Fake USM degrees on sale online for RM4,888 each

 Tuesday July 3, 2012

NIBONG TEBAL: Twenty people paid RM4,888 each to a syndicate that sold fake Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) degrees, police investigations revealed.

Penang acting chief SAC II Datuk Abdul Rahim Jaffar said they banked in the money into eight different accounts under the name of a 26-year-old man, one of the three suspects arrested.

He said the syndicate promised to upload the names of the buyers onto a USM database using a special software but then did not even respond to any phone calls after the money had been banked in.

“Initial investigations determined there was no inside job,” he told reporters at the south Seberang Prai district police headquarters in Jawi, near here, yesterday.

Spot the difference: Prof Omar Osman showing the logo on a genuine USM certificate against an old one on his coat.

 

SAC II Abdul Rahim said the syndicate might have started its operations about four months ago, adding that the price of a “certificate” signified good luck.

The brains behind the syndicate is a 24-year-old woman, a former USM student.

A police source said that she had a Facebook account offering the fake scrolls which had garnered 516 “likes”.

Besides the former student, a 25-year-old woman and the male suspect were nabbed at a house in Kampar, Perak, on Saturday.
Police seized several computers and a soft copy of a USM scroll in one of the computers.

In GEORGE TOWN, USM vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Omar Osman said employers could verify with the university if they had doubts over the authenticity of certificates produced by their interviewees.

He advised employers to ask them to show their academic transcripts during the interviews. “Each bears a unique serial number of that undergraduate. This cannot be falsified.

“We also have the Gazetted Graduate Convocation Book, which is a physical database with the particulars of all the graduates.

“We have produced 120,000 graduates since our establishment,” he added.

He said other unique characteristics of a USM certificate included the university's watermark and seal.

Those who wish to verify the authenticity of USM certificates can contact 04-653 2193 or e-mail pro@usm.my.

By S. ARULLDAS and TAN SIN CHOW newsdesk@thestar.com.my

  

Ex-student behind fake degrees

Monday July 2, 2012

EORGE TOWN: The brains behind two online degree mills that allegedly churned out fake Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) scrolls is a former student of the university.

ntv7 - "USM DEGREE FOR SALE" : THREE NABBED IN ONLINE DEGREE SCAM »

Three people have been arrested for selling fake degree certificates online.

A police source said the 24-year-old woman had a Facebook account offering such scrolls and this had garnered 516 ‘likes’.

She and two others – another woman, aged 25, and a man, 26 - were nabbed at a house in Kampar, Perak, on Saturday.

Several computers were seized in the raid. A soft copy of a USM scroll was found in one of the computers.

The source said a younger sibling of one of the suspects could be a USM student.

The university had lodged a police report on the matter, which is being investigated as cheating under Section 420 of the Penal Code.

Vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Omar Osman said the university conducted an internal investigation before lodging the reports with the police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission on Friday.

The university has since improved the security measures of the university scrolls.

A check by The Star had revealed that a “full degree package” was priced at RM5,888 and was non-negotiable, with the document delivered within a week.

A downpayment of RM400 has to be deposited into a bank account online and a photocopy of the applicant’s MyKad e-mailed before “work” on the degree could begin.

Penang commercial crime investigations chief Asst Comm Roslee Chik said the police were investigating if there are other syndicates selling such university degrees.

Meanwhile, Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said those looking to get a university degree should earn the qualification.

“As far as I know, USM is the first university in Malaysia that has become the target of such a syndicate,” he said yesterday.

He told reporters at a function in Pasir Gudang that his ministry would study security methods used in other countries to stop syndicates from producing fake degree certificates and selling them to students.

Mohamed Khaled said it was currently difficult to determine if a degree certificate was genuine or not as there was no standard design for it.

By ZALINAH NOORDIN and DESIREE TRESA GASPER newsdesk@thestar.com.my 

Attitude determines altitude

Tweet

Reflecting on the law By SHAD SALEEM FARUQI

To seek and attain inner peace, live simply, think deeply, act nobly; and leave the world a better place than you found it.

