VietNamNet Bridge – More and more forged-degree distribution rings have been discovered recently, reflecting the high demand for such certificates in Vietnam.

HCM City Police have discovered a ring which provided all kinds of degrees from bachelor’s to doctorates. They had sold 500-600 forged degrees.

In Thanh Hoa province, 20 healthcare officers have been found applying for jobs with forged degrees.

In October 2014, the Chair of the Hau Loc District in Thanh Hoa province decided to dismiss the chair of Tien Loc Commune People’s Committee, Hoang Van Dong, who “borrowed” a high school degree from his wife’s brother.

The borrowed degree allowed him to enter and finish a politics training course and get job promotions, from head of the commune’s police station to deputy chair and chair of the commune.

In August 2014, the Tuy Phuoc district’s education sub-department confirmed that 20 healthcare officers working at primary and secondary schools in the district had used forged degrees.

Prior to that, in March 2014, Bui Tuan Ngoc, chair of Dinh Cong Commune of Yen Dinh District in Thanh Hoa province, was dismissed because of a forged degree.

Tran Thi Hoai Diem, a lecturer at Hue Arts University, was discovered submitting forged foreign language certificates so that he could be eligible to finish a postgraduate training course.

In June 2012, the Dong Da Police in Hanoi discovered a large forged degree ring and prosecuted three people involved in the rings.

The Soc Trang education and training department in 2011 discovered 284 civil servants using forged degrees, including 107 officers in the education sector.

Eagerness for fame

A famous professor noted that the scale of the forged degree rings was getting bigger. One ring headed by Pham Dang Thang, born in 1990 in Quang Ngai province, for example, has distributed 600 forged degrees of different kinds.

He believes that the rings can exist because of the Vietnamese eagerness for fame.

“Vietnamese attach too much importance to education degrees, while employers recruit workers based on their education degrees. Therefore, people try to obtain degrees to get job promotions,” he said.

Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan noted that people mostly use forged degrees to get promotions if they work for state agencies.

However, the candidates with forged degrees and bad knowledge cannot “cheat” the employers of private or foreign enterprises.

Experts all agree with Luan, though there has been no official research work on the issue.

They said that the existence of the officers with forged education degrees in state agencies shows the unreasonable recruitment methods which have been applied for many years.

Mai Chi