Archive for June, 2009

GET a degree from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in just one year, for as little as $12,000.

Better yet, spare yourself the trip to Australia. Just head to Beach Road for evening classes once or twice a week, and hand up minimal assignments. No examinations required.

Sounds too good to be true?

Well, not to a few hundred Singaporeans who were persuaded by Brookes Business School in Beach Road to sign up for a one-year course leading to a fake RMIT Bachelor of Business degree.

A dozen of these ‘RMIT graduates’ told The Straits Times they enrolled between 2005 and late last year, and paid between $12,000 and $18,000 for the course, believing the programme was bona fide. At least one of them is still doing the course.

They were drawn by the fact that the school offered degree courses from an established brand-name institution. Also, it was a school registered with the Education Ministry and had a quality mark from the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case).

They attended evening classes in marketing or management once or twice a week and handed in eight to 10 assignments, which they were told would count towards their final grade. They were taught mostly by part-time lecturers whom they say kept changing. The school currently lists seven lecturers, including two expatriates, on its website.

But their suspicions were aroused late last year when rumours started circulating that one of their fellow ‘graduates’ received a stern warning from a bank after she applied for a job with her fake RMIT degree.

Of the dozen interviewed, two ‘graduates’ confirmed that they had used the degrees to land their current jobs – one as a senior administrative executive in a public institution and another as a sales manager in a multinational company. The others said they had not used their degrees, worried by the swirling rumours.

At least three managed to get full refunds of the fees they paid, after signing a form agreeing not to take any further action against the school. This was after the school’s owner, Mr Benny Yap, initially denied that the degree was fake.

A polytechnic diploma holder said that at first, Mr Yap offered to exchange her RMIT degree for one from another university, but she refused to accept it.

Said the service industry executive in her 30s: ‘Why would I want to replace one fake with another?’

Another ‘RMIT graduate’ working in an education-related business said she had been having sleepless nights worrying that her bosses would discover her certificate was fake.

‘I thought it was the real thing and worked hard at all my assignments,’ said the polytechnic graduate, also in her 30s.

Her assignments were never graded and returned, she said, but in the end she received a glowing transcript with more than a dozen distinctions.

A sales executive in his 30s, who only wanted to be known as Mr Chan, said he is still attending classes for his ‘RMIT’ business degree course. He showed The Straits Times his class schedule, notes and a receipt for the $5,000 deposit he paid.

He took up the course to improve his career prospects. ‘Now I feel cheated,’ he said.

Besides selling fake RMIT degrees, the school also peddled bachelor of business degrees from Brookes University, which students said they were told was based in Truro city in Cornwall, in the United Kingdom.

Four students said they had paid between $8,000 and $12,000 for this unaccredited programme and attended the same classes as the ‘RMIT’ candidates.

The Brookes University website describes it as a virtual university, without a campus. It claims to be accredited by the ‘Global Accreditation Commission’ in Wales, but adds that it is a ‘non-traditional university’ and therefore not accredited.

When The Straits Times called Brookes Business School to find out what other degrees it offered, a staff member proffered a one-year course from the University of Wales or the University of Ballarat in Australia, both costing $18,000.

The Straits Times contacted both universities. Ballarat University, an hour’s drive from Melbourne, said it has no such agreement with Brookes.

The director of the University of Wales’ validation unit, Mr Huw Hughes, whose name and signature appear on Brookes University degree transcripts, said he wrote to Brookes in April about his forged signature.

Brookes’ Mr Yap replied, claiming that Mr Hughes’ signature had been misused by a former staff member.

However, the University of Wales confirmed that it does offer a distance learning programme through the Institute of Administrative Management (IAM) in the UK and that Brookes is a tuition centre for IAM programmes.

It is not known exactly how many people have bought counterfeit RMIT and unaccredited Brookes University degrees. But going by the class sizes of 30 to 50 cited by the students, the total is likely to run into the hundreds.

RMIT, ranked No. 10 in Australia by the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings, is popular with international students, especially for its business and IT degree courses.

Dr Madeleine Reeve, Pro Vice-Chancellor (International and Development) told The Straits Times that the university became aware as far back as April 2007 that the Brookes Business School website advertised RMIT degrees.

Through its lawyers, RMIT demanded and obtained a written undertaking from Brookes’ Mr Yap to remove all references to RMIT on its website and documentation. Mr Yap also promised to notify all students that Brookes had no association whatsoever with RMIT.

But earlier this year, a number of Brookes students e-mailed RMIT to check whether they were registered as students. They were not.

Dr Reeve said RMIT has since filed a police report here.

She said that RMIT courses have been offered here for years through a few private schools, the biggest being the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM), which currently has about 6,000 foreign and local students enrolled in RMIT programmes.

SIM charges about $30,000 for a three-year course. Doing the same degree at the Melbourne campus costs at least $100,000 in fees and living expenses over three years.

On average, polytechnic diploma holders are given a year’s exemption and have to devote two years to full-time study to obtain a degree.

SIM chief executive officer Lee Kwok Cheong said the fake degrees were a serious matter. ‘It clearly shows the need for new laws to regulate private schools,’ he said.

Under a new Private Education Bill to be introduced in Parliament later this year, private school operators who misrepresent themselves and leave students in the lurch will face tougher penalties, including hefty fines and imprisonment. Mr Lee advised students to do thorough checks on their courses and schools and not to go for short-cuts.

Meanwhile, one ‘RMIT graduate’ said she recently resigned from a well-paying sales job after learning that her degree was fake.

Said the 28-year-old: ‘I have come across many schools here that offer degrees from unheard-of universities in strange places. But when Brookes offered an RMIT degree, I thought there was no way it could be a fake, because no one would dare use the name of a well-established university like RMIT.

‘I was wrong. I have wasted all my time and money.’

Source: The Straits Times