By P.K.Balachandran
Colombo, December 14:
The Anura Kumara Dissanayake government in Sri Lanka, which was sailing smoothly despite unsolved economic issues, suffered the first jolt since coming to power, when parliament Speaker Asoka Ranwala resigned on Friday amidst accusations that his “Ph.D” was fake.
Urban Development and Housing Minister Anura Karunatilake and Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara were also assailed for falsely claiming that they had doctoral degrees.
Ranwala maintained that he had acquired a Ph.D, and said that he had no documentary proof of the doctorate. He said he would produce it on getting it from the Waseda University-affiliated institution in Japan he was registered with.
In the case of Nanayakkara, it came to be known that it was the parliament’s fault. It had appended “Dr” to his name deviating from the text he had given them. In the case of Karunatilake, he was not a doctorate and yet was using the prefix “Dr”. He said that he was a Ph.D student but had not completed the programme.
Because of the public exposure, all three dropped “Dr” from their on-line platforms.
However, the squeaking clean image which the ruling National Peoples’ Power (NPP) government had, was sullied. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) MP Namal Rajapaksa urged government MPs to resign if they failed to provide evidence of their educational qualifications. Taking to X, he criticised the NPP for misleading the people saying that they would give an honest and transparent government with people having good educational qualifications. People voted for the NPP in the Presidential and parliamentary elections this year impressed with the “high” qualifications of the NPP candidates in contrast to their challengers, many of whom could have been mere high school graduates.
Root of the Problem
Fake degrees are not confined to Members of the Sri Lankan Parliament and pushy politicians trying to impress the public. It is widespread in society in Sri Lanka, South Asia and even in the UK and USA. In all these countries there are those who falsely claim they have a university degree, and there are others who have a fake degree, and there are yet others who provide fake degrees for a hefty fee.
Literature on the subject tells us that fake degrees are a product of certain socio-economic conditions. The fake degrees industry arose when South Asian countries liberalized their economies creating new needs but without generating enough jobs.
In a population of uneducated people, flaunting a university degree, whether real or fake, helps gain recognition. It opens the doors to jobs when jobs are scarce.
In colonial times, when university education was very much restricted, people with a university degree would routinely add “BA” or “MA” to their names even when writing to friends or on their name plates. For them it was a mark of some achievement.
After the British gave independence to countries in the Indian subcontinent, politics became popular and intensely competitive. Politicians began to add educational qualifications, real or false, to their CVs as additional feathers in their cap.
Politicians began to use their clout in local universities to get “honorary” doctorates which they unethically flaunted as doctorates got after pursuing a rigorous doctoral programme.
The number of politicians getting such doctorates increased exponentially after universities, to curry favour with governments and politicians, starting giving doctorates to Chief Ministers, Ministers and other political bigwigs.
The number of political doctorates in India ballooned with the politicization of the universities. Both state and private universities were in this racket as both needed State funds ad political patronage to conduct their “educational business.”
All countries in South Asia developed economically, especially after they liberalized, but job opportunities did not grow commensurately. The new needs arising from a liberalized economy and the intense competition that the needs generated resulted in a craze for getting “higher qualifications” no matter how dubious these qualifications might be.
Degree Shops
To meet the needs of these “wannabes”, shops came up selling degrees from nice sounding but dubious universities, both local and foreign.
In 2022, the Colombo-based Roar Media carried a story on the degree racket in Sri Lanka. It cited the case of the director of a sanitary ware company, who while scrolling through his Facebook page, saw a message from a “local representative of a university based in the US.” The gent offered honorary doctorates for LKR 390,000 each. Manav Bharti University scandal was a private university in Himachal Pradesh state which had sold 36,000 degrees for US$1,362 each.
Such offers came from agents based in the US, Nigeria and India. The prices for a doctorate varied from USD 62 to USD 1400. Even “convocations” were held in expensive places to impress the recipients and others, but at an extra cost of USD 626 per client.
Some of the known fake universities are: Indian Virtual University; Universal Tamil University, Chennai; Kings University, U.S.A.; International Peace University, Germany; International Tamil University; and University Asia, Kathmandu, Nepal.
The fake degree agents claim high conectons. According to India Today, a Chennai man ran an International Coaching Centre under the auspices of the “International Labour Organisation/United Nations Development Programme for getting Ph.Ds. MBAs and MBBS degrees from New York University and Stanton University
American fake degrees are, of course, the most sought after. The United States Education Foundation in India (USEFI), Chennai, run by the US Education Department, had said that most of the US “universities” giving “degrees” were fake. The list includes International University, California, Stanton University and City University of New York.
Ghost Writers
Some shops touting fake degrees really seek research work. One India-based entity gave a PhD certificate in 45 days for USD 1065 after a 250-page thesis was submitted. To help write Ph.D. dissertations there arose ghost writers.
Sometimes, these fly-by-night operators just pocketed the money and disappeared.
In 2019, 11 professors at government arts and science colleges in India’s Tamil Nadu state were suspended after their PhD certificates were found to be fake. The same year, the Education Ministry launched an investigation into six universities – including three public ones – that had been accused of selling fake degrees.
Rajib Ray, president of the Federation of Central Universities’ Teachers’ Associations, told South China Morning Post that most fake degree scams in India involved private universities – a sector that has been booming since the 1990s following a surge in demand for IT and management courses.
END
