KEYNOTE SPEAKER’S ADDRESS.

AIT CONGREGATION. SATURDAY 10^TH AUGUST 2019

Mr Chairman

President of the Accra Institute of Technology

Members of the Board of Trustees of the Institute

Staff of the AIT

Representative of the Vice Chancellor of the KNUST

Students

Invited Guests, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen

Since I was made a member of the Board of Trustees of the Accra Institute of Technology, I have followed with keen interest and admiration the major strides the institute has made in contributing to the training of the requisite scientific and technological manpower so badly needed by the country. These major achievements have been made amid considerable odds and challenges. Today marks a major milestone in the history of the Institute. Not only is the Institute graduating its 14^th set of graduates, but it is also graduating the highest number of PhD students who have gone through a very rigorous period of training to get to this significant milestone in their lives. Within its relatively short period of existence, this Institute’s per capita annual output of PhDs has been phenomenal. This is no mean achievement, and the Institute deserves to be commended.

On behalf of the Board of Trustees, the University, and on my own behalf I wish to congratulate all of you graduating today for going through your studies successfully. Conditions have not been the most ideal, yet your performances continue to be of a very high standard. I sincerely hope that when you go into the world of work, you will ably justify yourselves to your prospective employers, and keep aloft the high academic reputation of AIT, your affiliate institutions, the KNUST and the Open University of Malaysia.

ACADEMIC FRAUD

Having congratulated you on your academic achievements, I would like to devote my address today to a very important issue that, if not seriously addressed, can cost this country considerably. This is the phenomenon of academic and intellectual fraud, which is fast becoming a major source of concern in the whole world including Ghana. Anybody can claim to possess an academic qualification or use a title. But it is how that qualification was acquired and the knowledge that the holder possesses with which to defend that qualification that matters most. There are several types of academic fraud, and their effect on society varies considerably. These include cheating in examinations, falsification of examination results and academic qualifications, fraudulent acquisition of academic degrees and titles, intellectual fraud including plagiarism and falsification of research results, etc. I will concentrate on just two of these. If I decide to talk on the scope of all these aspects of academic and intellectual fraud, I can deliver a five hour lecture and we will not be able to cover the entire scope by the end of those five hours. My intention therefore is to raise certain pertinent issues, and draw the attention of Government and the society at large to the dangers that this phenomenon poses to this country, and what needs to be done

Research Ethics and misconduct.

Those of you who have earned your masters and doctorate degrees are likely to go into careers that will involve research. You may either be teaching in tertiary institutions, working in research institutes or in industry. Even those of you with bachelor’s degrees will require research skills in whatever jobs you find yourselves in. Even if you go into your own private business, research skills will be very important in learning of what the trends are in your business and how to adapt to changing situations in the enterprise in which you are engaged. Unfortunately, even research, which requires a high degree of moral and ethical standards, and entails the quest for the truth, has now been invaded by the phenomenon of intellectual fraud including forgery of research results. Plagiarising other people’s work has now become an art. People paying for others to write their theses for them is now a multimillion dollar enterprise. A very recent case in point is what has come to be known as the Frank Sauer Case.  This is the story of an Associate Professor of biochemistry at the prestigious and world renowned University of California at Riverside, USA. For fifteen years this professor indulged in falsification of research results and images, and publications of such results as scientific facts and authentic findings. He had used these fictitious research results and publications to obtain huge amounts in research grants, amounting to millions of dollars. A whistle blower’s action led to an investigation in 2011-2012 which led to startling revelations. Time will not permit me to go into the sordid details of this case. Suffice it to say that as a result of the thorough investigations, Sauer was found guilty of scientific misconduct. He eventually lost his job. The question I would like to ask is, why did he not get prosecuted and sent to prison? Fraud is fraud. What is the difference between academic fraud and academic misconduct? This person was working on research that had biomedical implications, with possible unpleasant consequences to life.

FAKE AND COUNTERFEIT DEGREES

There is no doubt that you the graduating students gathered here today to be recognised and honoured, have gone through your studies to earn degrees that you clearly deserve, and can proudly use to seek further advancement in your various chosen careers. But in this current globalised word, a new phenomenon has become a very serious problem all over the word including Ghana. This is the alarming proliferation of fake degrees and fake academic titles. Now people can earn a PhD degree in fifteen minutes, just by paying a fee ranging from a mere hundred dollars to thousands of dollars to individuals and institutions some of which are situated in garages and kiosks. If you go to Manila, in the Philippines, and New York USA, as well as on the internet, you find kiosks and small corner shops advertising beautifully designed certificates ranging from diplomas to doctorates and even professorships in various disciplines including engineering, medicine, business, science, as well as some totally meaningless academic disciplines. Honorary doctorates and even professorships can be bought at a pittance.