A DEAR colleague’s son was recently called to the Bar. At the dinner to commemorate the occasion, several of us were asked to share a few words of advice.

The wise among us spoke because they had something to say.

Lesser people like me spoke because we were asked to say something. This is what I could manage.

In the journey of life, a new destination beckons you. We, the friends of your parents, pray fervently that your journey on the highway of life will be successful; that you will blaze new trails; that the road ahead will lead you to many summits; and that each panoramic view will stir in you a striving for the horizons beyond.

Success, is, of course, a matter of personal perception.

To some people, wealth, power, influence and status are the tests of having made it.

To others – and I hope you will be in this category – success is to bring sunshine into the lives of others.

When you do that, some of that sunshine will illuminate your life as well.

Whatever your concept of success is, its attainment is rooted in some conducive mental attitudes and a great deal of planned, hard work.

Visualising and envisioning: You must envision, constructively imagine and role-play whatever you wish to be.

Dreams are the foundation of reality. If you can dream it, you can achieve it.

Any fulfillment is, of course, subject to your courage and discipline to act on your dreams and materialise them into concrete actions. Kipling’s admonition must be remembered: “If you can dream and not make dreams your master. If you can think but not make thoughts your aim”.

Daily planning: On a daily basis, plan your schedule. Fill every minute with 60 seconds of distance run. Sail a chartered course. Do not drift in the wind and the waves.

Act on, not just react to, things as they come. Do not let others lead you by the nose. Do not count on luck. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.



Mapping the road ahead: Careers are like ladders with many rungs. Map out the steps. Fix time frames. Periodically review your progress towards your long-term goals.

Intensity: There must be an intensity of commitment, a fire, a burning desire, an over-riding, if not single-minded, determination to attain your goals.

Ambition: Think big. Do not settle for too little. Make plans to reach the sky. If you land on the clouds, that’s OK. Strive harder next time.

Faith in God: When confronted by inevitable storms, trust God. God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear.

Self-confidence: We are all specks of dust in the universe. This necessary humility can, however, go hand in hand with a self-confidence that everything is attainable if we strive hard enough.

We must doubt our doubts but not our beliefs. We must remember that attitude, more than aptitude, determines our altitude.

Discipline and hard work: Work is part of worship and must be given the same type of devotion. Hard work compensates for lack of genius.

Many ordinary people achieve extraordinary things because they toil through the night while the world sleeps. Genius is 10% inspiration; 90% perspiration. A toiling tortoise can beat a heady hare.

Over the course of four decades, I have seen scores of extremely intelligent people fail in their endeavours because they lacked the humility that drives hard work; the discipline and planning that ensures progress; and the courage and persistence that overcome odds.

In most challenges in life, natural talents do not take us very far. Discipline does.

Passion: Whatever you do, do well. Let reason be the rudder and passion the sail. There are no small jobs; only small people.

There is honour in every profession provided we put our heart and soul into it and do ordinary things extraordinarily well.

It is often the case that those who do small jobs meticulously are likely to confront major challenges majestically.

Do not wait for ideal conditions: Do not wait for the perfect time to start building on your dreams. External conditions will never be ideal. We have to make do with what we have.

The wind often changes for the better once we set sail. It is our inner determination that makes the world stand aside to let pass a man who knows where he is going.

Show-case your talents: At a place of work, substance and form, isih dan gaya, the ability to be relevant, as well as to seem competent, are all equally important. Don’t be like the peacock that dances in the jungle but is not seen by anyone.

Find sophisticated and civilised ways to show-case your talents. Polish up your communication and PR skills so that your hard work and competence will be known.

Rewards come in many ways: It is natural to expect appreciation and recognition.

However, one must remember that in the workplace there are rivalries, jealousies and injustices.

As in the outside world, so in the workplace, justice does not usually prevail.

If the rewards do not come when they are due, remember that God is watching. His justice will one day prevail.

Work never goes to waste. A competent man is like the moon. Clouds can hide the moon for a while but in the end the beams of light will break through and the world will be filled with their luminescence.

Remember also that hard work with sincerity is nourishing for the soul and good for health.

