Master Degree from the mill

DAP’s Serdang MP Dr Ong Kian Ming has claimed that a newly sworn-in Barisan Nasional senator could possess a fake degree after a report in an English daily announced the senator’s credentials today.

Speaking to The Rakyat Post, Ong said based on the report today, Sabah MCA liaison chairman Wilfred Yong Chen Leong, who was sworn in as a senator yesterday, had a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Preston University in the United States.

“It is perplexing to know that the university which is reported to be a well known degree mill was announced nonchalantly by the Dewan Negara Speaker.

“Even worse was the oversight by all the senators that were reportedly giving thumps of approval when the announcement was made,” he added.

According to several websites and reports including geteducated.com and Wikipedia, Preston University is an unaccredited university based in the United States which has received several state consumer warnings for conducting unaccredited courses in a private for-profit scheme.

A 2009 report by The Star had also stated the university in its list of bogus universities and degree mills.

“Preston University is a private for-profit unaccredited university with allegedly 30 affiliated campuses throughout the world. Preston was based in Wyoming but moved to Alabama in 2007 after the state’s crackdown on diploma mills. In 2009, the Alabama state administration ordered it to cease operations for failing to meet its educational standards. Preston University is now based in Los Angeles, California,” the report stated.

For Ong, this would not be the first time he has pointed fingers at Barisan Nasional politicians for allegedly possessing ‘fake’ academic qualifications.

In April 2013, Ong was reported to have claimed that both then-deputy Foreign Ministers A. Kohilan Pillay and Richard Riot each had two degrees from universities listed as “dubious institutions”.