What are fake diplomas?
Generally speaking, there are three categories of fake diplomas. The first category is typically a diploma that seems to be issued by an accredited institution, but the diploma is in fact produced illegally. The person who bought the document has never studied at the institution in question.

The second category comprises diplomas that are issued by accredited institutions, but the holder of the diploma has altered the information in the document, most commonly the grades.

The third and last category includes fake diplomas issued by fake universities, popularly known as diploma mills. Diploma mills grant ‘degrees’ to people who pay for this service, but do not offer any educational training.

The lawyers say that one does not break any law one chooses to call oneself by prefixing any title. Indeed when I was at the elementary school at Tarkwa in the fifties, I had a school mate called Doctor Simpson. He was a year ahead of me. But the Doctor was his first name, not a title. The law is broken when one tries to use such fraudulently acquired titles or qualifications for career advancement, societal recognition or to seek employment. It is a matter of caveat emptor.

The following article appeared in the Thursday August 18^th 2005 issue of The Times of London:

                        HOSPITAL CHIEF FORGED HIS DEGREE

The report said a National Health Service Trust Chief Executive who was embarrassed by his lack of formal education forged a “first class” degree to try to hold on to his £115,000 a year job. Neil Taylor, 42, left school with “one or two” A-levels but when his hospital merged with a neighbouring unit in 2003 to create the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust, he was selected for the top job. Suspicions were aroused during a spot check of executives’ CVs. He initially refused to provide proof of a BA in Business Administration and Economics from the University of Nottingham saying the certificate was hanging in the home of his elderly parents.  He eventually handed over a document which bore an obviously faked Logo. Checks revealed that he had attended only two (wine) – taster days at that university.  He was arrested and prosecuted. The prosecutor said “The untruths he had told were that he was a graduate, which he was not, and had a ‘first class degree’ which he had not.”  His defence lawyer argued that his client had landed the job because of the excellent reputation he had built up while Chief Executive of the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham. He had lied because he was embarrassed about his qualifications but he was perfectly capable of doing the job. The moral question is does one overlook the lies and deceit simply because he had proved through his performance that one did not need a degree to perform the sort of job he was doing with distinction?  Mr Taylor pleaded guilty to charges of obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception and attempting to commit the same offence. He was sentenced later at Shrewsbury Crown Court.

Forging of Degrees and Academic Qualifications:

Sometime ago we interviewed a candidate who wanted to be employed as a doctor in the University Hospital at Legon. He claimed in his CV to have graduated MB. ChB from the University of Nigeria Nsukka, and his certificate looked genuine. He claimed to have worked in several hospitals all over the country and in Nigeria. The more we interviewed him, the more suspicious we became of his credentials. From serious medical questions which he could not cope with, we even came as low as asking him what cholesterol was. The “Doctor” did not know what cholesterol was and what it did to human beings. We discovered from his CV that he had not worked in any hospital for more than two years. Apparently his modus operandi was to go to a hospital, work for about two years and when things began to get hot for him, would move on to another hospital. It was also discovered that while in Ho Government Hospital, the hospital authorities had become rather worried about his performance and sent him to Korle Bu for a refresher course. We also discovered that he had actually started life as a laboratory technician at Korle Bu. He then moved to Nigeria, and after a few years in Nigeria, came back with the so-called medical degree from the University of Nigeria,  Nsukka. The panel recommended that he should be reported to the Medical and Dental Council for further investigation.

Just this year, one private university (name withheld), has had to dismiss one of its lecturers. This person was teaching in that university college, but had no PhD. But with the new policy now being implemented that all university staff should possess PhD degrees, this person was obliged to seek after that qualification. But instead of going the route that some of you have taken, he decided to adopt the fraudulent and shortcut route. One day he asked for permission from the Head of his Institution to go for his graduation ceremony in the USA. He said he had followed a course of studies by correspondence and qualified for a PhD degree from a university which for the past several years has always been ranked among the top five universities in the whole world. He was given permission to travel. A few weeks later he returned with a beautifully designed certificate purported to be from the said university, and a photograph showing him shaking hands with the President of that prestigious American University after receiving his graduation certificate. The institution became suspicious. First of all it was unusual to obtain a PhD degree from that prestigious university in a discipline that would require periods of face to face encounters with research supervisors and advisers and personal contacts and periods of performing some intensive laboratory and fieldresearch.

