Topic: The Fake Degree Thread

[Dumbo]

I worked for 6 years on a fake degree and spent most of the time worried that I would be discovered so I went ahead and did the right thing, I took a year off from teaching, went back home, worked like hell and actually got a real degree from a real university. Before I went back, I was so worried about my own fake degree that I didn't bother to worry about other people's fake degree.

I believe in quality, which means, proof reading many times, trying to get the font just right, making up transcripts, choosing a little known school and gettting the school seals on the internet and finding specimens on the net to make sure the look at the feel was just right. Then I learned a little about the college and read the newspaper from the school so I could back myself up if I ever needed to. I put a lot of work into my fake, but decided I was tired of the effort and it was easier just to get a real one and be able to teach anywhere with no problem.

Yeha, I went back to a run of the mill school whose degree offers no prestige whatsoever in a major, general studies, that means nothing except I have a 4 year degree and i am proud of it.

Since I spent so much time working on fake degrees and was so quality conscious, I have developed a pretty good skill in picking out fake degrees. Give me any copy of a degree and in just a few hours, I can find out for sure whether it is a fake or not and maybe within 5 minutes I can give you an answer. One easy clue is using A4 paper for an American degree. Haha, 8 1/2 x 11 is the paper size in America and is not the same as A4. There are many other ways as well.

But this thread isn't about spotting fake degrees, I am just irked lately. I came across a person applying for a job who had decided he wasn't content with just meeting the requirements for the job, but has decided to give himself a BA from an Ivy League university and an MA from another Top 10 university. Before I even looked at the copies of his degrees, I knew they would be fakes. Why the hell would an engineering graduate become an TEFL teacher. Engineers can get the great jobs, even in Thailand, especially someone who graduated with honors from one of the best programs in the world. A quick glance proved the point, but I ain't a snitch. I worked on a fake degree before so I know what it is like.

What I really think is wrong is that those of us who slaved away for a degree from a regular university have to compete in th job market with people who fake multiple degrees. It just ain't fair. I have no problem someone making up a fake BA from Pittsfield State University and then competing against me in the job market, but making up multiple degrees from the most presitigious universities in the world? Come on!

I know people need to use a fake degree to get a work permit and having a degree doesn't make you a teacher, I agree totally on that and would do anything to help someone make up a basic fake degree if they needed one, but purposefully faking a degree to put yourself ahead of the legitimate competition is just plain wrong.

[Notanewbie]

I have to wonder if fake degrees really fool many people. Most employers probably know when they see a fake, and if they really care, they can check a degree pretty easily. But most don?t check; they don't want to know. People working with fake degrees are usually relegated to working in the lower third of the teaching jobs in Thailand, and if Dumbo got by for six years, one really does have to wonder about the usefulness of a degree for teaching English, at least conversational or beginner English. I can see where some teaching jobs would require a degree and where others wouldn't. Unless you have a degree in education, what good is a degree is teaching a group of 7 year olds? I have never worked with a fake degree, all of mine are "real" but in my book, what you have learned is more important than where you have learned it. Of course, as an educator, I feel formal education is important (I won't be doing my doctoral dissertation now if I did not), but I don?t see where EVERY teaching job in Thailand requires a degree, although I do think the better paying ones probably do require a degree. I don't feel threatened by non-degreed teachers, although maybe it is because it would be near impossible for someone without a degree of any kind to compete for the jobs I do. Let he has no sin throw the first stone, can anyone ever say they have never pretended to be something they are not or have claimed to have done something they have not? I won't try to work with a fake degree but wouldn't normally turn someone in who I knew was. If the schools and the government really cared about fake degrees, the practice could be nearly eliminated. But since no serious steps are being taken to eliminate the "problem," apparently the powers to be don't consider it much of a problem. Who gets hurt by a few hundred people teaching the simple past tense at language schools for five bucks an hour without real degrees in LOS?

[Dumbo]

Noone gets hurt by fake degree teachers working in the crap schools which I did for many years. The problem I have is when the teacher takes his fake stuff and passes it off as the real deal in a decent paying school. It is wrong to have to compete in a market where fake degrees trump real degrees.

