Wednesday, September 12, 2007

OXCEL Certificate

I wrote about the educational awards offered by the "Oxford Centre for Leadership" (OXCEL) a few weeks back here and here. For those with a keen eye, you will see that the text within the sites have been modified accordingly to be less misleading, for example, in its (non) association with Oxford University. OXCEL runs its programmes in Malaysia here.

But I'm curious. OXCEL has recently conducted a convocation ceremony at the Oxford University itself on the 3rd of September 2007, specifically at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. (Oxford colleges and institutes rent out their premises for use by private organisations to raise funds.) And I've been made aware that the following is the alleged copy of certificates issued to the "graduates" from OXCEL.

[UPDATED 21/9/2007: I have removed the alleged certificate for the owners of OXCEL has written to state that the copy in my possession is a forged document. I have however, requested for a original copy to be posted online, but this request has been rejected for apparent fear that further forgeries will be made.]

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cant we do something abt all these bogus universities? Like bring them to court or something. And shame all who are associated with them.

dazzakoh said...

Well.. the name "Oxford" is too general for the University to legally care, but the use of the crest, and the naming of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies tantamounts to deception or at least in legal terms, unfair competition. Might be time to forward the information to the University's legal department....

clk said...

Looks like its with intention to mislead using Oxford. The insignia and the named premises seems to point to that.

The abbreviation MBA though merely means "Married But Available". Most legit and even non-legit schools spell out the qualification in full.

Anonymous said...

TP

Why dont you forward this to Oxford University registrar and see if they will take any legal action

Anonymous said...

while we appreciate tony's efforts in highlighting diploma mills for us lest we enrolled ourselves to institutions of such dubious background, i reckon our issue here with "OXCEL" has quite reached the limits, and its time for us to shift to a different set of subjects. highlighting a diploma mill in malaysia with 3-4 post is rather excessive i'd say, it'd be even more excessive if it were done on every other diploma mills which number to the hundreds in malaysia.

thank you tony for your warnings on OXCEL, lets turn our attention to another topic please.

Anonymous said...

Get real even government linked institutions like Charles Sturt University are no better than mills yet they are authorised by their government to operate. The line between what is legitimate and what is not is blurred and worse you get operators like HELP who also are in the same game. To add insult to injury they even have a criminal investigations department.

Iris said...

This cert looks crappy.
:)

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 9/14/2007 04:54:00 PM

Come-on ... get real!
Charles Sturt University a degree mill? You as well consider UM, UKM, UPM, UUM ... etc degree mills as well. As far as I'm concerned there are many CSU graduates performing far ahead of our local uni graduates. Have you got something seriously personal against HELP? Really makes me wonder.

I realize that this blog has several anon (maybe same person) who enjoys attacking CSU or HELP. But never once touched SeGi with USC, USQ, Bolton, Sunderland, Newcastle ... etc, Inti with Coventry, Hertfordshire ... etc or the likes of Sunway, KDU, KBU, Taylor's or so many local colleges out there offering foreign degrees.

Anonymous said...

maybe he's being paid by other competitor institutions to discredit CSU and HELP. money pays for everything these days, a person's time and honour for example.

Anonymous said...

I have emailed the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies with the scan of the certificate, and links to the relevant posts here.

Hopefully something will happen.

Anonymous said...

Clayton J C Tan , I suspect is a CSU or HELP graduate!

Anonymous said...

Yes I do admit I'm a CSU graduate and proud of it too. But I dare to stand up and be fair by also highlighting Hertfordshire within the list I provided, a University which I was also a graduate from.

I'm just saying that we need to look at all and not always pointing towards the direction of one college or university alone.

The very fact that I dared to put my name in all my post shows that I've got nothing to hide here =)

Anonymous said...

good on ya clayton! although am no CSU grad, but this fella under the pay of other competitor institutions to discredit CSU-HELP who posts his propaganda all over the blog is getting on my nerves. better spend his time spreading the news of the misdeeds of the present ruling party instead if he were to be of use to humanity.

Anonymous said...

2006 Australian University Rankings

University Index
Australian National University 100
University of Melbourne 100
University of Sydney 93
University of Queensland 90
University of New South Wales 88
Monash University 86
University of Western Australia 80
University of Adelaide 76
Flinders University of South Australia 72
Macquarie University 65
University of Tasmania 64
Murdoch University 60
University of Newcastle 57
University of Wollongong 57
Curtin University of Technology 55
Griffith University 54
RMIT University 53
University of New England 52
Deakin University 49
Queensland University of Technology 49
James Cook University 48
University of Technology,Sydney 47
University of South Australia 46
University of Canberra 44
La Trobe University 43
Southern Cross University 41
Swinburne University of Technology 41
University of Western Sydney 41
Victoria University 41
Charles Darwin University 40
Edith Cowan University 40
Central Queensland University 39
Charles Sturt University 39
University of Ballarat 37
Australian Catholic University 36
University of Southern Queensland 35
University of the Sunshine Coast 32
University of Notre Dame, Australia 29

From: http://www.australian-universities.com/rankings/

Look at where CSU rank?

