A Shanghai university instructor suspended for punishing students for plagiarism has raised a storm of controversy and prompted soul-searching among mainland academics.
Ma Ke , who teaches advertising and multimedia studies at Shanghai Normal University's art school, failed eight students earlier this year after he discovered that at least some material in their final papers was taken from the internet.
'Some of these papers were copied completely from websites even without changing titles. That's too excessive,' he said.
However, the university suspended Mr Ma, saying he was taking revenge against students who had criticised his teaching methods, while ignoring plagiarism by other students. 'Why couldn't Ma Ke find all the cases of cheating? I think he just targeted the eight students for revenge,' said Wan Qinhu , the dean of the art school.
The administration also accused Mr Ma of neglecting his students last year while on a trip for a landscape painting course.
Mr Ma has dismissed the allegations against him as nonsense. He said he spent the summer holiday trying to highlight his case since he fears losing his post at the university, where he has taught for three years.
The case highlights what many feel are increased incidents of university plagiarism, which has been made easier by the internet. Some even feel cheating points to a moral decay in the mainland's education system and an emphasis by universities on simply putting as many students through school as possible.
