HE DOES not deny that the degrees are fake. But in his defence, Brookes Business School's boss claimed he was duped by a Vietnamese man who sold him a franchise to run RMIT degree programmes in August 2007.

Mr Benny Yap Chee Mun, 39, the registered owner of Brookes' Business School and two other private schools, told The Straits Times he made a police report last December after being duped by a 'Mr Suong' from RMIT's offshore campus in Vietnam.

He said he paid the man an initial US$10,000 (S$14,550) for the right to offer RMIT business degree courses, and use its course syllabus. Police confirmed that Mr Yap filed a report on Christmas Eve.

Mr Yap said it was only in October last year that he realised that something was amiss after several students pointed out that their degree certificates had basic spelling errors.

He added that he only realised that he was not allowed to offer the unaccredited Brookes University degree programmes last year, after The Straits Times exposed a few schools for offering degrees from degree mills.

'I really didn't know. But when we found out, we stopped immediately. I am very sorry but I am not so experienced,' he said. He has been in the education business for a decade.

He said he tried contacting 'Mr Suong' but could not locate him.

In December, he went to RMIT in Melbourne to inform them of the matter.

RMIT officials confirmed Mr Yap's visit but said there was no record of a 'Mr Suong' employed at their offshore campus in Vietnam.

Mr Yap told The Straits Times that he stopped offering RMIT programmes late last year. But when asked why at least two students received 'RMIT degrees' from his school this year, he said that he had issued them reluctantly upon the students' insistence.

'I have told them that they cannot use the degree, but they still wanted them,' he said.

He claimed that he had given refunds to 50 students so far and offered to enrol them free of charge in other courses he administers here, such as those run by the Institute of Administrative Management in the United Kingdom, which can lead to a degree from the University of Wales.

When asked why he had continued offering RMIT degrees despite his 2007 legal agreement with the university not to do so, he said then he had been appointed by another school to recruit students for its RMIT programmes. Asked why one of his employees had offered Ballarat University degrees to a reporter who called, when the institution said it has no such agreement with him, Mr Yap replied that one of his 'new, inexperienced staff' must have taken the call.

SANDRA DAVIE

This article was first published in The Straits Times.