Hong Kong’s academic accreditation body has understated the number of suspected fraudulent qualification cases in its annual reports for years, the city’s audit watchdog has found.
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The Audit Commission on Wednesday called on the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications to improve the accuracy of its reporting, update its guidelines on handling suspected fake academic qualification and report suspicious cases to police in a more timely manner.
According to a report by the audit watchdog published on Wednesday, the accreditation body reported 113 cases of suspected fraudulent academic qualifications to the police force between the 2019-20 and 2023-24 school years. A total of 32 cases were reported in 2023-24 alone, a 78 per cent jump from 18 in 2021-22.
But the watchdog found that the number of such cases reported in the council’s annual reports had been understated for three consecutive years from 2019-20.
While the council reported 16 suspected fraudulent academic qualification cases to police that year, it claimed it only found eight cases – half of the actual figure – in its annual report.
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It also understated the number of suspected cases by one and five respectively in the following years. In 2021-22, it reported 18 cases to police but stated only 13 cases in its annual report.
The commission also said the accreditation body had not reviewed or revised its guidelines on handling of suspected fraudulent academic qualifications for over eight years since its last revision in 2016.