Who do you think a  Thai would hire to teach mathematics? Someone who shows you a Bachelor of Science in Biology major with a minor in Mathematics from Peru State College in the USA or someone who shows  you a Master of Arts in Mathematics from Cornell and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Stanford? Damn the checking, if you are working at a government school, the only degree checking is done by the person doing the hiring, which means no checks are done.

     

[Notanewbie]

Dumbo

If memory serves, every fairly well-paid teaching job I have had required checking the degree, but many of these had to satisfy foreign university accrediting agencies. All one has to do is get the teacher to sign a letter releasing their records to the school they are applying to and then the employer contacts the institution that issued the degree directly. Pretty much the same way schools verify BS/BA degrees for their masters' applicants. If the school doesn't bother to check degrees, obviously the school doesn't really care about qualifications, and is only concerned with whether the person can do the job. If you can do the job well without the qualifications, is there a need for qualifications? I doubt many people without a degree could bluff their way through teaching advanced economic theory or something of that nature for long, but probably could get by teaching conversational English. Again, it seems to depend on the job. Teaching students academic writing probably requires at least a minimum of a BA/BS degree. Teaching kindergarten students how to write big and little "A"s probably does not. If employers think having a real degree is necessary, they will take the time and effort to check, if they don't think it is necessary, they won't check. Is this the way it "should" be? I have no idea, but it is the way it is.

Teacher is a very abstract term that encompasses a wide variety of different jobs, from a university professor teaching nuclear physic to a pre-school instructor teaching kids how to stand in line. To say a 'teacher" needs this or that qualification does not make much sense. One needs to narrow it down to specific types of teaching. Do teachers need real degrees? Yes and No, depending in the type of teaching one is doing. If schools don't check for certain types of jobs, obviously they don't think it is important. They are the ones paying the salary, who am I to tell them who to pay their money to?  But from my experience, if you expect to move beyond the bottom level of teaching, it will be near impossible to do so with a fake degree.

[yippee]

I found this thread quite interesting because after 10 years of doing my 'real' degree education from my bachelors through to my doctorate I can understand the worries caused by competing with the jokers out there who try and present fake degrees, but 'notanewbie' is correct in that when you do move up the chain and try and get into say university education or the international schools then you will be quickly spotted as a fake as they do tend to check and can usually spot a fake. Add into this the risk that you may actually meet someone who went to the same university as you then it can get a little worrying too. Let me give you an example of this. I worked with a teacher who claimed that he went to the same university as me AND this was the interesting thing, he also graduated on the same day as me too. I happened to mention that I didn't recall seeing him there but with so many people that wouldn't be so hard anyway, so in defence he happened to mention that he did get his 'latest' copy from Kho Sarn Road because he lost his original and I have to say it was almost a perfect copy when compared to my original and it was only the paper quality and weight that gave it away. Had I not been in a position to check against my original I would have accepted it as pukka genuine. However, just to check, I have the graduation book that you are given when you attend the graduation ceremony with all the names in it here with me in Thailand (it's my way of confirming that my degress are actually real at interview stage) and yes this particular teacher was in the book, much to my surprise actually, so the thing is, you never really can be 'that' certain just by looking at the so called fake degree and you need to sometimes go in and check the official university records too.

I do have to point out to Dumbo however that his presumptions about why these particular degrees were fake based on the subjects and universities chosen could actually be wrong. If I put my doctorate aside for the moment because it was a specialised research project, that I do actually have both a Business Administration degree and an Engineering degree, both are very REAL and both were obtained from two of the top six universities in the UK. In fact when the more educated Chinese/Thai people who know about my Engineering degree and the course/university it was obtained at, they often give me the 'and you are an English teacher' kind of look and ask me why I am not doing Engineering instead... I then have to go onto explain that because I want to stay in Thailand then I have very little choice of the career path I really want to pursue open to me. You see, when applying for these so called 'real' jobs in Thailand, you quickly find that you are competing with racist, sexist, nationalistic and ageist job ads that dismiss you for all the wrong reasons and that's if you do get a response (many don't even read the emails they ask you to use when you apply because once they see it is written in English or from an English person with an Englihs name, they tend to just hit the delete button) and as such, I have lost track of the jobs I have tried to obtain in Thailand under the banner of my professional sphere. Also to quantifiy this, those that have rang me back or replied, the response has always been the lame;  "you're too qualified and experienced for Thailand, why don't you try Singapore" type of response. This usually comes from the agencies and HR departments alike. To be honest, with Thailand being what it is, I really should be getting out there on the beat and walking door to door selling my skills and potential but that's another story for another day.

