The Shadow Scholars

Professor Patrician Kingori is a senior professor of sociology at the University of Oxford, and in this overlong documentary she investigates the growing use of surrogate brains to write coursework for those too lazy\busy or just plain unskilled to do it for themselves. Her study focuses on Kenya. A nation where there are many academically qualified individuals who cannot find work, and so who are somewhat entrepreneurially offering their services online to others. Now we are not talking about life changing sums, here. A few dollars per page and of course there are the middle men who take the bulk of that, but what becomes quite clear is that many of those doing the cerebral heavy lifting need the money, sure, but they also thrive on an intellectual stimulation they wouldn’t originality enjoy. Of course they appreciate that they are facilitating cheating, but as one of them asks: is what they are doing unethical or are they merely providing a service and it’s the client who must make the ethical choices? Now obviously we don’t have any of the commissioners of their work to talk to, and that’s where I felt this rather disappointed. It sets about using colonial archive and issues of race to suggest that this is the latest exploitation of African people at the hands of the “West”, without being able to substantiate any of it’s assertions. Who is to say that those buying the essays are not African Americans, or Asian Brits, or Korean students studying in Paris? Moreover, given the complexities of the payment methods employed there is no way to evidence to the buyers where the work is emanating from. It could be Kenya, it could be Kentucky, it could be Kilmarnock. Ethics is mentioned frequently as if it were a thing. A fixed point on a map. Perhaps the broader ethics that might have made for more meaningful discussion is the assumption that academia is a means to an end in itself. Why are so many Kenyans overqualified? Why can’t they find work? Is that because there are...