Information about Euclid University

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Friend2006, Feb 3, 2006.

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  1. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    A last word on Preston. Yeah - I was mostly right. Although around five campuses survive, only Karachi and Kohat appear on the "HEC Approved" list. Check "Private Sector Universities" chartered by the Governments of Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtoonkwah.

    HEC recognized Universities

    Johann
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 26, 2012
  2. engadnan

    engadnan Member

    Johann, Check this link for Preston:

    HEC recognized Campuses

    All Preston Campuses are recognized. See (Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore and even Ajman, UAE). They were and are still issuing degrees of the Govt. of Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtoonkwah to the graduates of these campuses with the permission of HEC.

    I work at the one of the allied departments of the Ministry of Education; so quite familiar with them.

    Although there degrees are not well received and its true, however, it remained as one of the first private and still the cheapest Higher Education Institution in Pakistan.
     
  3. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    This one, right there. Cleenewerck has been an active amateur scholar, for years. You can read his texts online (including his old magnum opus, "His Broken Body"). Flowery legaleze on Euclid website (all the "Memoranda of Understanding" stuff) is most likely his. The man may be many things, but he is certainly literate. That threat - not so much.

    I didn't spend months researching Euclid. But my impression is, it evolved some in recent years. While before one of the major reasons for it's whole existance was that Fr. Laurent can call himself "Rev. Prof.", nowadays it looks like a bunch of third world officials bestowing degrees on each other. Does it make it real? Perhaps not.
     
  4. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Yeah, that's what it looks like. Preston Pakistan has students going to some (rented) classrooms. It has government authorization and is staffed with (underpaid) people with (obscure, some from Preston) advanced degrees, holding classes. Textbooks are probably used. In short, it's undistinguishable from other local, recognized private schools.
    Same thing with WIU-Ukraine. It operates from my city, along with dozens of other schools. I once went through a horribly-formatted text file with information on accredited Ukrainian schools - WIUU is there. Private schools are generally held in low regard back there, but this thing doesn't stand out in a bad way (even though it still partners with WIU-USA, which does not really exists, and never did). All the credibility it actually has comes from work done by Ukrainian owner-administrators and faculty, most of whom are working or are retired from Mykhailo Dragomanov National Pedagogical University - a well known state institution. They'll improve things a great deal if they'd rename the operation and sever all ties with American con men (as their counterpart in Estonia apparently already did).
     
  5. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I agree. He has also taught professionally -- at Humboldt, (RA) I believe. Fr. Cleenewerck is real. His scholarship is real. His school and his threats - not so much.

    Johann
     
  6. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Severing ties with American con-men is always a good step. The school has achieved abroad something it could not achieve at home...respectability. I just hope that, unlike the Mafia - they don't have to "kick money upstairs" to the "Godfather" school back in the USA.

    Johann
     
  7. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    He also apparently teaches at Ukrainian Catholic University, from which he erned his Master of Ecumenism degree. This school is downright terrific, accredited by both Ukraine and (I assume) the Vatican.
    I do not believe he issued that threat. It would be both longer and more grammatical if he did. Ergo, I think there are other people with their hands in 'running' Euclid.
     
  8. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    And obviously (from the threat text) these "others" do not seem to be people of nearly the intellect or academic accomplishments of Fr. Cleenewerck. Again, that doesn't bode well for Euclid. If one wishes to establish a University that will become international and reputable, Bangui C.A.R. is hardly an auspicious place to start such a school - let alone as a "remote control" operation, run from the U.S. - as Accredibase says it is.

    Location, location, location - as the real estate experts say. If the "Central African Empire" was good enough for Jean-Bedel Bokassa, murderer of the 100+ schoolchildren who protested the price of their "dictator-approved" school uniforms (with his image on them) -- then it's good enough for us to AVOID.

    The place (C.A.R.) is Hell. Avoid Hell. Shun Hell. Don't send your money to a school in Hell. To Hell with Hell!

    Johann
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 27, 2012
  9. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Jean-Bedel Bokassa was overthrown in the '70s. Perhaps your view of Africa could stand an update?
     
