Pundits slam use of fake diplomas at state agencies A fake certificate of English command is seen in this file photo illustration. Tuoi Tre Vietnamese experts have decried the use of fake qualifications, which is believed to be rampant in Vietnam, saying sham diploma holders can only be hired by state agencies and will cause harm to the employers as well as the educational system. Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan complained at a meeting last week that sham degrees can only make their way to the state sector. “Fake diplomas can only exist in state-owned enterprises, not in private companies or foreign-invested entities,” Luan said at the meeting in Hanoi. Some educational experts have joined him in blasting those who use bogus credentials to work at state agencies. Professor Hoang Tuy, a prominent mathematician, said that fake diplomas are directly harmful to state agencies which employ their holders and “undermine the quality of the state apparatus in general.” Those who use fake diplomas will be more willing to admit their peers to the government system, Prof. Tuy explained. The ‘combination’ of fake diploma users who are usually greedy for fame and their employers who tolerate them have resulted in an unhealthy and unequal competition in personnel recruitment and promotion, the academic said. Prof. Tuy commented that Minister Luan was very courageous when he exposed such a sobering reality, which the public has long known about. When asked by Tuoi Tre why no effective measures have been taken to eliminate the practice, the mathematician said, “Ten years ago, at a meeting attended by the then Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, I raised the same question.” The 87-year-old educator added that “the authorities of a sector at that time even issued a document requesting that those who obtained fake degrees regularize them, while such diplomas should be confiscated and their users should be punished.” He suggested that the Ministry of Home Affairs should reform the method of recruiting public servants. “If the recruitment of state employees is not reformed, it is impossible to ensure public servants will try to get real qualifications,” Prof. Tuy said. With the same view, Dao Trong Thi, chairman of the National Assembly’s Committee for Culture, Education, Youth and Children Affairs, said that false qualifications are not only harmful to the educational sector but also to the agencies that attach excessive importance to diplomas. Prof. Dr Dao Van Luong, president of the Saigon Technology University and former director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology, agreed that forged degrees have become a stinging social problem. Other experts have recommended that this issue can be solved when direct interviews are applied in recruitment at state agencies to check candidates’ knowledge, instead of selecting them on the basis of their degree certificates. Tuoitrenews