The rewards of hard workare long term, internal and intangible. We all know that of all the things that matter in life, most are not things.

Success and failure: Success is never final. It is a journey, not a destination. It is a continuing process of repeating, reinforcing past accomplishments and conquering new challenges by adapting to a changed world.

Success is sustained effort over time and persistence in the face of hurdles. It is an attitude of “I think I can”. It is the courage to treat adversity as an opportunity. It is the willingness to regard every dare as a door.

Falling down does not amount to failure. Failure is to stay down. Falling down is never fatal. Life breaks all of us. The thing to do is to learn from our failings and to emerge stronger where we’re broken.

Happiness: To seek inner peace, live simply. Richness is not the accumulation of wealth but the smallness of needs. Think deeply. Act nobly. Leave the world a better place than you found it. Learn from people you admire.

“Lives of great men all remind us; we can make our lives sublime and departing leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time”.

Shad Saleem Faruqi is Emeritus Professor of Law at UiTM and Visiting Professor at USM. He wishes all readers happiness and health in the New Year.

Malaysian Universities need decolonization, relook the ratings & rankings!

Tweet

Decolonization of universities begins with us

 1 July 2011 By Zainon Ahmadnewsdesk@thesundaily.com

PETALING JAYA (June 30, 2011): They were knocked off their pedestals just as rudely as Saddam Hussein statues were pulled down from their mountings after the Americans and their mostly western allies overran Baghdad in 2003.

Among them are such gods of science and mathematics as Sir Isaac Newton, famous for his law on why apples fall.

He was pilloried for allowing his fear of the Church of England to deter him from publishing some of his best discoveries – his true masterpieces.

Others who were knocked down included people like Keppler, Descartes and Einstein. And so was Galileo who invented the telescope but was in trouble with the Catholic Church when he could see too far into the heavens.

All these bashings and the questioning of the assumptions on which human knowledge is based took place during the three-day International Conference on Decolonising Our Universities that ended on Wednesday in Penang.

It was the fourth in the series of Multiversity Conferences organised by Citizens International and Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Nicolaus Copernicus is remembered mostly as a mathematician and an astronomer but few know that he is also a monk and it was because of this that his claim that the earth moves around the sun and not the other way round as was originally believed was easily accepted by the church.

But the conference was told that he was not the revolutionary scientist he has been made out to be.
He was a just a common plagiarist. He merely translated the work of Ibn Shatir of Damascus.

It was also told that few academics, scientists, mathematicians, astronomers and other researchers were really free of the influence of Christian theology because for centuries the church was the key consumer of the products of the western university system and therefore had to remain loyal.

The conference was told that anyone who challenged the church had to suffer and it was for that purpose that the Inquisition was instituted.

Rival institutions also suffered and this was the fate of the great university complex of Alexandria, of which the famous library was a part.

Many wondered aloud whether Christian theology still influences western academicians and brought up the brilliant Stephen Hawkings whom most Malaysians know only as the writer of a small book, A Brief History of Time.

Hawkins wrote many other books and some contain quite a bit of Christian propaganda. He even attempted to reconcile the Big Bang of a few billion years ago with the Bible story of creation in seven days some 6,000 years ago.

Many other gods of science and mathematics, as the world know of them, were also called liars. The great 16th century cartographer Gerardus Mercator whose maps and charts helped the Europeans to reach the East was so fearful of the church that he did not acknowledge his non-Christian and especially Muslim sources.

Another great god of science and mathematics, Albert Einstein, was dragged down from his Olympian heights when it was disclosed that his formula on the theory of relativity was corrected by Indian scientist and mathematician C. K. Raju recently.

The expose by the scholars and participants from 20 countries help to convince those who were still hesitant about the need for efforts to decolonise universities – still very much Eurocentric – in Asia and Africa that the knowledge they had been “brainwashed” into believing as being universal was not universal at all and based on false assumptions.

It was also meant to provoke re-thinking about the assumptions they had made based on discoveries and ideas of western scholars published in western academic journals, that nothing should be accepted as universal truth without careful scrutiny.