  10. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Well, CAR is certainly no "hell" (only hell is hell). OTOH, it is unwise to recommend Euclid to potential students, whether it is "100% unaccredited" or only 50% so. Well, unless you're Eritrean burocrat, have a course recommended by your boss and can get 100% tuition waiver. Same is true, btw, about Preston Pakistan or WIU-U , their legitimacy notwithstanding.
    Just for laughs, I tried to look up Wisconsin International University in the IAU database. As one may expect, it's not on the list for USA. On the page for Ukraine, it is there, under awesome legal name "Ukrains'ko-Amerikans'kij Gumanitarnij Institut "Viskonskinks'kij Mižnarodnij Universitet" v". And yes, Preston is there for Pakistan. "American" connections of both schools invoke images of frontier enterprise and glass bead trading (featuring Ukraine and Pakistan as the Wild West).
     
  11. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I wasn't recommending Euclid. I was only saying that many people still think of Sub-Saharan Africa as a region with nothing but mud huts, and that view is seriously out of date. There's no reason legitimate universities can't operate there (regardless of whether this particular one is one of them).
     
  12. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    Square? Obtuse?
     
  13. Messdiener

    Messdiener Active Member

    It's quite unfortunate that Euclid can't find a way to function properly/legitimately (whatever that might mean to each of us), seeing as though there is a lack of Orthodox Christian distance programs. Quite a shame!
     
  14. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Yes, Steve. Such a view is indeed outdated.

    My view today is one of governments hanging by threads, parliaments with revolving doors, armed dissidents, teenagers with rifles, supposedly-religious zealots destroying ancient monuments. You can see that in Timbuktu in recent weeks - a seat of learning practically razed by so-called "Fundamental Islamists" with guns. You need look no further than WIKI - try "Malian Cabinet" for starters. Many desperately poor people. And right - not mud huts. We're often talking urban poverty in (often) strife-torn large cities.

    Yes - Jean-Bedel Bokassa was deposed in the 70s. Should we simply forget about him and the schoolkids he had killed? Forget about Idi Amin in Uganda? Forget about Robert Mugabe? Sure -- let's write them out of the history books, to present a more attractive "up-to-date" picture. If we just ignore/forget -- we'll have others, just like them. If most of Africa is so "different" now, why do other countries have millions of her refugees? They've got to be fleeing something! If it's as great as you say - why don't the people want to stay? (My barber, Nabil, is from Sudan. HE can tell you!)

    No, it's not mud huts. Not "all good" either. I'd think it would be hard to make a go of a business, in many African places - except maybe a free clinic or a food bank -- and often, someone will come along with a gun and shut THAT down!

    In light of the current state of much of Africa, I think your view may need updating.

    Johann
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 29, 2012
  15. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I respect your belief, Stanislav, but mine is different. I believe by our actions and thoughts we (mankind in general) create our own "hells" of all kinds and live in them for varying durations in the here-and-now. The hell we create may exist in our heads, in a small room with a bottle - or a factory - or a large country. If you say so, there may be an "afterlife" hell but I have no grasp or personal concept of it. I've experienced the former kind - not the latter, at least so far...

    Ride 'em, Cowboy! What's happened in Pakistan (Prestonstan?) is more like corrupting the natives and debasing them with whiskey...or in this case, American dollars. I can see Ukrainian cowboys, though. Good horsemen there for 3,000 years! (Scythians). Great riders, the Kozaki (Cossacks)! Wonder what Hollywood could do with "Billy the Kid meets Stenka Razin?"

    Johann
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 30, 2012
  16. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    No, but neither should we use it as the basis for how we view the place today, anymore than we should use the East German experience from the '70s as the basis for how we view Europe today.

    You cite Timbuktu, which you can do, but does that mean Accra or Nairobi ora hundred other places are the same? Of course not.

    My point is that people want to say about schools in Africa, "Oh, nothing academically good can flourish there." Euclid may not be an example, but that doesn't mean this is so.
     
  17. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Point taken, Steve. (Obviously) I still get riled up whenever I hear of the country - solely because of Bokassa, whom I will never forget. He turned the country into hell -- and perhaps I forget that despite past misdeeds of a wicked leader, the good qualities of the people remain unaltered and the country itself can "come back" from a bad era.

    Right again...there are "a hundred other places" that have not experienced this. But there are a whole bunch more that have -- and the people continue to suffer. I'm sure either of us could name at least a dozen African countries with recent or ongoing wars or bloody insurrections : Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Niger, Mali...