 This person was not known to have taken permission at any time from his employers to go and undertake any such activity. Further investigations showed that this person’s claim was fraudulent. He had obtained a genuine photograph of a graduation ceremony of that American University, selected a genuine graduate who was receiving his certificate from the President with a handshake, cut the head of the genuine degree earner, and placed his own head n the rest of the body of the genuine degree earner. Hey presto! He was a PhD holder from one of the world’s top five universities.  This happened right here in Ghana, and in 2019.

Let me now cite some further examples from all over the world, to demonstrate how widespread the problem has become globally.

Fake diplomas can finance serious crime.
The consequences of using fake diplomas are dire, ranging from wrongful job hires to illicit access to regulated professions. The latter can pose a danger to people and society, most obviously in the health, engineering and financial professions.
The income from sales of fake diplomas has also been used to finance other serious crime. There was a case in Norway in 2011 in which a terrorist who was being tried confessed that he partly financed his terror operations with revenue earned from his internet business called Diplomaservice.com, which earned him over a period as much as about US$500,000.

When you scan the web or the internet or visit the web sites of quality assurance organisations and academic institutions, you see headlines such as

Fake degree holders sue the Uganda Christian University.

Tackling the Rise of Fake Qualifications in Nigeria

Fake degree cases reported to Mumbai University on rise’

An Investigative Report on Fake Degrees in Ghana

143 fake degrees detected last year

Government to pursue legal action against fake degree holders, minister says

In the Uganda case Derrick Kiyonga wrote that the nursing students sued their university, a Christian University whose Vice Chancellor was one Reverend Canon Dr John Senyonyi, for knowingly taking moneys from them and allowing them to register for a four year nursing programme when he knew that they did not have the requisite qualification to be enrolled in the course. At that time this priest was a member of the National Council for Higher Education and was the chairperson of the Quality Assurance and Accreditation committee, and the Audit and Risk Management committee of the Council. He could therefore not have pleaded ignorance of the regulations. At the end of the course, the Uganda Nurses and Midwives Council (UNMC), as the nurses’ regulatory body, declared the degrees of the students as fake and unacceptable for registration as nurses. In their suit filed on July 26, 2017, the 21 who were led by Ivan Walukhu and Frida Chebet, sued the university for 900 million Ugandan shillings. Does this story sound familiar with regard to Ghana?

In Nigeria, several prominent figures including politicians have been caught in these scandals involving fake certificates. These include Salisu Buhari, the former Speaker of Nigeria’s lower House of Representatives. He claimed to possess a business administration degree from the University of Toronto. In 2000, following investigations by the Nigerian media, Buhari finally owned up to the allegations of certificate forgery and perjury.

In Tanzania, 10,000 civil servants were sacked in 2017 over fake qualifications.  Commenting on the issue, President Magafuli said

These people occupied government positions but had no qualifications… They robbed us, just like other common criminals. We have been working hard to create new jobs while there are people in government who hold fake degrees.

In March 2019 the scandal involving some really prominent members of the Ghanaian society who claimed to have obtained various PhD qualifications from some fake and non-existent or non-accredited institutions mainly in America, broke out in the Ghanaian media. This followed an investigation carried out by an American University and reported to the Ghanaian authorities. The persons involved were all named and shamed in the media including the social media. They included prominent journalists, a former Presidential Candidate and leader of a political party, a police chief, academics and businessmen, among others. 

The investigation was carried out by researchers from the Valdosta State University, in Valdosta USA. The report was made available to the Minister of Education.

The fake institutions involved were

• Atlantic International University, Honolulu, Hawaii
• Dayspring Christian university of Mississippi and local affiliates the Global Centre for Transformational Leadership and Pan African Clergy Council
• Almeda College/university, Atlanta, GA; European-American University, Commonwealth of Dominica and affiliates in Lagos, Nigeria
• American Century University, Albuquerque
• Thomas A-Bucket University Canterbury, Kent, UK. Affiliates: Pan African Mission Association, Lagos, Nigeria, and African Institute of Technology, Nigeria
• Swiss Management Centre (SMC), Zurich, Switzerland
• University of Dublin, California
• The Commonwealth University and the London Graduate School

South Africa:  Over the past few years in South Africa, a number of well-known figures in the country have been caught out with fake qualifications. They include the former South African ambassador to Japan Mohau Pheko, who  was also found to have a fake Doctor of Philosophy degree.

