PETALING JAYA: One’s academic achievements may open doors in politics but in the private sector, it is considered a disciplinary issue that warrants immediate dismissal.
Employers see this as a serious misconduct, according to Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) executive director Datuk Shamsuddin Bardan.
However, it is difficult for employers to determine if a university degree is genuine or otherwise due to the lack of cooperation from local institutions of higher learning.
“Most universities do not provide such information for fear of breaching the data protection legislation,” he said when commenting on recent reports that several political leaders had not been truthful when declaring their academic qualifications.
Recently, Deputy Foreign Minister Datuk Marzuki Yahya came under fire for claiming that he had a degree from the University of Cambridge but it turned out that his degree was from the Cambridge International University, a degree mill based in the United States.
Apart from him, several other Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional leaders have been found to have also lied about their academic achievements.
Shamsuddin urged the government to set up a central system to enable easy retrieval, authentication and verification of academic credentials to help employers determine if potential employees were truthful about their qualifications.
He said employers faced the same problem with people who claim to have degrees from foreign institutions, especially those earned through distance learning.
“People now have a bad impression of those with degrees earned through distance learning,” he said.
“This is detrimental to those who genuinely earned their degrees.”
Shamsuddin said employers also accepted unrecognised degrees so long as they were properly earned.
Meanwhile, Johor Department of Environment director Datuk Dr Muhammad Ezanni Mat Salleh has denied that his doctorate degree is fake, as stated on social media recently.
He said he completed his Doctorate Degree (Engineering) in Electrical Systems at Universiti Malaysia Perlis on Sept 8, 2015 and the convocation ceremony was held on Sept 19 the same year.
