'Fake' universities operating in Sweden
The Swedish National Agency for Higher Education (Högskoleverket) has issued a warning about two so-called fake universities operating in Sweden. Both universities offer courses up to and including doctoral level.
One of the universities, the Scandinavian University of Science and Technology (SUST), is only accessible via the internet, and has a post office box registered to an address in Angered, a suburb of Gothenburg, according to local newspaper Göteborgs Posten.
The university's homepage was out of service on Tuesday morning.
The second university, calling itself the Alhuraa University in Sweden, is based in the Stockholm region and claims to be a branch of a university of the same name in the Netherlands.
The university markets its courses primarily at Iraqis living in Sweden and its homepage is primarily in Kurdish and Arabic with a short presentation in English.
Both universities offer academic degrees up to doctoral level and neither are registered academic establishments in Sweden, the National Agency for Higher Education has warned.
The agency has called on the government to investigate whether these two "universities" are operating in breach of Swedish law.
"If they are not, then we have a real problem, because we could then see many more in the future," said the agency's Erik Johansson to Göteborgs-Posten.
The internet is littered with fake universities offering academic qualifications but remain relatively unusual in Sweden.
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One of the universities, the Scandinavian University of Science and Technology (SUST), is only accessible via the internet, and has a post office box registered to an address in Angered, a suburb of Gothenburg, according to local newspaper Göteborgs Posten.
The university's homepage was out of service on Tuesday morning.
The second university, calling itself the Alhuraa University in Sweden, is based in the Stockholm region and claims to be a branch of a university of the same name in the Netherlands.
The university markets its courses primarily at Iraqis living in Sweden and its homepage is primarily in Kurdish and Arabic with a short presentation in English.
Both universities offer academic degrees up to doctoral level and neither are registered academic establishments in Sweden, the National Agency for Higher Education has warned.
The agency has called on the government to investigate whether these two "universities" are operating in breach of Swedish law.
"If they are not, then we have a real problem, because we could then see many more in the future," said the agency's Erik Johansson to Göteborgs-Posten.
The internet is littered with fake universities offering academic qualifications but remain relatively unusual in Sweden.
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