Pallo Jordan, the former Cabinet minister, also never had a PhD degree from an American university.

Fake credentials are becoming more common in South Africa. In 2018, the country saw a sharp increase in the number of fraudulent qualifications reported to regulatory bodies such as the South African Qualifications Authority. Higher Education Minister Naledi Pandor revealed that the number of reported cases spiked from just 37 in 2011/12 to 982 in the 2017/18 financial year.

This only represents the number of fake credentials reported. The real number may be much higher

In 2015 the authorities in India busted a crime ring in the state of Madhya Pradesh led by an assistant professor  that sold examination questions, and provided student impersonators to take admissions tests in exchange for more than USD $15,000 per student.

• In one recent episode, Indian authorities in 2017 charged a man with the sale of 2,000 forged degrees in Bangalore.

Diploma Mills

There is also the phenomenon of Diploma Mills. These are fake Institutions, some with addresses and operating offices, others existing on the internet and in bedrooms, who sell degrees and diplomas. The case of St Regis University is well known. This internet based degree mill, over a period of five years, was able to sell more than 10,000 fake degrees and rake in USD $7 million in profits under the guise of names like “Saint Regis University” or “Robertstown University” .  The fraudsters were able to bribe a Liberian embassy official in Liberia to get the institution accredited in Liberia. It was the vigilance of a physics lecturer at the University of Illinois in Urbana called George Gollin that eventually led to the busting of St Regis and the eventual prosecution of the brains behind it, namely Mr Steve and Mrs Dixie Randocks, and Mrs Raindocs’ High School sweetheart Richard Novak.

Today, so-called diploma mills based in the US sell roughly 200,000 degrees a year to customers around the globe. By some estimates, they sell as many PhDs as are awarded by legitimate American universities. Worldwide, the industry is thought to generate as much as $1 billion annually. And the buyers are everywhere — the Pentagon, NASA, fire departments, hospitals — all of them quintessential frauds using fake degrees to pad rèsumès or score pay raises. In 2003 and 2004, the Government Accountability Office surveyed just a handful of agencies and found 463 federal employees with fraudulent degrees.

 In 2015 the New York Times reported on a billion-dollar industry consisting of 3 300 “diploma mills”. These were fake universities that sold certificates for all levels of degrees, worldwide.

The biggest of all of these degree mills appears to be run by a Pakistan-based company which, according to the New York Times and the BBC among others, claims to be an IT provider but actually manages hundreds of fake university websites from which people can procure many kinds of fake degrees.

This story from April 2016 in the New York Times followed an earlier more detailed investigation by the paper  and noted in relation to ongoing investigations into the business of Axact that:

“The police found more than one million blank educational certificates and evidence of 300 fictitious educational websites, many with American-sounding names like Columbiana and Brooklyn Park that sold fake degrees to hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

Myanmar’s  finance and planning minister, U Kyaw Win, admitted that his doctorate came from Axact’s Brooklyn Park University. “Now I am ashamed to call myself a Ph.D.,” he said.”

The BBC has revealed recently that the Pakistani based Diploma Mill business is still booming and, according to the report, over 3,000 fake qualifications have been sold to individuals (and in one case a company) in the UK out of a worldwide total of 215,000 which netted a profit in excess of £37m in 2015. It seems that the investigation in Pakistan has ground to a halt “amid claims of government corruption” and sales are continuing, but now with a new twist: extortion.

The BBC investigation revealed that this Pakistani based institution Axact UK sold professional qualifications to National Health Service clinical staff, including an ophthalmologists, nurses, a psychologist, and numerous consultants.
A consultant at a London teaching hospital bought a degree in internal medicine from the fake Belford University in 2007. An anaesthetist who bought a degree in “hospital management” said he had not used the qualification in the UK.
And a consultant in paediatric emergency medicine, who bought a “master of science in health care technology”, claimed it was an “utter surprise” when the BBC told him it was fake. How can these people convince any sane person that they did not use, or intend to use a professional qualification they had paid huge sums of money for, to gain professional advantage in their careers?

