Hong Kong’s academic accreditation body has been kinda sorta not really telling the whole truth about suspected fraudulent qualification cases in its annual reports for, like, years, according to the city’s audit watchdog. The Audit Commission, in a report published on Wednesday, was all like, “Hey, Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications, you gotta step up your game and be more accurate with your reporting, update your guidelines on handling suspected fake academic qualifications, and report shady cases to the police faster.”
So, get this, the audit watchdog found that the accreditation body only reported 113 cases of suspected fraudulent academic qualifications to the police between the 2019-20 and 2023-24 school years. But wait for it, in just 2023-24 alone, they reported 32 cases, which is like a 78 per cent increase from 18 cases in 2021-22.
But here’s the kicker: the audit watchdog discovered that the number of cases reported in the council’s annual reports had been, like, totally downplayed for three whole years from 2019-20. In that year, the council reported 16 cases to the police, but in their annual report, they only admitted to finding 8 cases – half of the actual number. And it just keeps getting worse. In the following years, they understated the number of cases by one and five, like, respectively. In 2021-22, they reported 18 cases to the police, but in their annual report, they only fessed up to 13 cases.
On top of all that, the commission was all like, “Um, so you guys haven’t updated your guidelines on handling suspected fraudulent academic qualifications in over eight years? What’s up with that?” The last time they revised their guidelines was back in 2016, which is, like, a really long time ago in journalism years.
At the end of the day, the accreditation body really needs to get their act together and start being more transparent about these suspected fraudulent qualification cases. The people of Hong Kong deserve to know the truth, and sweeping things under the rug ain’t gonna cut it. Not really sure why this matters, but maybe it’s just me, but I feel like honesty is kinda important in this whole journalism gig. So, Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications, it’s time to clean up your act and start reporting the facts as they are.
And scene.
