Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Now Degrees On Line - Babar Awan to join Aamir LIaquat:
By Ansar Abbasi - ISLAMABAD: Like a minister of the Musharraf cabinet, a high profile PPP minister has also been found holding a doctorate degree issued by a fake US university declared to be ‘fraud’ by an authentic US organisation and fined by a US court.

Although Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Babar Awan told The News his degree was valid, every body else says it was fake and was wrongfully awarded by a university that was never accredited for such degree programmes and was shut down in 2000 for being fraud.

The United States Educational Foundation (USEF) in Pakistan confirmed that the said University was never allowed to offer degree programmes, including Ph.D. “It was a fraud,” the USEF Pakistan wrote to this correspondent on Monday.

The minister, who admitted to have got his Ph.D degree from the University of Monticello USA in 1997-98 through its distant learning programme (correspondence course), however, insisted that his Ph.D was valid.

But the USEF Pakistan is of the view that the “fraud” university was closed down in the year 2000 and was also fined US$1.7 million for befooling innumerable international aspirants of different degree programmes.

The Foundation also disclosed that a court in Hawaii had also directed the university management to return all the tuition fees of the students, who had enrolled with the institute. Acting spokesperson of the US embassy in Islamabad Mr Wes Robertson when approached said that the USEF Pakistan is an organisational set-up to promote opportunities and assist students intended to study in Pakistan and vice versa. “It (USEF Pakistan) gives accurate and credible information,” Robertson categorically said