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Earlier this month, while conducting a routine investigation of a false title case, Indian police had discovered a much larger case of an Indian university selling tens of thousands of false titles to a multitude of people, the Times of India.
Manav Bharti University, located in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, had sold 36,000 bogus titles in 17 states in the country in more than 11 years.
In fact, of the total of 41,000 titles issued by the University, only 5,000 authentic titles have been found so far.
The university is run by the Manav Bharti Charitable Trust.
The police have now started the process to extradite Trust Chairman Raj Kumar Rana from Australia.
The trust operates private universities in the states of Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan.
While this fake degree scam occurred in India, it has now become a national concern in Singapore as some of the Manav Bharti University graduates were found to be working in the city-state.
A cursory review on LinkedIn, a popular social media site for working professionals, revealed that there are already several graduates of Manav Bharti University working in Singapore.
It is not known how they obtained their degrees from Manav Bharti University.
Netizens criticize MOM for allegedly failing to properly verify those graduates’ qualifications before allowing them to work at S’pore
This news has been circulating on social media and was even picked up on the r / Singapore subreddit.
Many netizens were quick to comment below the thread, criticizing the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) for allowing these graduates to get a job in Singapore without examining their qualifications properly.
They added that stricter laws should be put in place to punish those who hold false titles.
One user asked: “How robust are our systems to detect such cases? Or is it possible to reliably detect such cases? “
One Redditor said the government only forces Singaporeans to follow the rules and penalizes them if found guilty, but “the rest of the world is free to do whatever they want.”
On top of that, a large group of netizens shared their alleged anecdotes from their workplace with colleagues from India who reportedly have only minimal knowledge and skills to carry out a certain task, while top management turns a blind eye to the situation.
A Reddit user alleged that a water treatment company his friend’s son worked for had hired two Indian nationals and asked the friend’s son, an engineering graduate from a local university, to teach the two. workers how to do their job.
“The company hired two indigenous people, put them under its command and asked him to teach them (which he basically does). He released a letter the following week without having a new job offer, ”the user wrote.
On the other hand, a netizen who graduated from a “reputable Indian university” agreed that many Indian universities hardly teach their students and simply provide them with fake degrees.
The Redditor added that his below-average Indian housemates have now left for Canada or the US as researchers or visiting professors.
However, the user is confident that they do not even know “basic biology.”
“There is even a joke in India, ‘if you don’t get into any university in the US, you can still apply for Singapore as an endorsement’ because they were very open to allowing Indians to study here and also providing them with a scholarship,” wrote the Username.
To curb this, online users suggested that MOM should have a whitelist so that only graduates from reputable universities can apply to work in Singapore.
One user claimed that there is actually a white list of universities in Singapore.
“I had to select the name of my university when I applied for the work visa. Fortunately, it was on the list, for other universities, it could have taken longer to process it, as the Ministry of Education needs to confirm its existence and verify its legitimacy, ”they said.
MOM is currently investigating 15 work pass holders who declared Manav Bharti University qualifications on their work pass applications.
A ministry spokesman said Wednesday that their work passes will be “immediately revoked and permanently banned from employment in Singapore” if it is discovered that they have falsely stated their educational qualifications.
MOM also said culprits can face a fine of up to S $ 20,000, a jail term of up to two years, or both under the Foreign Labor Employment Act.
The Ministry emphasized that employers bear primarily the brunt of ensuring the “authenticity and quality” of the academic qualifications of foreign staff members they wish to hire, particularly before submitting an application for a job pass.
MOM said that as an added safeguard, it conducts its own checks after the employer submits the academic documents of the staff members.
“In addition, MOM receives and acts on reports from employers who discover that they have been misled after the arrival of the holder of the work pass,” added the Ministry.
According to MOM, an average of 660 foreigners have been permanently barred from working in Singapore each year for including bogus education degrees in their applications for work passes.
During the same period, an average of eight foreigners per year were convicted and sanctioned by the courts for submitting false statements of educational qualifications.