So yes, I agree that it is great to feel 'proud' on being the bearer of a real degree, although I do have to say Dumbo that after you spent 6 years with a fake degree, aren't you now the "Poacher who became the Game Keeper?"... Anyway, all this degree talk is fun but let me ask you, when you teach in most government schools here in Thailand, isn't the education more focussed on "Edutainment" rather than real education, with large class sizes, different abilities and levels per class, intolerable Thai administration and so forth, really an insult to the more educated and talented of us who really should be doing something better with our days... oh, hang on, I know why we cannot, it's because we seem to have no choice in the matter... not if we want to live here in peace and comfort with the minimum of hassles... silly me I alsmost forgot. Ok, I know if you have money aside, you can set up your own company (consultancy), or perhaps you may want to own a bar etc... errr! ok then, so to teaching we go, because let's face it, it's one of the professions the Thais in their pride and wisdom, concede that they believe they know we can do better.

So the short and curlies of this is tale is, don't always judge a degree by it's cover and always check the records first and as the saying goes "The learning REALLY begins AFTER you hang your diploma on the wall"...

[Rick_BKK]

From my point of view the main problem with teachers who have fake degrees is not that they don?t have a degree, but rather that they are deceiving their employer by presenting documentation which is not genuine. I would be much happier to take a teacher with no degree than a teacher with a fake degree for two reasons. Firstly, the kind of people who work on fake degrees appear to among the most unreliable in Thailand.

Secondly, if you are aware that a teacher once has a TEFL qualification you can that bit more careful about what work you give them. For instance exam preparation classes, academic writing classes and higher level business classes may not be suitable for someone who hasn?t had a tertiary education.

Also as I understand it being caught having obtained a work permit on false document carries a more severe penalty than been caught working illegally. So from a legal point of view submitting a fake degree can also be an ill advised decision.

[Barracuda]

Dumbo,
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? I have pm'd you. Cheers.

Barracuda.

[blackpanther]

Well. I spent 6 years in university....BA, MA, PGCE.



If you want to be something and try to pretend you are otherwise then................................you are doodoo.     I hope the Ministry of Education get <real> serious with the angst ridden charlatans


 

[Notanewbie]

BP,

   I sense a little hostility. I have spent over 10 years in post-high school education (Vocational training, BS, MBA, Ph.D.-to be finished in a few months) but I don't see the amount of time spent in school has much to with being qualified for every single job. I am no more qualified to work as a taxi driver than someone who never finished high school. If I bought a fake CPA certificate and was hired by an accounting firm, I wouldn't last a single day, I would be found out quickly because I don?t have the skills for a CPA position. A certificate without skills is meaningless. How then can someone work as an English teacher for years on a fake degree? Simple, because the skills necessary to earn the degree are not the same skills one needs in the classroom. I need to qualify that, they are not the skills needed in ALL classrooms. If you had a fake degree, and tried to teach academic writing and the use of citation under the Harvard, APA, and MLA systems, you would unlikely to be able to hold the job. However, if you are teaching simple conversation and basic English, you already have enough language skills just being a native speaker, but what is needed to do the job well is effort and personality, not a degree. The only reason people use fake degrees is because of the law requiring degrees for jobs even if the skill level for the job does not require the skills one gained in an academic setting. People with fake degrees or working in the open with no degree, will be relegated to the bottom third of the ESL food chain, teaching at lower level language schools and other places teaching basic English and since basically all native English speakers (and many non-native speakers) have the skill level necessary for that type of job, it will always be low paying. People with advanced degrees coming to work in Thailand as basic ESL teachers is a lot like people with advanced degrees working as taxi drives back home. No one asked anyone to apply for a job under their skill level, so they shouldn't expect to be paid extra just because they have qualifications that don't pertain to the job.  Just my 2 satang worth

