HIGHER education minister Professor Nkandu Luo says her ministry is saddened by some people’s desire to use titles which they have not worked for.

In a ministerial statement in Parliament on Monday, Prof Luo outlined three categories of people that could be recognised as having achieved doctorate degrees.

She said a medical doctor or somebody who had obtained a degree in dentistry were rightly designated doctors.

“A professor is a lecturer of high academic rank in a department of a university college. In many jurisdictions, the title of professor is conferred by an institution where one meets a set criteria for the rank. Such an individual undergoes a rigorous assessment process both at the institution where they work and other academic institutions of similar standards in other parts of the world,” Prof Luo explained.

After the institution establishes a prima facie case, the credentials are sent to three other professors outside the country for assessment. It’s only upon the institution where such an individual works receives a recommendation that the works of such an individual meet the required international standards that they can be conferred the title of a professor. The title of a professor is not given but earned and most importantly, professors are respected all over the world. A professor is somebody with the highest academic qualifications with proven research and publications in one’s academic specialisation and is a generator of new knowledge.

She told the House that a recipient of an honorary qualification might use it on their curriculum vitae but that it should be listed under awards and honours and not under the section for qualifications.

“When a title of Dr is used in the case of an honorary degree, the abbreviation is HC (Honoris Causa) or the recipient should state ‘honorary degree’ in full against their name. The [Zambia Qualifications] Authority therefore wishes to advise recipients of honorary degrees or doctorates to avoid misleading the general public and to preserve the integrity and academic honour for those who earned doctorates,” Prof Luo said, adding that what was obtaining in Zambia was extremely unfortunate.

“To obtain a degree is extremely difficult and calls for very high levels of intellectual ability, hard work, residence and commitment. If this continues, we are definitely demeaning the title of Dr and worse still, it will make our children not to want to pay attention to school because they know [that] they can go to a hotel room or Internet and a two-day seminar in Dubai and obtain their doctorates.”

She hoped her ministerial statement would bring to an end “this epidemic” of honorary degrees in the country.

“Let people work hard and obtain degrees after hard work. My ministry is saddened by those people wanting to obtain titles for which they have not worked for. To the politicians, let me tell you that there are many world leaders such as president Barrack Obama who was conferred with many honorary doctorates but chose not to use such titles as they were only honorary. This is called integrity! Let us emulate men and women of integrity. One can be whatever they want to be in this world and enjoy any title they want but the secret is to work hard, remain focuses and committed to your studies,” she explained.

Asked by Kabompo UPND member of parliament Ambrose Lufuma what punitive measures the ministry would devise to curtail the prevalence of honorary doctorates, Prof Luo said: “What we are doing in the ministry at the moment [is that] we are reviewing the higher education Act and strengthening the law so that we are able to address some of these issues.”

And the minister said traditional doctors did not qualify to be called Dr.

“The answer is no because those (traditional doctors) have not followed the five years, six years, seven years or 10 years field of study,” said Prof Luo, in response to Chitambo PF member of parliament Remember Chanda Mutale