Hong Kong police have arrested two women who allegedly used forged documents and made false representations to immigration officers amid a snowballing scandal involving students using fake qualifications to get into a top business school.
The development emerged on Thursday as the University of Hong Kong (HKU) business school revealed that around 30 students were found to have used fraudulent qualifications to secure places following an in-depth investigation.
School dean Cai Hongbin said the number might eventually rise to as many as 100.
He said the fake qualifications scandal, which also involved some agencies, would create a huge negative effect on the academic integrity of Chinese students and pledged that the business school would step up checks on applications in the future.
“The school hopes to summarise its experience in this investigation and publicise the means of these ‘illegal agencies’ in forging documents so other universities in Hong Kong can plug the loopholes while admitting students,” Cai said in a statement.
Police revealed on Thursday that they had arrested two mainland Chinese women – a 24-year-old on June 22 and a 34-year-old on Wednesday – in connection with the scandal.
The women both held two-way permits, a travel document issued by mainland authorities for visiting Hong Kong, and were arrested when crossing the border.
The 24-year-old was charged with using forged documents and brought to Eastern Court last month, while the other woman was still being detained for investigation.
The business school on Thursday said it had decided to conduct an investigation in May after finding some students had secured a place in its programmes with the help of agencies that forged documents. It argued that simply disqualifying them would not deter illegal agencies or students and parents who took such risks.
It subsequently required all master’s students to resubmit their accreditation regarding their undergraduate studies.
The qualifications of students who had completed their bachelor’s degrees in Hong Kong or the mainland were all found to be genuine. However, more than 30 students had used fake qualifications in their applications, mostly from overseas universities.
The school said it was now working with the Chinese Service Centre for Scholarly Exchange to accredit students who applied for its programmes using overseas undergraduate qualifications.
“[The business school] has asked the students who were found to have used forged qualifications to actively facilitate the probe,” the statement said.
“It has asked those who have once hired agencies to forge qualifications to provide the deals between them in order to report the detailed situation to police.”
The school said some agencies would defraud both the universities and their clients.
It said an applicant who graduated from an American university thought they were not qualified for HKU and hired an agency to help, expecting it to only polish the application or draft admission statements.
But the agency forged transcripts and a graduation certificate from a top-tier US university and sent them to HKU from the United States, the school said.
“The transcripts, degree certificates, envelopes and seals all appear to be the same as the genuine ones,” it added.
