Sham Colleges in the UK

The Times reports extensively on May 21, 2009 about sham colleges in the UK selling letters of admission, attendance certificates, and fake degrees to students - many from Pakistan - who want to enter the UK. There appears to be a loophole in the entry process to the UK that does not check if the colleges in question are actually reputable organizations.

Many are just a few rooms and have maybe three teachers, but have a student body of over 1000 students. Fayaz Ali Khan, who owned Manchester College of Professional Studies among other schools, also gave himself fake degrees and has quite a glowing CV filled with wonderful positions such as full-time director of education at Swat College of Education (in Islamabad) at the same time he was taking a degree in computer technology at the age of 20.

The sham colleges have come under sharp scrutiny when it was discovered that eight of ten terror suspects picked up in April had degrees from sham institutions. And four of these had used these fake degrees to obtain admission to legitimate schools.

This does seem to make a case for accreditation.