Fake diplomas have been an alarming global issue that needs to be curbed. A professor from a distinguished Chinese university was questioned over her doctoral diploma which was issued by an unlicensed university 21 years ago.

A Scottish woman who was hired as a director at one of the largest hospitals in Saudi Arabia was recently found to have forged her Master’s degree certificate in order to get the position.

Hundreds of employees of a Pakistani airline were alleged to have used fake degrees to secure the jobs. In Singapore, a man managed to get finance jobs with his forged degrees, earning about S$51,000 as a finance director.

These cases are proof that the issue of fake diplomas is a fact that cannot be separated from the world of education. The implication of fake diplomas poses as a real threat for the educational institutions, companies, and society.

Classic cases, evolving methods

Cases of using a fake diploma for securing a job are not myths and have been around for many years. However, the technological advances are the primary contributors to its quick and vast proliferation in this day and age.

Fake diplomas used to be easy to discern since they usually came from unfamiliar institutions in different countries. Now, a candidate may present a degree certificate from Newcastle Business College on a high-quality cartridge paper with a holographic label, despite the fact that Newcastle Business College does not exist.

There is also a huge chance of legitimate universities having their names smeared with fake diplomas. Recently, a media outlet under a prominent university in Scotland conducted an investigation into the rise of fake diplomas.

They found that fake diplomas from leading UK universities are being sold in ecommerce. To convince their targets of mostly Chinese people, the sellers advertised the fake diploma to have been verified by the Chinese government as well as come with an embossed emblem to make it indistinguishable from the original one.

The implications of fake diplomas

Fake diplomas are not crimes without victims. Their circulation, especially for professions that require special knowledge and skills such as nurses, doctors, or engineers, has the potential to endanger the lives of others.

One can’t say enough about the implications for companies. There is, of course, a huge waste in the cost of hiring individuals, as well as the salary and all the other costs.

Other than that, there is an extremely possible chance that a mistake made by an unqualified employee could lead to a lawsuit. This could be enough to get the contracts voided, or even worse, to have the business sued for malpractice or negligence.

Meanwhile, the reputation of legitimate universities whose names appear on fake diplomas may be threatened.

Curbing the circulation of fake diplomas

The above cases all have one thing in common: fake diplomas were discovered after the organizations checked the authenticity of the documents. For that reason, in order to avoid losses, it is essential for organizations or companies to check the authenticity of their candidates’ diplomas.

For educational institutions themselves, one of the efforts that can be made to protect their reputation, apart from carrying out their duties honestly, is to verify the educational documents of their alumni. Institutions usually receive verification requests from companies conducting a background screening of their candidates. They may also help speeding up the process of verifying the degree certification of their alumni by utilizing educational verification platform services.

The document verification procedure will be more efficient in terms of time and resources if you use a one-stop verification platform such as www.demo.education-verification.com. The verifier’s name is stored in the system of the Education Verification platform, which ensures the accountability of the verification process.

Furthermore, the verification on the platform is completed in two steps: a verification by an academic staff and a confirmation from the supervisor, which promotes a check-and-balance procedure. This ensures that all results are accountable and guaranteed to be accurate.

Putri

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