Brazil Fighting American World University

Some online reports in Portuguese from Brazilian Web sites have revealed that the Brazilian government is fighting any American World University presence in Brazil. I have contacted the Brazilian official involved, and he confirmed this to me. The reasons are: (1) By not possessing valid accreditation in its purported "native" country, the United States, AWU is in violation of Brazilian law, which requires foreign universities acting in Brazil to have valid accreditation; and (2) AWU is suspected of defrauding Brazilian students--specifically, because students seeking professional legal qualifications are being sold AWU degrees in what AWU calls "international law," but such degrees are meaningless in the United States, and do not allow one to sit for bar examinations.

The official also informed me that, because the AWU in Brazil is such a cash cow, Brazilian AWU partners are apparently willing to fight the Brazilian government tooth and nail in the courts. AWU is certainly armed with cash. The estimate is that AWU has pulled in $4,000,000 from its Brazilian "students" in just the last two years alone.

 

Starrmustgo:

Please post the urls for the Web sites with this information. Does the official involved work for MEC, or more specifically SEED?

Thanks,

Gus Sainz

 

In reply to Mr. Sainz's inquiry, the links are as follows:
http://crpsp.org.br/a_acerv/jornal_crp/126/frames/fr_formacao.htm
http://www.futurize.hpg.com.br/ead.htm

I don't believe the Ministry of Education and Culture official I've corresponded with is mentioned, and I can't recall why I contacted him specifically.

Anyway, the gist of what is said on these pages, as I understand them from Web translations, is that Brazilian law now requires that such purportedly valid degrees as AWU offers be "revalidated" by the Brazilian government, and that an official in the Ministry of Education and Culture wrote to Brazil's federal universities in October, 2000, that they were not to recognize the validity of AWU degrees.

The government official with whom I corresponded used a lot of highly critical language about AWU, which I don't think would be advisable for me to repeat.

I don't know enough about the Brazilian government to know if "SEED" is involved. What is SEED? What is the source of Mr. Sainz's knowledge in this area?--an interest in Brazilian education...distance education law degrees? I'm just someone trying to learn about American World University for journalistic purposes.

 

Starrmustgo:

Brazil is, arguably, the most wired country in South America, as well as one of the most progressive countries in the world concerning distance education. As such, the Ministry of Education (MEC) takes great strides to safeguard the integrity of all distance-learning offerings. The Secretaria de Educação a Distância – SEED (the Department of Distance Education of the Ministry of Education accredits not only every program, but each and every course taught via distance at the university level. According to their Web site, the goal of SEED is to bring to public education all that distance education methodologies, techniques, and technologies can lend toward a new paradigm for Brazilian education. The Ministry of Education claims that their Department of Distance Education – SEED, represents the clear intention of the current government to invest in distance education and new technologies, as one of the strategies to bring democracy to, and elevate, the standard of quality of Brazilian education.

Starrmustgo, I’ll be more than happy to divulge my sources of knowledge, as well as my extensive interest in Brazilian education (not to mention more than one bombshells concerning AWU) if you, in the interest of full disclosure, explain precisely what you mean by “journalistic purposes.”

Gus Sainz

P.S. If your nome de plume is in any way related to Ken Starr, I might suggest, in the name of journalistic integrity, that you change it, as he is long gone. If, instead, it relates to Ringo Starr, give the guy a break. The Beatles broke up many years ago, and although he may not be the best drummer in the world, at least the words to "Octopuses Garden" were easy to remember after one too many.

 

Dear Gus,

I've been amazed by the amounts of Brazilian sites of all stripes that I've seen--so I suspect that you are right about Brazilian wiredness.

When I say "journalistic purposes," that is my perhaps slightly vague way of saying that I am researching American World University and will eventually publish, in an as-yet-unknown publication, an article about all of AWU's wonders. For the moment, I am working on a book about a 19th-century artist, so I am not immediately able to direct all of my efforts to researching AWU. But I have researched, and found out, a lot.

If you want to correspond on AWU on length, it might be a good idea for us to do this offline. I don't want to share my name and email address with everyone, but if you contact the folks who run this site, it's OK if they tell you my email address. Or, alternatively, you could contact John Bear.

And, yes, my nom de plume does relate to Ken Starr, not Ringo Starr or Belle Starr, etc., etc. I adopted the "nom" several years ago, and I feel too lazy to change it. Maybe in another decade, I will change it.

Did you see Maxine Asher on this Sunday evening's ABC show about Atlantis? I was surprised she had the gall, and was so ill-advised, to have them identify her as "President, American World University." They had her on for only the shortest of snippets, and I don't think she said anything wildly wacky, but I'll have to doublecheck my tape. I know that one of the rules for this Web site is that we not indulge in name-calling and suchlike, but I must say she was not looking her best.