A letter from reader Hafiz Ismail…
Bogus University Operated by Malaysian on BBC
Everyday the Malaysian image to the world are tainted by works of con artists and the people holding office in our country are not doing anything to stop these people from operating. It is a sad day for higher education in Malaysia, and the lobbying to make Malaysia a centre of global educational excellence.
Just like setitik nila merosakkan susu sebelanga, these fraudsters are mockering the genuine degree holders and legitimate institutes of higher learning in our country.
Uncle Lim had wrote in his blog about these bogus universities not long ago. Now the BBC and other medias in the UK are carrying news and investigative reports on bogus universities, including the one Uncle Lim pointed out. These reports did mention the fraudster’s name, where he comes from (Malaysia). Anyone who reads these news may have second thoughts about education in Malaysia.
I for one, is truly ashamed.
Feel free to surf to the websites below. The one on BBC is particularly interesting as the investigation was carried out by a BBC reporter who went undercover. A 2 part video are included on the website.
BBC ll Guardian ll Accountancyage ll Timnesonline ll Personneltoday
These blog entries were written by fellow Malaysian individuals and educationists, Tony and Idlan, who did their own investigation:
link 1 ll link 2 ll link 3 ll link 4
These educationists have done their investigation long before BBC did theirs, as Uncle Lim had written his entry as well, but no one takes serious action on the fraudsters. It is ironic that rather than taking action, some people (artists, millionaires, attention seekers, and politicians) are glorifying these fake degree mills.
And the media to promote them further.
A very sad day for Malaysia.
Kind regards,
Hafiz Ismail.
Hafiz has mentioned Lim Kit Siang a few times, but I can’t find his writings on the issue besides an article on bogus university which is about a different issue… but Lim’s point is still applicable, that the Higher Education Ministry is aware of various intellectual frauds and university scams but is not doing anything about it.
Bogus foreign degrees are not something new; it has been happening for years. I have personally known a friend who visited Hawaii for a few weeks and came back with a master degree… he knew what he was doing, and he was not ashamed of putting the MBA title on his name card.
The sad thing is, my friend is only a tip of the iceberg… and most of these peoples are fully aware that the degrees they got are dubious.
The Irish International University (IIU) (the bogus university in BBC report) managed to take the scam into new level though; they even managed to fool government officials into believing that they are a genuine institution.
I have not much sympathy for ‘graduates’ that are scammed by this university. People need to be a fool to be fooled at the first place. The Malaysian Higher Education Ministry and related bodies could not escape their responsibility though, in endorsing this fraudulent university in Malaysia…
The ministry didn’t do anything to prevent the university from scamming Malaysians despite warnings from Irish embassy, and the worse thing is… they did nothing from preventing Malaysians to use their bogus degrees in scamming others. It is totally unfair for graduates and professionals that spent years to obtain their degrees and papers… that’s probably why Hafiz was so pissed in his letter.
I am not too concerned for the fact that the bogus university is owned by a Malaysian. Yes it is a shame, but it’s something that is out of our control. We can’t blame our government about something that is happening in Ireland… in fact it’s the Irish government that has to answer a lot of questions.
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