Professor who took on cheats is forced to flee Pacific university
Academic’s dream job in Papua New Guinea turned into a nightmare as his reforms hit roadblocks
WHEN Professor John Warren left Wales to take up his new academic role two years ago in Papua New Guinea, he believed he had found the job of his dreams.
The exotic country, nestling in the southwestern Pacific Ocean just north of Australia, seemed the idyllic location for the plant biologist and his wife, Cathryn, to settle.
But as the new vice-chancellor of the country’s University of Natural Resources and Environment, he discovered the perils of trying to rid the institution of cheating. And it culminated in him being threatened with jail and being told to “get out of there” before he was forced to flee under cover of the night to Australia.
Prof Warren resigned from his post at Aberystwyth University two years ago to fly to his new post on the other side of the globe.
But his attempts to crack down on cheating, improve academic standards and appoint staff based on merit rather than tribal allegiances ruffled the feathers of university staff, who took umbrage at his reforms.
“Most staff didn’t understand that to pass a degree, you have to get 50 per cent overall,” he told The Sunday Telegraph. “They couldn’t calculate percentages and there were a huge number of errors. There was no standard marking criteria.”
Prof Warren, 56, and originally from South Yorkshire, said he established simple procedures, like using spreadsheets to calculate marks. But there were “bells ringing almost instantly”, with fellow university staff telling him to “just concentrate on getting money in and we’ll run the university”.
Prof Warren told how “none of the university council really had any genuine interest in students and academic standards. It was all about political power and manoeuvring.”
The fallout came to a head at a university council meeting last month which he said made his position “untenable”. He was also visited by a high ranking university colleague who appeared to threaten him.
“He said: ‘I’ve only come because I heard rumours that you are telling people I want to be vice-chancellor.’
“I told him: ‘It’s not true’. He made it very clear that for something as trivial as that he could find people who could stand up in court and back him up.
“What he was saying was, ‘I can take you to court and put you in prison any time I like’.” Prof Warren said this was “not an insignificant threat” because Papua New Guinea has particularly tough libel laws.
“Once you have a court order served on you, you can’t leave the country because immigration will stop you,” he said. “Court cases go on for years, however ludicrous.” He said he asked the
‘You know it’s a risk and you need money to get out of there. We had passports in suitcases under the bed’
British High Commission for advice and was simply told to “just get out of there”.
Prof Warren resigned before his wife – a former head of science at a Welsh secondary school – smuggled him off the university campus after nightfall.
He then spent 48 hours hiding in a friend’s house before flying to Australia and eventually home to Wales.
His experience echoed that of Albert Schram, the Dutch vice-chancellor of Papua New Guinea’s University of Technology, whose attempts to root out fraud in the institution led to claims from his colleagues that he faked his doctorate. He fled the island in May after being released on bail.
Prof Warren said he did not regret his decision to take up the post, but had decided to retire from academia and hoped instead to run a sheep and pig farm in Wales. “We didn’t go in completely ignorant. You always know it’s a risk and you need money to get out of there,” he said. “We had passports in suitcases under the bed.
“I don’t regret the adventure, the local people there are generous and it is an amazingly beautiful part of the world. With hindsight, I might have been more suspicious of what was happening on campus.”
The University of Natural Resources and Environment could not be reached for comment. uments. The 75-year-old was granted unprecedented access to the secretive nation, known for its mistrust of the West, for the Channel 5 documentary.
Palin told the Radio Times: “Because we were in front of the monuments of the two great leaders and there are various rules there and the leaders have to be filmed in their entirety, and so you have to stand a long way back so you can film the full length of them.
“And in the end they said no, no, no, You have got to do it again because you had your hand in your pocket and that is disrespectful, so that was interesting.”
Minders had banned litter and people in vest tops from the final cut, he said.
Although he has roamed the world for more than 30 years, Palin admitted he was “very, very cautious” about visiting North Korea amid fears over its nuclear weapons programme.
He said he decided to go ahead with the project after the historic handshake between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s president, in April, which signalled the beginnings of a truce.
ITN had been in negotiations with North Korean officials for two years before filming and received help from British academic Nick Bonner, whose company Koryo Tours enables visitors to explore the country.
Mr Bonner said: “It is important not to show disrespect. If you dress badly and acted insensitively it is likely you would be tolerated, but your Korean guide would be made responsible.”