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30-01-2020

Times of Oman

Muscat: Degrees from several Indian, British and US universities have been declared invalid by Oman’s Ministry of Higher Education, which has also delisted the degrees of certain students who did not follow the rules while studying at other foreign universities.

In terms of those universities which had their degrees derecognised by the Ministry, two Indian universities – Dr Ram Manohar Lohiya Avadh University, and the Pune Institute of Engineering and Technology, were not recommended for study. “This educational institution is not recommended to study in as they do not meet the criteria for Indian institutions accredited by the Ministry,” said the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE).

In the case of the Pune Institute of Engineering and Technology, they added that “the educational institution does not have an evaluation from the National Assessment Accreditation Council in the Republic of India and this is one of the recognition criteria for Indian institutions accredited by the Ministry.” In addition, two universities in the United States – Ashley University and Washington International University – were realised to be fictitious universities, the degrees of which had no scientific value.

The Ministry said in regard to recognising degrees from both universities, “these qualifications are issued by a fictitious university and have no scientific value.” The Ministry also passed judgments on a number of individual cases of students who had taken up courses at universities through distance learning. The Ministry, however, had not previously approved this form of learning from the universities in question. A number of universities through which students had enrolled for distance learning courses were based in the UK. These included the Commonwealth Open University, the University of Salford, and the University of Portsmouth.

“The educational institution is not included in the list of higher education institutions in the United Kingdom that have been recommended for distance learning by the Ministry,” said the MoHE, in this regard. There were also similar cases regarding students who had sought to do distance learning courses from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in the States, as well as three institutes in India: the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Madras University, and the Indian School of Business Management and Administration. MoHE also did not recognise a number of students’ qualifications, as they had not sought written permission from the Ministry before beginning their courses. Had they done so, the Ministry would have advised them against studying at these universities, because the students in question had been enrolled with intermediaries where the courses from another university were taught. However, these intermediaries are not recognised by the Ministry. There was, in this regard, a case of a student who had supposedly enrolled himself at the University of Wolverhampton, but wasn’t actually studying there.

“The concerned person did not obtain written approval from the Ministry of Higher Education before joining his studies. He did not study at the university, but instead studied at the Global College in Cyprus through a distance learning system, from an intermediary not approved by the Ministry.” Another student, although he was attempting to get his degree through Staffordshire University, was actually doing it in Malaysia through a supposed intermediary, and the Ministry said in this regard, “This association was not approved by the Malaysian accreditation authorities, and therefore cannot be accredited in the Sultanate.” Students who were doing more advanced courses at Salve Regina University in the United States and Jawaharlal Nehru University in India also didn’t have their degrees recognised, because their previous degrees had not been approved by the Ministry.

The Ministry also passed judgments over the case of students who had enrolled themselves with an intermediary in order to earn degrees from Sikkim Manipal University. That intermediary, however, had not been recognised by India’s University Grants Commission. The same was true in two more cases: one that dealt with a qualification from the University of Portsmouth, and another from the University of Essex, both in the UK.