“EXact” scandal spread like a fire in the woods around the Globe. Media channels repeated ir over the last couple of day continually, linking and dragging other agencies, media houses and partners into this mess and garbage of a scandalized world of economy to make billions of dollars through advertisement.

Maybe Carlyle and Ruskin (British thinkers) rightly foresee and declare an economic, “Dismal Science” while classical economist such as Adam Smith were trying at writing “Wealth of Nations”. “Work less and earn more” is a slogan of the modern corporate sector. Cheat your customers (or students) like chess player and glorify in the success even if you are not successful. WTO, GATT, NAFTA, IMF, World Bank, ASEAN etc. all networks, institutions and organizations formed by genius people get Nobel prizes through introducing new puzzling games of looting and pumping money from periphery to Metropolitan to Iceland’s to black markets or “economic black holes” (where outsider can’t see what’s happening).

“EXACT” is not just a scandal but a glimpse into making money through fraudulent exercise of online business including education systems. Nobody knows how many world scholars were awarded certificates from these distance learning so called universities serving the world and spreading corrupt values like the “Congo Virus.” No doubt, cheating in education is as old as grading systems. Basically grading system and pass-and-fail promoted cheating. Mr. Steven E. Landsburg wrote in his “Why Grade Inflation is Bad for schools”- and what to do about it “in 1998 that the results of polls of over 3000 high achieving sixteen to eighteen years olds (students with A or B averages, who planned to attend college after graduation) showed the following:

  • 80 percent of the country’s best students cheated to get to the tops of their classes
  • More than half of the students surveyed said that they did not think cheating was a big deal;
  • 95percent of cheaters said they were not caught;
  • 40percent cheated on a quiz or a test;
  • 67 percent copied someone else’s homework.

Couple of years ago there was hue and cry about parliamentarians who won their seats on fake degrees from various universities. In response to the question about fake degrees, Ex-Chief Minster Mr, Raeesani, rightly summarized the story, “degree is degree: either fake or genuine”.

From US to Pakistan, Dubai to Egypt, many try to benefit from this fake institution of degrees. The question is why they are trying to occupy our time of entertainment, news and information through dirty types of business news of scandals, money, and corruption. Whenever there are such news hypes on TV; my younger son always asks me what have they done as a good thing to come on TV? What kind of socialization children will get through these news hits, and discussion forums? What kind of values are they promoting through scandals as there is already enough violence in movies and cartoons etc.

If it’s breaking news, one hundred times may be enough to inform masses about the importance of it and socialize consumers about specific sponsored products.  In a country where literacy rate is low, people hardly have computers, what do they have to do with the EXACT scandal when they hardly how to use simple mobile applications.

Daily stock exchanges crash, investors drown, but nobody gives any ear. Software or any other company collapses, so what do we have to do? What was our state when these types of firms and organizations were working to offer online degrees, and services? What were High Tech cyber departments doing when this firm was awarding online degrees to their customers (not students)?

Readers should not be surprised to learn that this is another business to sell news of scandals, rumours and frauds. This is the new world where, “lunch is never free”. You watch more TV, it earns more money. You read more news, it collects more revenue. Fear and suspense motivate human beings to become excited and watch more. Media knows the intrinsic value of human motivational impulses as they hired genius psychologists to design advertisements to attract the attention of human beings. Politicians hardly take pre-cautions to stop such practices as they have other priorities. This scandal shows the modern genius of making money but hardly believes in moral values. John Lock, a seventieth century philosopher, wrote, “Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.”