Ezell said Axact have now branched into a new type of crime. They sell you the fake qualification. You go and use it for one thing or another. They then trace you and start extorting money from you, blackmailing you that if you do not pay x or y amount, they will expose you. This is now a new ball game. Previously your association with a diploma mill ended after you have acquired your degree or diploma. Now it is only the beginning. . So in order to boost their income even further it seems that the diploma mills are now extorting money from purchasers in order to “protect” them. Just extraordinary.

In 2017, one Ghanaian, Sebastian Osumanu, claimed that he possessed a PhD degree from the University of Amsterdam. He also claimed that he had won five awards. Many people in the Social Media showered him with praise. Even the University of Cape Coast was caught in the trap when they issued a statement commending him for his wonderful achievement.  But investigations by a News Organisation called Pulse revealed that there were no records of any student by the name, Sebastian Osumanu. They subsequently told Pulse Ghana, that there was no such incident where a student swept that many awards in a single graduation ceremony.”

The same Osumanu claimed that he had won a prize called the Erasmus Mundus Nobel Prize in Economics in 2014 at the Dutch University. I turned out that no such award exists.

The widely shared false story also contained a photo of Osumanu receiving an award from what appears to be a high ranking university official. This turned out to be a forged photograph. Osumanu was wearing an academic gown. But according to the Press Office of the University of Amsterdam, graduating doctoral students at the University of Amsterdam do not wear academic gowns.
An internet search by other investigators in Ghana revealed that the photograph was forged from a 2015 actual graduation ceremony of the University of Rochester in the USA. From a real 2015 doctoral graduation ceremony at the University of Rochester in the United States,

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE

What can academic institutions and others do to guard against fraud? At the most basic level, the solution involves robust processes for vetting student qualifications.

In South Africa, the government is cracking down on fake qualifications with Parliament pushing through a bill that will expose these fraudsters. To dissuade those with dodgy qualifications from applying for jobs a name and shame list is to be published by the government. The bill will force the government and state-owned entities to verify the qualifications of their workers, including those serving on the boards of state-owned entities. “It will be the legal duty to report misrepresented qualifications by educational institutions, providers and employers”.

Another way of eradicating or minimising this phenomenon will be to follow developments in academia and credential integrity verification bodies to guard against diploma Mills and illegitimate providers of academic credentials.

There is also the need to assign dedicated staff to closely follow developments in foreign education systems and become familiar with the accreditation mechanisms in these countries. Fighting endemic corruption at its roots will usually necessitate a governmental response well outside academia. Other measures that can help are

• The use of external examiners to double-grade exams
• Cyber security measures to control access to student records
• Use of university rankings based on corruption criteria
• External audits of admissions and employment decisions
• Sanctions on politicians, civil servants and others with fake degrees
• Legislative protection of whistle blowers
• Finally, when in doubt, don’t appoint. Have the courage not to appoint straight away. Even if someone appears to tick all the boxes, there is still a responsibility for due diligence. Re-advertise and continue the search to find other applicants when doubts arise. Taking extra time and care to properly vet qualifications, references and CVs will pay dividends in the long run
• The Ghana government has ordered the verification of qualifications of all teaching staff in technical universities because of concerns that some lecturers have used fraudulent certificates to obtain their employment. As a result, the government had initiated moves to authenticate the qualifications of teaching staff of all technical universities – a move that is “likely to be extended to all public institutions”.
  This danger of fake and counterfeit academic qualifications in Ghana is a major problem. I wish to implore all of us involved in education and employment, as well as the general public, to be vigilant, because the consequences of these practices can have dire consequences that go beyond the borders of this country.

VALUE OF ACADEMIC DEGREES

Let me conclude by once again congratulating all you graduating students for your achievements. You have been trained intellectually and provided with the necessary tools to meet the challenges of a complex and rapidly changing globalised world. The rest is up to you. The only way to success is through continuing education, self-improvement and a high sense of morality and ethical behaviour in whatever endeavours you might find yourselves in. I would like to implore you not to use your knowledge to dominate and oppress the less privileged and the vulnerable. Use it to serve Society. The acquisition of an academic qualification is not an end in itself. It is what you do with it to benefit yourself and society at large that is the most important. I wish you all the best, and may the Good Lord bless you all.  Thank you.

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