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SINGAPORE: After trying twice and failing to earn a degree from the National University of Singapore (NUS), a man decided to pose as a NUS graduate anyway on a job application for a teaching position.
Chinese citizen Xie Xin, 30, was discovered and fined S $ 4,000 in court on Friday (December 11) for using a forged document. Investigations revealed that your potential employer could have hired you anyway if you had used your A-level certificate.
The court heard that Xie, who is also a permanent resident of Singapore, was admitted as a NUS student in August 2011, but withdrew from his studies in April 2016 without completing his degree requirements.
He successfully appealed to be reinstated as a student at NUS in January 2017, but was academically dismissed in June 2017 for failing to comply with exam regulations.
Xie began working as a full-time math and English teacher for Kewo Education in August 2017 and became friends with a superior who later told him about a part-time teaching position at Ascensia International School (AIS).
Xie applied for the job in person on November 14, 2018, and went for an interview. The next day, he was to present a degree certificate in support of his application.
In mid-2016, Xie had forged a NUS degree certificate using Photoshop to insert his name into the document stating: “Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Engineering) with Honors (Merit).”
He presented this falsified document to AIS, with the intention of improving his employment prospects, and accepted a one-year contract with AIS.
An AIS human resources executive was assigned to process Xie’s request. When he asked Xie to sign a document called “Certificate Authenticity Verification and Professor’s Statement Form,” he hesitated and asked if he could use his A-Level certificate instead of the NUS.
A few days later, Xie sent a statement to AIS saying that he had not completed his senior project at NUS and that he had not fully graduated yet, but would “finish my study when I am ready.”
Subsequently, AIS contacted NUS to verify the authenticity of Xie’s degree certificate and was told that it did not match any of their graduates’ records.
Subsequently, NUS filed a police report, and Xie initially denied the charges before admitting to falsifying the certificate. He was fired from AIS in March 2019 and investigations showed that the company could have hired him at a lower pay scale if he had used his valid A-Level certificate.
The prosecutor asked for a fine of S $ 4,000, saying that Xie had gone to great lengths to avoid detection. Xie’s lawyer said that when his client created the forged NUS certificate, he only wanted to fool his own parents.
For using such a genuine document that he knew to be false, Xie could have been imprisoned for up to four years, fined, or both.
