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Fifty foreign bogus university students excluded

12/11/2008

Fifty foreign students were excluded from Newcastle University following the discovery that their applications and qualifications were faked or forged.

The university said it seems as though many students were victims of bogus agents acting out of China or the UK, who were hired to submit applications and supporting material on the students' behalves.

"The vast majority of applications for study at this University are genuine," a university spokesperson said.

"We are however aware that there is an increasing national and international problem of fraudulent applications and this prompted us, as a University, to take action."

The students, who had arrived on campus to begin their studies in recent weeks, had forged or fake documents which raised their qualifications.

The students' true credentials were inadequate to pursue studies at Newcastle University and were therefore prohibited from studying in the interest of the qualified individuals and the university's reputation.

Newcastle became aware of the students' faked qualifications after many of the students performed poorly on a mandatory English language assessment required of foreign students with whom English is a second language. The results showed a wide gap between the qualifications submitted with their applications.

The suspected students were each met with individually and informed of the university's decision. The students have 14 days to appeal the decision.

"At Newcastle we have a team of people who are experienced at assessing applications, though we recognise that fraud can be very difficult to identify regardless of the systems in place," the spokesperson said.

"The nature of fraud changes over time so we are alert to the possibility of new avenues, and adjust our procedures accordingly."

From the 50 students, 49 were from China and one was from Taiwan. Additionally 33 are postgraduate students while 17 are undergraduates. All of the students were admitted at the start of the September 2008 academic year and most were in the business school.

The spokesperson strongly advised other universities to look at their application fraud systems and recommended "strengthening them if necessary".

Newcastle University is in the process of implementing new regulations for applications, including a list of approved agents.