Comment by hnarn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hnarn | Hacker News Reader

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Again, it’s so easy to criticize, point out the “problem” and then offer no solution.

The “knowledge factory” exists for a reason. The way our society is constructed, we need structured specialization (pick a course), verification (you’re OK) and rating (you’re the top 5%) — because our entire society expects these things to work and be available.

It sounds like the only difference in your example is that these things exist but are not centrally verified to be identical, because apparently diplomas themselves are the problem.

People need to be able to improve, be excluded when incompetent and rewarded when excellent, because that is how our society works in all other aspects, and the one thing that will always be true about an educational system is that it will mirror society: and if it doesn’t currently it will in a few decades.

You cannot suggest fundamental changes to an educational system without more or less advocating a revolution in society. No wonder most complaints stop at the problem and never continue to proposed solutions.

> It sounds like the only difference in your example is that these things exist but are not centrally verified to be identical, because apparently diplomas themselves are the problem.

Yes, exactly.

You are using a diploma as an indicator of knowledge, and you have a diploma-giving machine (university) that gives the diploma to anyone that can pass a test. People cheat the test in order to get the diploma. It will always happen, no matter how intricate you make your tests, because you cannot automate knowledge verification.

It isn't a "problem" - it's an "impossibility". And it's one impossibility software companies have gradually started dealing with - most don't care about diplomas anymore, because the correlation between knowledge and having a diploma gets lesser and lesser the more diplomas are printed artificially.

So, that is a pretty good solution, too. Remove diplomas altogether, and let employers measure knowledge in a way they seem fit. They will have responsibility for the mistakes of an employee, so it makes sense that they make the criteria. That way, educational institutions will have to make their education useful in the real world, or their reputation will crumble.

> So, that is a pretty good solution, too. Remove diplomas altogether, and let employers measure knowledge in a way they seem fit.

It's not a "pretty good solution", which shows if you start breaking down how you would attempt to achieve this. How do you, first of all, "remove diplomas"? Do you suggest that we fundamentally overturn how our entire society works just to remove cheating?

A "diploma", "certification" or whatever you want to call it, can be issued by many different entities: a collection of nation-states, a state itself, non- and for-profit organizations, even individuals. These all have varying degrees of value depending on the trust placed in the issuing body, from a certificate of having completed Bob's Weekend Sales Course to a state-issued certificate to perform a specific type of surgery.

First of all, which of these are you saying should be "removed"? Only the ones from universities? All of them?

Secondly, how do you remove them? Do you outlaw them?

Thirdly, what happens when they're all gone? How do you certify a surgeon?

> How do you, first of all, "remove diplomas"?

Very simple - just stop giving them to people and let them be forgotten as a concept.

> Do you suggest that we fundamentally overturn how our entire society works just to remove cheating?

Are you suggesting that university diplomas are a fundamental factor of how our society works? If so, would you please explain how?

> First of all, which of these are you saying should be "removed"? Only the ones from universities? All of them?

Only those from the universities. Universities are officially recognized "places to learn" and they should be kept that way. Studying for longer than "appropriate" number of years should not be frowned upon, but encouraged. The whole process of "verification" should be completely independent of learning.

Bundling "learning" and "verification", the way universities do, inevitably leads to hordes of people who want verification, but not learning - i.e. cheaters.

> Secondly, how do you remove them? Do you outlaw them?

Very simple - stop issuing them (I suppose a country-level ban of university diplomas could do, but politics depend on the country so I can't give you a general answer). If you want a certificate authority, make a certificate authority and make it its sole purpose to verify that people have the knowledge. Leave university out of that.

> Thirdly, what happens when they're all gone? How do you certify a surgeon?

A certificate authority (that only verifies surgeons' skills, and doesn't bundle the process with "learning").

The proposal on the central verification authority is actually how pilot licenses are given. The flight schools have no legal power to exam. For example theoretical exams are done by the aeronautical authority of the country which itself only doles out exams with question from a standardized set of questions. Pilot training was for me how education should be. I was not the best pilot but I clearly now see how that was both my fault as well as not my calling.

Also in Portugal and in Poland there is a thing called national exam which is a nationwide exam at certain check points. It is very useful in showing per school social economic issues as well as grade inflations(school grade VS national exam grade). I honestly do not understand why the verification is not done independently of the teaching in all levels of education. It would also liberate teachers to focus on teaching while having a nationwide benchmark validation on their approach to teaching. Teachers ironically hate to be evaluated.

Another factor that is very hard to handle is that education is an industry that employs a very powerful class, the teachers. More often than not when education is in the news it is for teacher' labor issues. In Portugal recently they held a strike on national exam days. To give you an idea of how important national exams are, they are held in police stations and delivered by police officers to the schools on exam day to avoid leaks and so nobody has unfair advantages.

I will never forget that teachers held students national exams hostage for their negotiations. (they lost and suffered such a public backlash that their bargaining power was neutered for a few years).

So you’ve come full circle here, though. What’s the difference between trying to have people not cheat the test at university and not cheat the test at the certificate authority? I was with you until you brought in this part, because it’s literally the same thing now but at a different building, basically.

Employer verification made sense, you mention they have to deal with it if their hire is dumb. This secondary certificate authority idea undermines your entire argument though. Maybe I’m missing something though and you have a good idea for how the CA will mitigate cheating that a university can’t do.

> So you’ve come full circle here, though. What’s the difference between trying to have people not cheat the test at university and not cheat the test at the certificate authority?

Because certificate authority will be separated from teaching, its sole purpose would be to prevent cheating, and they will be able to focus on it completely. Currently, universities don't have much incentive to focus on preventing cheating, because of overworked professors, or simply because they must print X diplomas a year or disappear.

Besides, when certificate authority has a sole purpose of verifying knowledge, it will become obvious which certificate authority allows cheating - people certified by it will fail at their jobs, thus ruining its reputation.

> This secondary certificate authority idea undermines your entire argument though. Maybe I’m missing something though and you have a good idea for how the CA will mitigate cheating that a university can’t do.

The difference is subtle but important - currently, universities don't suffer much reputational damage from cheaters, because the testing aspect of university is interleaved with the learning aspect - so if a university has good learning opportunities, nobody cares if a certain percentage of its diploma-holders are cheaters. They are on their own.

With certificate authorities, cheating will be naturally devastating, because the certificate authority will (I assume) serve just as a filter for employers - employers will choose employees which hold certificates from a trusted authority, i.e. the one that doesn't let people cheat. So there will be natural incentive to prevent cheating, and the free market will do its thing.

> A certificate authority (that only verifies surgeons' skills, and doesn't bundle the process with "learning").

It seems like you've just moved the cheating problem from one organization to a different organization? How would this new certificate authority measure learning better than universities are currently measuring learning? Are there examples of such certificate authorities existing now? Do they also have cheating problems?

> It seems like you've just moved the cheating problem from one organization to a different organization?

While that might seem redundant, keep in mind that most of the cheating happens because responsibility for both teaching and testing falls on the professor of the subject, and there is not much incentive to prevent cheating when the school must print X diplomas a year or disappear. I assume that an organization whose sole purpose is to certificate knowledge can be much more specialized for testing and spend most of their time trying to combat cheating.

> Are there examples of such certificate authorities existing now?

A sibling comment has mentioned pilot schools: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31548177

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