Students have often assumed calculus, the subject they learn in mathematics, is of western origin.
Nothing is further from the truth. It was stolen from India by the Jesuits, said Raju who said the mode of calculation was important for navigational purposes.

It helped Vasco da Gama to reach the Cape of Good Hope and Goa.

According to Datuk Shad Saleem Faruqi, emeritus professor of law and legal adviser, Universiti Teknologi Mara, who is also visiting professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia, the Europeans think nothing of falsifying history.

He said everyone seems to think that the Johannes Gutenburg’s printing press, developed in the 15th century, was the first in the world when a number of western scholars were aware that Pi Sheng had already developed one in 1040 but little is said of him.

Likewise, the West seems reluctant to acknowledge scholars from India, China, Africa and those from the Muslim world and promotes the idea that the Bologna monastic school was the first university.

Thus, few know about the great universities of Taxila, Nalanda, Zaytuna and Nanjing which preceded Bologna.

On legal education, he said, it is still very much western-centric and lamented that despite the existence of local law programmes since 1972, the Legal Profession Act continues to recognise foreign (mostly UK) law degrees and qualifications.

On the Act’s permission to foreign lawyers to be admitted on an ad hoc basis to argue special cases, he was cynical to the idea of inviting Cherry Blair as a human rights expert when there are hundreds of local ones.

Fortunately, the judge was not an Uncle Tom and he rejected her application.

Because of this, the conference agreed that while the physical colonisation is long gone – hopefully so, said some – the mental colonisation is very much alive.

Thus the call for the need to purge the “West in us” before efforts to decolonise can truly begin.

VC: Relook varsity ratings

By RICHARD LIM  educate@thestar.com.my

GEORGETOWN: Rankings promote intellectual hegemony and there should be a different method of appraising universities, said Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) vice-chancellor Prof Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak.

“The rankings are designed to ensure that universities remain on top, tapping into the best brains of developing countries in the process.

“The aging population has resulted in tremendous demographic shifts in certain Western nations and their universities need bright foreign students to fill up the gaps,” Prof Dzulkifli told The Star.

Prof Dzulkifli added that USM was one of the six core members of the Alternative University Appraisal (AUA) initiative which seeks to identify the strengths of participating universities.

Instead of ranking the universities, the initiative encouraged participating universities to leverage their strengths and share best practices for mutual benefit.

At a press conference after delivering the inaugural address at the International Conference on De-colonising Universities yesterday, Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah told academics not to “blindly ape the West.”

Saifuddin said hegemony was reinforced through subtle ways and the promotion of university rankings was one such move.

Earlier in his speech, Saifuddin encouraged greater collaboration among Asian varsities.

He said many Western theories were being used to address local problems and this sometimes made things worse as the theories were not designed to suit the local context.

Decolonising our universities

COMMENT By PROF SHAD SALEEM FARUQI

Western chemistry had its predecessor in Eastern alchemy, Algebra had African roots, and Arabic was at one time the lingua franca of science and technology.

AN ongoing international conference in Penang is examining the issue of intellectual enslavement in Asian and African citadels of learning. Luminary after luminary are pointing out that education in Asia and Africa is too West-centric. It blindly apes Western universities and Western curricula.

Our university courses reflect the false belief that Western knowledge is the sum total of all human knowledge.

The books prescribed and the icons and godfathers of knowledge are overwhelmingly from the North Atlantic countries.

Titles written by scholars and thinkers from Asia and Africa are rarely included in the book list. Our curricula exhibit lack of awareness of the Asian and African contributions to civilisation.

Any evaluation of right and wrong, of justice and fairness, of poverty and development and of what is wholesome and worthy of celebration tends to be based on Western perceptions.

Eastern ideas and institutions are viewed through Western prisms and invariably regarded as primitive and in need of change.

The imperatives of globalisation have further tilted the balance in favour of the Anglo-American world view.

Encapsulation: It was my privilege to point out that all human beings are encapsulated by time and space. We are all susceptible to narrow religious, racial and communal perspectives.

Our whole life is a process of expan-ding the horizons of thought and adding to the islands of k

On the same score, North American and European world-views are also limited by their own social experience.