[certified]

Recently a fellow teacher said to me that Thai administrations really don't want real qualified teachers from the US , Britain and countries like this because they know too much about? education , they have too much job mobility , and they are more difficult to exploit? {<>than your Khoison Road degree holders . I had to tell this guy I was impressed with his cultural insights because he is a newcomer to the Thai system of education. It's always a wonder how these people with fake degrees worm their way into the principal's office, and begin expounding on their educational methodological expertise while these naive Thai educators are lapping up this frauds comments like a hungry cat. Another thing these frauds don't possess are the same ethics that real teachers have. They tend to be hostile, prone to lying,
have unseemly bad habits in front of the children, they make innapropriate comments about the students, they exhibit steriotypical teaching patterns, they group together in schools and harrass qualified western personel, they often lie to administrators about other teachers in order to deflect any suspicions about themselves, and the list goes on and on.Why then do the Thais allow their educational system to be over run with crooked individuals who exhibit personality disorders and disturbing pathological behaviors? In my country they would spot these people in less than a week and the FBI would quietly remove the fraud.

[truthteller100]

This has been covered so many times it's starting to get a bit boring

A piece of paper with the words Degree, Certificate, Diploma, President, Prime-minister, Nice man, BA, BAA, BASF,GCR, WFS, QWERTY
Real or Fake DOES NOT MAKE YOU A GOOD TEACHER in fact it does not make you a teacher period.

It has been said many times the reason people use fake Degrees is simple THE THAI LAW REQUIRES THEM.
Now for you lot that shout "WE HAVE A REAL DEGREE" you should be deported or whatever for using a fake one, bully for you 
A Degree in Electronics or something unrelated to Education really is the thing when teaching Conversational English to Thai students. 

Some one said earlier that fake degree holders would only be working in the lower paid schools?
If so what?s wrong with that You don't want to work for such meagre wages yet you don't want any one else to either 

One final note if you are so unhappy here (not being able to change the way Thais run their country) then F### off back to your own country and make massive money teaching what you know so much about and every one else knows Sod All about
   

[Pieman]

Dumbo, where on earth did you manage to get a real degree from a real university in just one year?

I took a year off from teaching, went back home, worked like hell and actually got a real degree from a real university.

[hero]

I took a year off from teaching, went back home, worked like hell and actually got a real degree from a real university.

Yeha, I went back to a run of the mill school whose degree offers no prestige whatsoever in a major, general studies, that means nothing except I have a 4 year degree and i am proud of it.

Slightly ambiguous I must agree!

[Dumbo]

Dumbo, where on earth did you manage to get a real degree from a real university in just one year?

I took a year off from teaching, went back home, worked like hell and actually got a real degree from a real university.

Do you believe in magic?

Seriously, I had almost three years of study under my belt before I went back. In the US, there are several universities that have programs that allow you to put together enough credits to have a Bachelor's degree. I was lacking 36 semester hours(just  little more than 1 year of study). I made up the credits by taking CLEP and DSST exams, in case you are wondering about the exams, they are put out by the same people who do the GRE, GMAT, SAT and TOEFL. My college is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. Which means on paper, it is just as bonafide as a degree from Columbia University or Cornell.

It was an awesome program for me, in fact, if someone has some brains on them and a little university study already, they could easily get a 4 year degree in less than a year. In fact, there is no reason for anyone not to have a 4 year degree. The ACE reccomends up to 30 credits for a successful score on a GRE subject exam.

[Pieman]

Still confused.

Yeha, I went back to a run of the mill school whose degree offers no prestige whatsoever in a major, general studies, that means nothing except I have a 4 year degree and i am proud of it

and

there is no reason for anyone not to have a 4 year degree

Are you proud of it?  no prestige whatsoever , that means nothing

A friend of mine got a credit from an American University for going to Paris. No essay required, just go to Paris and get a credit. Just like McD's , stay a while and get 5 stars.

Perhaps being indoors all day and avoiding Songkran is getting to me; I need some fresh air.