equitable way – or at least in a way that just doesn’t seem proper. 

It’s not a case of ‘what you know’ or even ‘who you know’; it’s more to do with ‘who you are and where you come from’.

You see, we have it on good authority that a number of students in Colombia’s highest-rated university – Los Andes – are ‘too big to fail’, in a sense. That is, if their exam performances would see them fall short going by the standard marking procedure, that procedure is adjusted to see them right.

We’ve been told by a very trusted professional source inside the college that if he was to grade his students by the international norm – and this is in a subject area where there should be very little room for divergence – he’d be hard pressed to pass any of them. 

Indeed, it’s got to the point now where our insider doesn’t mark the exams he sets – they’re passed on to a third party who is more willing to mark in a ‘superficial and positive way’, as it was explained to us.

This sort of practice isn’t just limited to Los Andes. In another of Bogotá’s reputable universities, we heard of a more personal case which gives an idea of the questionable standards of grading that are practised in the capital, if not Colombia in general.

Indeed.

A female student who had barely attended any of her lectures all semester turned up to sit her final exam. When handing it in at the end, she also presented a doctor’s cert saying she had been ill for the last week – just a week now, not the whole semester. 

She demanded that her expat professor grade her leniently because of this. When she was told her week of sickness was no grounds for preferential marking – especially considering she barely turned up all term – she went berserk.

The professor, though, didn’t shirk – not until, that is, he was told by his department head that the girl should be marked favourably i.e. that she shouldn’t fail, even though she should have. Lunacy. Yet such occurrences here are not as unusual as you would like to see according to those we’ve spoken to who work in this area.

It certainly lends more credence to one of our favourite sayings: ‘Qualification is a result, education a process’. 

These people – and considering their backgrounds and schooling many of them will be Colombia’s future "leading lights" – can rather easily get their qualification, their little piece of paper saying that they are knowledgeable in a certain field, yet many perhaps are far from properly educated. 

Now, this isn't to say that their professors or lecturers are not fit for purpose – on the contrary, you can find some of the finest educators around working here. It’s more about the demands put on the system by these students and their parents, coupled with the significant influence they have.

Important but worthless?

Of course, even without the shocking practices highlighted above, the previous paragraph could be aimed at many people who have degrees or masters. 

In one way getting your qualification is a bit like a placebo effect – it can make you feel that bit better about yourself but does it really better you? It can make some people more arrogant anyway.

Yes, a degree or a master’s is needed to open many doors or even just to be considered for numerous positions – a necessary evil in many ways. But like most things, practice makes perfect. It’s usually the case that you learn much more by getting down and dirty in whatever area you have your qualification in – if you have one – than what you learnt in schooling.

Bearing all that in mind, it would seem prudent for many companies, as some of the more progressive are now doing, to review what sort of qualifications they look for when hiring. 

Ruling out somebody straight away just because he/she doesn’t have a degree or a master’s could be foolish, in the same way that it may be unwise to include people just because they are well "qualified" in terms of letters after their name and pieces of paper on their walls.

After all, in the long run, it may be better to be mastered by a fool than to be fooled by an apparent master.