Asian University Leaders seeking to Improve International Ties

Gold Coast, Australia 

At a conference here on Australia's east coast that drew hundreds of higher-education leaders from the Asia-Pacific region this week, educators called for equal partnerships with Western institutions and agreed that they needed to become more flexible to adapt to a rapidly changing economic environment. 

Asia Pacific Association of International Education's annual meeting was generally positive, with many feeling that Asian higher education is coming into its own, university representatives from China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and elsewhere agreed they need to step up their international activities. 

Asian universities have to be very domestically oriented, and their self-esteem is very high within the nation. But they are very limited and their standards are not global.On the contrary, Western universities still set the standards, and Asian universities are always falling behind. 

To tackle those problem, Asia Pacific Leaders program will be created, in which top university students will study, volunteer, and learn the local culture in a neighboring country's university,as declared by Mr. Lee. Mr. Lee said 15 Asian countries and 22 universities are participating. 

The association, which is only five years old, has grown each year—a sign that Asian universities are increasingly interested in developing a regional identity. This year's annual conference drew 900 attendees—300 more than expected—and more than double the sponsorship of the previous year, organizers said. 

Arun Sharma, deputy vice-chancellor for research and commercialization at the Queensland University of Technology, in Australia, gave the opening address. He called for an end to what he described as a mercantile approach to higher education, in which Western countries export their programs to Asia and then repatriate the profits. 

For the Australian universities in attendance here, much of the talk was about restoring the country's international reputation, particularly in India, following several highly publicized attacks against Indian students last year. Many university representatives here said they were also eager to draw in students from outside their home country. Some universities are doing so by creating Western style institutions or programs within existing universities. 

Mr. Lee noted that while American universities have time-tested academic programs, Asian universities are in an age of experimentation. But there was one area in which American universities could improve, he added: outreach. Only about 30 Americans attended the conference. Some Asian educators, he said, feels that American higher education could risk insularity if it does not also start to innovate and get involved with Asia. 

We know very well that Asia is a big market in which all economic giants have already participated so as American Universities need to do. 

Multi-billion dollar international fake diploma fraud

 A new Report published on 21^st  exposes a multi-billion dollar international fake diploma fraud.

The ‘Accredibase Report' by Eyal Ben Cohen and Rachel Winch of Verifile Limited,is a report based on an 18-month international research project into diploma and accreditation mills - fake Universities and Colleges which con students out of their money and supply fake degrees that deceive employers into offering jobs, sometimes  fatal consequences.

Up till  1,762 fake institutions have been identified , and a  further 1,545 are under investigation currently filed as ‘suspicious' co-author Eyal Ben Cohen

Alarmingly, the US was found to be the world's fake college capital, with 810 diploma mills already declared fake  and many more still under investigation as the Report went to press. More than 35 percent of the diploma mills operate in California, Hawaii, Washington and Florida.UK is the the world's second biggest hub  of fake colleges , the Report exposing 271 bogus institutions, making the UK the centre of Europe's bogus colleges scam.

The British government  has said that it  welcomes any innovative approach that further helps to disrupt the activities of bogus education providers, simultaneously  safeguarding legitimate education and the public."

Multiple ‘fake university businesses' are often run from one address - The ‘St. Regis University' network ran as many as 121 phony institutions all from a single office in Spokane, Washington. This allows the fraudsters to easily shut down one business if the authorities become suspicious, while suffering minimal disruption to the huge profits being generated. Official estimates that the fraudsters are earning  more than $100m every year in only one year of operation.

Fake degrees can help terrorists to infiltrate facilities by securing them jobs inside the country

The ‘con' becomes more sophisticated with fake universities setting up fake accreditation bodies in an attempt to make their qualifications look genuine. These accreditation bodies  may hide their location to make it more difficult to establish their legitimacy.