If you haven’t read my previous hubs, I live in the Czech Republic, where qualifications and academic titles are really important.

In this country, people will put letters before and after their names on their business cards, as people do in many other countries.

Here, they will put them before and after their names on e-mail signatures and door bells!

In many organizations, it is considered polite and professional to address people by the academic title that comes before their name, just as people address officers by their rank in the army.

That’s why the scandal that has come out of the education system has the destructive power of a tsunami.

This scandal started when the Law Faculty of the University of Plzeň was revealed to have been selling degrees to ‘fast track’ students who had paid officials there.

Elements of these students’ graduating theses were shown to have been copied.

These ‘fast track’ students appear to include at least one former prime minister and other senior officials in the government.

The scandal has spread to other universities and faculties in the Czech Republic.

As yet, no action has been taken to prosecute either the people who ‘sold’ these degrees or those who bought them and used them to advance in their careers.

Qualifications in the world of job hunting have the same value as money does in the world of business, they are a token that quantifies the value of knowledge received, just as money is a token that quantifies the value of goods or services exchanged.

If people stopped believing in the value of money, the economy would collapse.

What are the implications if there is a widespread loss of faith in the value of a nation’s qualifications?

Will there be ‘hyperinflation’, where more and more qualifications are required to apply for jobs? We are already seeing that with applicants requiring university degrees to do basic clerical work in offices.

Will companies refuse to consider applicants who went to universities involved in the scandal? Could this be an opportunity for corrupt recruiters either within the company or in agencies to extort bribes to alter documents?

Will more students decide to study abroad, because other countries have education systems with a better reputation?

Whatever the results, this scandal will damage the trust and respect that people have for educational institutions. Once institutions lose people’s trust and respect, they lose their authority.