Anonymous said...

Poor Clayton JC Tan.....:((

University Hertfordshire is an "upgraded from polytech" university.
Nothing to shout about!

Anonymous said...

The ranking list above does shed some light. It is true that HELP is not the only one with programs from lower ranking university.

SeGi has programs with USQ and USC ranked several rungs lower.

University of Ballarat I believe is the university where Unity College international is tied to.

Maybe Tony and Kian Ming should help us do a research into the credibility of private colleges twinning with foreign university.

Since it is taking forever for the government to come out with a ranking system. Why not Tony or Kian Ming try your own methodology of ranking instead? That will definitely interest many readers like us.

Anonymous said...

Interesting to see that Victoria University that is offered by Sunway College is not that much higher either. Does that explain something about almost ALL local colleges?

Then again, it makes me wonder how does our local university fare against all these so called lower ranked universities in Australia.

Anonymous said...

Hi TAR College Grad,

Yeah ... spending my time in Hertfordshire I got to admit that it's nothing to shout about and not that great a university. I've no doubt at all that UM have much better facilities. Also, I've had much issues with the administration of that university during my term and even after I've completed my program there. If anyone planning to go to that university seek for my advice, I'll be more than willing to share the pros and cons of such universities. That's the reason why I believe any critics should look into all universities and not merely focusing on discrediting HELP or CSU.

My brief feedback on Hertfordshire:

Upside
- Excellent Learning Resource Center (imagine being allowed to borrow 16 books at any one time with one month duration).
- 24 hours library.
- Friendly and helpful academic staff and supervisors (You could walk into any academic's office and seek clarification on topics you don't understand).
- Flexible selection of modules.

Downside
- Administrative staff is bad.
- Curriculum not very in-depth.
- No proper Internet from most accomodation.
- Lack of diversity in representative of students union.

OK ... and if you'd like my feedback on HELP-CSU (which I did my MBA in):

Upside
- Flexibility by Module
- Knowledgeable lecturers (not all though). Dr. Yap Kim Len & Baldev Sidhu are among the ones who really know their stuff.
- Also many lecturers with solid work experiences. Then again I realize many of these lecturers are not full-time and they do lecture in other colleges too.

Downside
- Some topics are not as in-depth as other programs I've seen.
- Far too many MBA students without solid work experiences (difficult for real life discussions), many student from China with little or no work experiences.
- Mainly due to student's mentality (since there are many fresh grads still used to undergrad style), lecturers often need to spoonfeed quite a lot during classes.
- No dissertation at the end. Feels like something is lost.

Yup, that's from my opinions of the two college/uni I've attended. Really they're nothing really to shout about but I can't deny I do gain much from these institutions. It's unfair to call HELP-CSU a degree mill as I wouldn't have needed to spend 3 years balancing work and studies to get through my MBA if it was. If it was a degree mill then wouldn't it be easier if I just get a mail order that comes in 3 weeks?

Once again, I'd just like to be fair and say that every colleges has its pros n cons. Even for TAR college, the recognition of Campbell University degree is also subject to some discussions. Let's not do any further personal attack, Hatfield Polytechnic was upgraded to Hertfordshire University in 1992; how about TARC and UTAR? Oh yea, TARC still remains TARC.

Anonymous said...

I am not sure why that TARC grad (9/18/2007 07:58:00 PM) appeared to be critical of Hertfordshire being a former polytechnic.
TARC's twinning partners Sheffield Hallam and Liverpool John Moore are also former polytechnics upgraded into universities.

Anonymous said...

folks, you guys are seriously digressing from spreading public awareness on diploma mills to my-uni-is-better-than-your-uni childish bashings. i'm a form 4 secondary school student and i cant imagine graduates are behaving as such. whats next? compare who's lunch box is larger and more expensive?

Anonymous said...

Anon (9/19/2007 12:40:00 AM)

Sorry for swaying off topic. Just trying to put things right. My apologies. Will close that topic here =)

Anonymous said...

Dear Clayton J C TAN

This proves finally that my khram is more superior!

Anonymous said...

Jesus...get real guys.