THE Higher Education Authority (HEA) has expressed worry at how easily obtainable university degrees have become at some of the country’s learning institutions. In the words of the Authority’s Director General Professor Kazhila Chinsembu, the regulatory body is “flabbergasted and disgusted by some universities that dubiously, recklessly and unethically pass students using the 50+1 moderation method.” Professor Chinsembu says a university is not a shopping mall for degrees, and asserts that the nation will pay a heavy price if the HEA fails to rethink and revise the permissible parameters in which the private sector should provide university education. The question of the quality of education provided by both lower and higher learning institutions is an important one, and the HEA...