FAKE DEGREE MAKE THEIR PRESENCE FELT IN PAKISTAN By Omer Quraishi
FAKE DEGREE MAKE THEIR PRESENCE FELT IN PAKISTAN By Omer Quraishi
One effect that electronic commerce (e-commerce) has had on Pakistan is that it has made quite easy the acquisition of a degree ‘mill’, Most degree ‘mills’ offer degrees – PhD’s included – for a price.
Most are based in the west but realizing that considerable demand for foreign degrees exits in developing countries, are now focusing their ‘marketing’ energies on people in countries, are now their ‘marketing’ energies on people in countries like Pakistan. People, who obviously do not have the academic skills or knowledge to earn a degree the traditional and conventional way but do have the money to purchase.
During any given week, this writer receives unsolicited email from at-least such degree factory The amount charged depends on the level f the degree and can be paid via the internet if one has a credit card.
For example, a visit to the web site www.diploma.one.com allows anyone with a credit card to (a) ‘order’ an accredited university degree and have it delivered in 30 days or (b) to acquire a ‘graduation degree based on “work history, life experience and previous college credits” also in 30 days. At the time this writer went on the said site, the following message was posted on it. “We are currently no taking orders. Please visit the links below for a school or college degree.
All Current orders are being processed and will ship very soon! Thank you. “Diplomaone staff”.
At the same that this is happening, the government’s Higher Education Commission (HEC) has stepped in and decided to do something to increase the number PhDs produced every year in Pakistan Research institutions and universities are being given funding to upgrade their facilities, to hire supervisors and to pay faculty members, especially those with doctorates, higher salaries. Someone with a PhD degree can expect to earn around Rs100,000/- per month or more.
Add to this the condition imposed by the military government before the last election of requiring candidates to have degrees. Many stories did the rounds of various members parliament basically purchasing such fraudulent degrees over the Internet or from local institutions.
Some cases were also filed and in one sitting legislator was unseated after it was found that his degree was fraudulent. To accommodate dozens of members of the MMA, the degree offered by the ‘madressahs’ (called ‘sanad’) was granted equivalence to the Bachelor’s degree of the government , only to threaten revoking it at the height of the MMA’s tussle with the government over the 17h amendment. At least one member of the present cabinet claims to hold a high academic qualification from unknown university but obviously this is something the HEC does not want to tread on.
Other politicians, reports appeared in newspapers suggested that at the very least the HEC needed to sharpen the mechanism through which it granted accreditation to local universities. Some of these universities granted degrees based on their affiliation with foreign ‘institutions’ existed only on paper or were simply one room offices churning out pieces of papers (with roman lettering and academic seals) and passing them off as degrees to whosoever would buy them. Since this was a new trend, although catching on very much of late, in the country most people, even those with more than a passing interest in higher education, didn’t really notice it too much. However, one person did: Q. Isa Daudpota.
Fired for speaking up
Currently, working at COMSTECH’s Centre for Frontier Technologies in Islamabad (headed by Dr. Ataur Rahman who also happen to b head of the Higher Education Commission), Daudpota has written extensively in the English language press on the issue.. In various articles and letters he talked about how some local universities, and with a reasonably good reputation, were giving doctorates in what seem to be impossibly short time. One such Islamabad-based government institution, which received its degree-granting charter in 2000, proceeded to award a PhD just seven months later.
Another to Daudpota, the institution than proceeding to grant another two doctorates before the year was over. A PhD normally takes anywhere three to seven years depending on the field of study and on whether field work is required for it or not. For someone to receive a PhD in less than a year, is unheard in rest of the world and is something that the Higher Education Commission would do well to investigate.
Daudpota also wrote about a private university which had been given a degree-granting charter by the government of Sindh and which was recognized by HEC. However, upon investigation it was found that the foreign affiliation on which rested this institution claim to fame was with a university which was more of a one room mail order operation than anything else.
However, after writing his most recent article, in which he alleged (not by name though) that a sitting vice chancellor of a public university had acquired a doctorate through such methods and in which he pleaded with HEC to take some action in this regard, Daudpota was told that his contact at COMSTECH would not be renewed when it ends at the end of this year.
Clearly, this shows that there are very powerful vested interests and lobbies involved in the fake degree racket. Instead of firing Mr. Daudpota (the head of HEC also happens to be the head of the place where Daudpota works), the HEC should have instead investigated the allegations and made.
This would have the right thing to do, especially given the propensity among some private sector universities in Pakistan to claim foreign affiliations where none exists or to offer accredited degrees where the accrediting authority is not credible or recognized. After all the issue related to students and their parents paying high sums in fees for a degree that is only worth the paper it is printed on.
Writers email: omarq@cyber.net.pk 15/11/2004
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