Another St. Kitts School...

...but it's legit. It's a nursing school being started by a guy who already runs veterinary and medical schools in the Caribbean.

http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/2004/06/03/nursing.htm

-=Steve=-

 

Good heavens, no, not anything. But when a country accredits Eastern Caribbean University, the now-defunct one-man school run from his home in Smithville, Texas, some people pay a little more attention to their activities than what is done in Jamaica, for instance.

That's reasonable.

Also, when aperson who founded a medical school that is now on the Oregon list starts a new school, it will probably be looked at just a little more closely than if Yale or Oregon Health Science University opened a campus in the Caribbean.

That would be reasonable also if I trusted the ODA list, which I don't.

I know from meeting students that Ross's medical school in Dominica is for real. I suppose I don't know anything about their veterinary school, though. Do you know why it's on the list? Is it a "they're in St. Kitts so they're guilty until proven innocent" situation?

-=Steve=-

 

Steve's shamelessly libertarian bias, no extra charge!

My arguments regarding St. Kitts have always been in opposition to those who demanded that St. Kitts accredited schools be automatically deemed RA-equivalent, simply because they are approved by a politically soverign state. It was directed as much at uncritical American admissions and HR people as it was directed at particular off-shore schools.

Don't worry, I'd be the last person to say that just because a government says something's good that it must be. For example, "State Approved!" doesn't carry any weight with me.

My reaction to the off-shore schools, often run by Americans from addresses on small islands, is similar to my reaction to American state-approved schools. I think that some of them may in fact be RA equivalent. Others may be academically inferior, but still valuable to some students for some purposes. Others are best avoided.

As far as those run by Americans, or whomever, I think that's fine as long as the school really is in the location that it claims. It's when a school is run by a guy who lives in Paducah from his office in Paducah but has an incorporation and a maildrop address in a foreign country that I lose respect and interest.

I'd suggest that those who are fond of Caribbean schools as I am fond of CA-approved schools, take a case-by-case approach and actually try to talk-up the individual schools that they like. Relate some interesting features of the school. Tell us about some of its accomplishments and about some of the recognition that it's received.

That's reasonable, and schools should have a list of achivements that lend them credibility. Accreditation would be a highlight, of course, but so, for example, would the lists that foreign and nationally accredited schools sometimes keep of postgraduate programs for which their graduates have been accepted.

But don't just demand that it be accepted, sight unseen, because of the soverignty of the state licensing it. That's simply confusing a political criterion for an academic one. That confusion can ultimately lead, reductio-ad-absurdem, to SRU.

That's well said. There's a reason that government is usually the provider of last resort for services -- it's inefficient and what it does accomplish is through coercion. It's much better to let interested parties make decisions for themselves about what credentials they do and do not approve.

-=Steve=-

 

More bias

Not meaning to pick on you in particular Steve, how can the ODA list of examples of institutions whose degrees for use are illegal in Oregon not be trusted?

Well, in the case of Ross veterinary school, I'm skeptical that a school is a fraud that is run by the same person or group who runs a school that I know is for real.

Does this mean that people think the law is unconstitutional?

I don't know; I'm not a lawyer. I don't believe, however, that constitutional/unconstitutional and right/wrong are on the same axis.

Does it mean that you believe that institutions on that list are actually fully up to the standards of an RA institution?

No, or at least not necessarily. I expect that there would be a high degree of correspondence between the schools ODA thinks are mills and what I think are mills.

Does it mean that one thinks that ODA is lying and that the institution's degrees really are legal Oregon rather than illegal?

Evidently, if ODA says a degree is illegal to claim, it is illegal, but that has nothing to do with whether or not I think they're lying.

I think that the requirement that a school wrongly on the list must pony up $400 as an "evaluation fee" even though it's presenting exculpatory evidence is wrong. It give the appearance of incentive for ODA to err on the side of determining guilt. I'm not saying they would do that. I am saying that the existence of a perverse incentive has a negative effect on their trustworthiness even if their intentions are good.

That's not my big problem with the ODA list, though. My problem with their system is that it is a criminal offence for Oregonians to say they have a degree from an institution that the State of Oregon doesn't like. No matter how well intentioned ODA may be, that's the antithesis of academic freedom.

If ODA published a list of institutions the credentials of which were unusable for hiring or promotion for employees of the State or Oregon, I'd have no problem with it. If others chose to use that list similarly, that would be their business, not mine.

I understand that ODA's goal is to prevent fraud. I appreciate that, and everything I've read leads me to expect they have good intentions. I do not agree with methods for achieving this that impinge on freedom, however, and that's what ODA's methods do.

-=Steve=-