However, due to their colonial ascendency (which has not abated and has simply taken on new forms) and due to their military and economic might, their perspectives pass off as universal, transcendental and absolute.

Politically free, mentally enslaved: For instance, legal education in this country is primarily British based.

It is profession-oriented not people-oriented. Despite the Asian context, it does not emphasise need-based programmes.

It does not highlight the burning issues of the times the plight of the marginalised and the downtrodden and issues of corruption and abuse of power.

Students are not trained or encouraged to walk in the valleys where the rays of justice do not penetrate.

The syllabi are fashioned on British LLB and Bar at Law courses. Education is textbook based rather than experience based. The structure of the course, the topics covered, the books prescribed, the icons of knowledge are mostly from outside Asia.

The expatriate lecturers and external examiners are mostly from the North Atlantic countries. Asian books, Asian theories and Asian scholars are generally not regarded as fit for such recognition.

This is despite historical evidence that Chinese, Indian and Persian universities predated universities in Europe and provided paradigms for early Western education. Cultural and scientific renaissance flourished in the East long before the European renaissance.

Everyone knows about the Gutenberg printing press. Very few know that Pi Sheng developed one in 1040. In science, Galileo, Newton and Einstein illuminated the firmament but not much is known about Al-hazen and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi.

Western chemistry had its predecessor in Eastern alchemy. Algebra had African roots.

The philosophical musings of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Satre and Goethe can be matched by Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, Mulla Sadra, Yanagita Kunio, Shenhui, al-Mutanabbi and Kalidasa.

Durkheim's and Weber's sociology must compete with Ibn Khaldun and Jalal Al-Din Rumi. Freudian psychology had its corrective in Buddhist wisdom. The Cartesian medical model has its Eastern counterpart in ayurvedic, unani and herbal methods.

Very few are aware that Arab Muslims were central to the making of medieval Europe. From the 8th to the 13th centuries, Arab and Islamic cultures were at their zenith and were renowned for their science and learning. Aspiring scholars from all over the world flocked to these citadels of education.

Arabic was at one time the lingua franca of science and technology. A large number of texts written in Arabic were translated into Latin without acknowledgment.

Plan of action: So what should be done? It should not be part of our agenda to try to ask European and American universities to include the treasures of the East in their syllabi. Whether their worldview should be enriched by the insights and reflections of the East that is their problem.

Our concern is that our own universities should first of all shed the slavish mentality of blindly aping Western paradigms.

Secondly, we must embark on a voyage of discovery of our ancestors' intellectual wanderings. We must seek to rediscover the intellectual wonders and heritage of China, India, Persia, Mesopotamia, and other Eastern and African civilisations.

Our aim should never be to shut out the West or be insular. Let the wearing of blinds be the speciality of someone else. Our aim should be to be truly global, to give our students a bigger picture of knowledge and to increase their choices.

In the background of pervasive Western intellectual domination, indigenisation would assist a genuine globalisation.

Also, this discovery of our treasures should not be as an exercise in flag-waving nationalism. Its aim is ameliorative.

Diversity and pluralism of knowledge systems is vital for meeting many of the moral, social and economic challenges of the times.

For example, Asia should offer a critique of the ethnocentrism of Western scholarship by pointing out that a middle class Western lifestyle and what that entails in terms of the nuclear family, the consumer society, living in suburbia and extensive private space may neither be workable nor desirable in the modern world.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell and some brakes on “development” policies and some reconsideration of what amounts to the good life is in order.

Humanity is living on the verge of a precipice, afraid both to climb and to fall. But the ground is slipping beneath us. It is time for a dialogue between civilisations, a mutual process of learning from each other and a building of a garland of wisdom with blossoms from many Eastern and Western gardens.

Shad Saleem Faruqi is Emeritus Professor of Law at UiTM and Visiting Professor at USM.

Check related links: http://multiworldindia.org/events/
Penang Conference
Fourth Multiversity Conference
“Decolonising Our Universities”
June 27th – 29th 2011
Venue: Paradise Sandy Beach Resort, Tanjung Bungah, Penang, Malaysia