    And how is your Central African Republic doing? No wars, but...uh, not so well:

    ... the Central African Republic remains one of the poorest countries in the world and among the ten poorest countries in Africa. Central African Republic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    "The Human Development Index for the Central African Republic is 0.343, which gives the country a rank of 179 out of 187 countries with data."

    Yep - not a place I'd want to live. Don't care if there's not a single mud hut in sight. Blame post-colonialism or whatever, but things just ain't good. Not even remotely good.

    Saw a TV pitch for aid to the Sahel this morning. 18 million people who are malnourished. Nope, didn't see any mud huts - did see a lot of tents, migrants and desperately poor people, though. If that isn't hell on earth, it's pretty near. And I know a couple of things about Africa. This area is home to the Dogon people, who have been absolutely brilliant in several ways, for hundreds of years. They've been famed astronomers for centuries and have amazing silver and other metal-crafting traditions. I've seen Dogon animal sculptures with their own independent modernity -- they look better to me than even Constantin Brancusi's work!

    But again - 18 million of them don't have enough food. Not good. And hey -- traditional Dogon houses are hut-like! Not that there's anything wrong with that. They're cool...Google them sometime.

    I keep an eye on some things in Africa --particularly music. I like guitarists from Mali. I have to :) You see, I've been a blues fan for over half a century and I know that's where it all started. Also, there's remarkable variety in the musical influences of different musicians. Here's one of my favourites: Boubacar Traoré - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Here's another, whose work is almost completely different: Habib Koité - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Right - it isn't so. "Academically good" things aplenty were happening there centuries ago -- e.g. Songhay, Timbuktu (again). Sad to say, but I think many African peoples have lost - largely through Western exploitation - many things they knew six or seven hundred years back. Look at the 14th C. stonework of the people of Zimbabwe!

    There are no reasons that academically good things can't happen in Africa. And right - Euclid is, as I see it, a poor example. I have no expectations there.

    Just wanted to make two things clear:

    (1) Much of Africa is indeed a very bad place to live - war, famine, pestilence -- the whole nine yards. People want out, not in.
    (2) I don't appreciate being viewed as a "mud hut" believer. I'm not stuck in any past age. Please remember that!

    I'm sure a LOT of things that are academically good will flourish in Africa - wherever and whenever the bullets stop flying and the populace can eat regularly -- oh yes, adequate medical attention would be great too. Remember AIDS?

    Johann
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 30, 2012
  18. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Fair enough on all. The funny thing about you mentioning Mali is that a good friend of mine from there is setting up a school in Bamako to teach English. He says that things were chaotic for a while, but they've calmed down there a lot, especially in Bamako, and that he expects the trend toward resumption of normalcy to continue.

    So anyone who wants to go teach English in Mali for a year, let me know -- I have the hook up. :smile:
     
  19. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I'm glad your friend is an optimist, Steve ... And I hope he's right. But me scared - or I would be, if I lived there. It looks like the Ansar-ad-Din (Defenders of the Faith) have taken over the Azawad region in northern Mali and the region has, I believe, seceded. They're scary dudes - some say Al-Quaeda types -- some say not. One of their minor transgressions was the bust-up of a very old mosque (idolatrous, they said). Afterwards they relented and offered around $100 to repair it.

    Ansar Dine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Because of my interest in Mali, I've seen hundreds of images of Bamako. I was interested to read some accounts of living there - including the cost, rent, food etc. Some things are incredibly cheap, but I was a bit surprised to find that renting an apartment would likely cost me around half what it does here --in a country where half the people earn less than the "international poverty line" of $1.25 a day! Then again, this is a large city and the fastest growing in Africa! Sixth fastest in the world, I believe.

    I read with interest that the Bamako area has been continuously inhabited since Palaeolithic times - about 150,000 years. That'll give the "Young earth" folks somethin' ta chew on!

    I'll decline your friend's job invitation for now. Perhaps when I've learned more Bambara. I think I'll go listen to Boubacar and Habib now, and maybe Vieux Touré... I started listening to his late father, Ali Farka Touré, about 25 years back. Yeah, that might help. :smile:

    Johann
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 31, 2012
  20. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Azawad's a mess, and I wouldn't go there any time soon either, but that's a long way from Bamako. I figure I'll listen to my friend who I know well and who lives there before I listen to journalists I don't know and whose reports I've come to take with a grain of salt. (But I don't begrudge the decision of those who choose otherwise, of course.)

    As for Malian musicians, I'm partial to Rokia Traore.
     

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