NBOE (discussed in a thread on AED) provides a list of rather mundane diploma mills (easily picked out from the legitimate schools): NBOE Members.
Many of which may be found on Google, if you just search by NBOE's toll-free number: 1-877-736-0812. Talk about convenient! You don't find this quality of customer service every day. <g>
Most of the 'schools' on the list are names of fake institutions for which advancedu.com has been selling diplomas. Now they're apparently creating very generic web sites for some of them, giving us a cart-before-the-horse scenario. First sell the diplomas, then invent the 'university'.
These people have a sense of humor. You can get a degree through an "AED assessment." See What is AED? And all this time I thought it was alt.education.distance.
AED claims to be fully accredited through the Ministry of Education of Liberia. Just in case someone is not aware, Liberia is an educational powerhouse in western Africa. The official language is English which I'm sure is very convenient for any degree mill operators that might ever decide to call there. (Of course, I don't know if any ever have?) Approximately 20% of the 3 million population actually speak English. The native language is really 20 different tribal languages. Please note that a few of these 20 different tribal languages even have a written form! So you know that the public education system must be very hard to find, I mean ... ah ... it must be very interesting. A few other tidbits, there are over 6000 permanent telephone lines in Liberia. There's 70,000 television sets and 300 internet users. They are more advanced than these statistics might lead you to believe though because there are 46 airports! (But only 2 are paved.)
Actually when I was attending classes in Berkeley, I had a roommate over one summer that I believe was from Liberia. I could hardly ever understand a single word that he spoke but he swore that he spoke perfect English. His proof that he spoke perfect English was that they taught school in English and he had been in school since he was a very little boy. Berkeley in the summer very rarely gets over 95 degrees. When it wasn't over 95 degrees he would have to take a shower or turn on the apartment heater. Since all three of his roommates would vigorously yell and scream at him when he turned on the heater, he would take lots of showers. My Liberian roommate couldn't seem to understand that the shower curtain had to be INSIDE the bathtub when he took a shower. The people in the apartment below us used to complain all the time about water dripping from their ceiling.
There is a person in our parish, Mary Antoinette Brown Sherman, who was President of the University of Liberia from 1978-1984. This was a time of upheaval in Liberia -- a military coup led by Samuel Doe overthrew the government (and assassinated then-President Tolbert). There was great violence at the University. Marie Antionette herself had to face tragedy -- her daughter was killed. She was dismissed by the military government, and came to the U.S. where she held academic positions at Cornell and Ohio State. She has written some widely-cited papers on the status of African universities, and described some of the problems (political interference, bureaucracy, corruption, economic limitations, etc.) that stand in the way of an effective higher education system in Africa.
Thanks for the reminder, Gert. The religious denomination I worked in from '90-'91 had substantial partner churches in Liberia. Most people here were unaware of the devastation and the targeting of anybody with any real capacity for leadership. Your friend is a brave lady and I wish her all the best.
My Liberian roommate also mentioned that the tribal rivalries were very deep rooted and often violent. His opinion of his fellow countryman from other tribes would probably be considered disgustingly racist by most people in western societies. However, I must admit that at the time I was much more bothered by him turning on the heater when it was 90 degrees outside.
That's eventually what blew up the whole country, Bill, and led to wholesale murder and persecution of the Americo-Liberian element that ran the country for most of its history. When the goons came down out of the hills in Bosnia, everybody noticed; nobody noticed when it happened in Liberia.
I'm not trying to belittle vicious racism but, at the time it was still more irratating when we would be wishing that we had air conditioning and he would go turn on the heater. (I suspect that he'd never seen a jacket or coat in his life.) I hope that the Liberians can take some solice in the fact that they have "accredited" AED. (Just to pretend to get back on topic)
Yeah, I had a roommate who had sexual fantasies about his cello, so he would perch the thing at the end of his bed so he could see it and...
Bill, Your vituperations in this thread are insulting and spectacularly offensive to all black Africans. Liberians, like Bosnians, the Irish people in Nothern Ireland, and Afghans, have their problems but your characterization of events (past and present) in Liberia is not fair, to say the least. Ike
