there must be
a verification system in place to detect such-useless and fraudulent giving of degrees at the highest academic level. More importantly, there must be real resolve where it should matter to make it impossible the offering of such degrees in the first place not to speak of
actually being enabled to buy and sell them
Outrageous and unacceptable PhD scam
According to an exclusive report published in this newspaper on Saturday, post doctorate degrees (PhDs) are being sold in the country by unscrupulous people involved with certain educational institutions at a cost ranging from Tk. 4,30,000- 7,00,000. The Prime Ministers Office (PMO) has already identified an organisation called the Study World International and Sheds University College that have provided fake PhD degrees to over 200 people in the country so far. Fake degrees set-ups are hardly a novelty , but then nothing has been seen before on the scale of the international fraud that the above mentioned organisations are conducting. Apparently the PhD scam had existed for quite some time and the scammers reaped millions of takas. Nothing less than a thorough investigation by the state will be able to conclusively resolve the issue. We would like to ask why the regulatory bodies were caught napping? Previously questions have been raised regarding the accountability (or lack thereof) of the University Grants Commission and the Education Ministry. However the lackadaisical approach continues.
The system of operations of the scammers is quite simple. It consists basically of the online descriptions of elegantly named and beautifully depicted schools with names that sound very much like those of respected American and other North American or European colleges. This is, in fact, an elaborate online facade; behind these names there are no professors, no courses and no campuses that offer degrees with real accreditation. It is true that some customers are essentially complicit in the scam, reaching out to these organisations for the express purpose of buying fake degrees. But persons seeking a legitimate higher education have been lured into enrolling in courses that never materialised or cajoled into believing that all you need is enough money to get a doctoral degree. The fact is despite steady decline in the standard of our higher education, the numbers of unmerited PhD degree holders are mushrooming.
Centres of many so-called overseas universities operate here. Before allowing anyone to set up shop, their background should be investigated. But it seems that it is rather too easy for people to open up shops to sell these degrees. Let us hope that the UGC but more so the Education Ministry will rise to the occasion and deliver the service which the nation expects from these bodies ; their passivity and reactive nature have already taken a heavy toll on our higher education. There must be a verification system in place to detect such useless and fraudulent giving of degrees at the hig hest level. More importantly there must be real resolve where it should matter to make it impossible the offering of such degrees in the first place not to speak of actually being enabled to buy and sell them.
