Merit Is Not in the Degree

TEHRAN (Iran News) This phenomenon, beyond being an educational challenge, has turned into a factor that weakens the process of national development and deepens the gap with advanced countries.

When confronted with certain individuals labeled as “Doctor,” “Engineer,” or “Professor,” one often notices the existence of degrees but the absence of productivity or true merit — leading to suspicion:

Is this person a foreign agent, or is the degree itself fake?

Here, drawing upon the well-known characteristics of Third World societies, we analyze the roots and consequences of credentialism and offer observations for a better understanding of this situation.

The origin of this issue lies in the colonial legacy, the deep scientific-technological gap, and the cultural identity crisis of these nations — all of which have resulted in the formation of unauthentic, imitative, and quantitatively oriented educational systems.

To truly understand the problem of degree-centrism, we must analyze it within the broader context of the structural traits of Third World countries.

As social studies on the Third World demonstrate, in such societies, various institutions — from the economy and politics to culture — have not developed harmoniously or proportionately.

This deep structural disharmony is the greatest obstacle to both sectoral and sustainable development. Educational systems in these nations often attempt to copy foreign models in an artificial leap, lacking the necessary cultural and intellectual foundations.

The shared characteristics of Third World countries show that they commonly suffer from problems such as: An unbalanced economy^; Low per capita income; Unplanned population density; Weak governments, and on the international stage, ethnic and religious conflicts.

In such a context, the educational system ceases to be the engine of development and instead becomes a tool for issuing diplomas and filling statistical reports.

Third World countries face a greater cultural lag compared to industrial nations. They import technology and modern institutions as complete, ready-made packages, but they absorb the accompanying culture, education, and behavioral models slowly and belatedly.

This leads to a vast gap between the form of modernity (such as a university diploma) and its content—the real skills and knowledge it represents.

The influence of colonialism and the incomplete transfer of culture have themselves been among the most effective means of infiltration by sellout agents. In Iran, for example, the expansion of the Islamic Azad University was established by such infiltrating forces as a tool of colonial influence.

During the colonial era, concepts such as materialism, consumerism, class ostentation, and obsession with academic titles were imposed on the Third World.

However, the spirit of precision, productivity awareness, and systematic thinking—essential for industrial development and efficient production—were never transferred.

The West exported the spirit of capitalism, but not its rational foundation or the cultural discipline needed for balanced economic activity.

Today, according to the Frankfurt School and many thinkers of the Third World, globalization is synonymous with cultural imperialism and the destruction of indigenous identities.

In this process, Western values and standards—of which the university diploma is one of the false symbols of identity—are promoted as the only legitimate measure of global competence and worth.

In many Third World countries, due to the absence of transparent and effective institutions, academic degrees—being quantitative and measurable documents—have replaced qualitative and complex criteria such as creativity, practical skill, and innovation.

This paves the way for a superficial degree culture; hence, in the Third World, diploma mills mushroom like fungi, transforming authentic identity into mere credentialed status.

Under such conditions, the educational system, instead of nurturing creative and entrepreneurial human capital, becomes a mass-production machine turning out graduates who lack the practical skills needed by the job market and industry.

This, in turn, leads to widespread unemployment among the educated, the waste of national resources, the distribution of rent-seeking administrative positions, and government incompetence.

The obsession with the quantity of degrees and academic papers, without regard for their quality or real impact, causes the decline of higher education standards, the spread of paper fabrication and academic fraud, and the loss of credibility of universities at the international level.

Since obtaining advanced degrees—especially from prestigious universities—requires economic and social capital, credentialism becomes a tool for reinforcing and reproducing class divisions.

In this system, opportunities arising from genuine talent become limited for the underprivileged.

When “degrees” rather than “skills and ideas” become the standard of judgment, motivation for practical work, learning of skills, and risk-taking—the key elements of innovation—diminish. Society shifts toward desk-bound occupations and away from production.

Education and expertise are among the key foundations of every society; yet, in the Third World, this matter remains at a very low level.

Studies show that the capital investment allocated to education and training in industrialized nations is several times greater than that in the Third World.

The reason these countries are industrialized is that they possess genuinely skilled and specialized human resources—enabling them to free themselves from dependency and take control of management and innovation.

By contrast, Third World countries, despite the growing number of graduates, remain technologically dependent. Thus, one of the main causes of their underdevelopment is the crushing debt and severe poverty affecting their lower social strata.

A degree-centered system, by producing human resources misaligned with national economic needs, not only fuels capital outflow for foreign education but also fails to generate added value or reduce dependency.