Duplichain University is another mill?

I'd say that ASIC, being approved by the UK Border Agency, is by far more recognized in the UK than BEDAF. The latter has an interesting web site in the sense that the building in the picture is reminiscent of a University of Derby building, and the contact address in London seems to be used by a number of companies. I'm unable to find BEDAF in the UK companies list and the site is hosted on a server in Turkey. And while ASIC's mandate to accredit international schools is rather unclear to me, my impression is that BEDAF mainly accredits schools that are in some way connected to people on BEDAF's advisory board.

 

That's a BIG red flag to me, as I might have mentioned before. Not good optics - an accreditor that principally accredits its board members' schools. We've seen this scenario before, of course - I mentioned one case in detail.

I felt that Duplichain was established by "real" academics with sincerity of purpose -- and I still do. However, the doctorates conferred with unrecognized accreditation and the general "accreditation"-based voodoo/pixie dust (as I perceive it) are getting to me.

Yes, Dr. Bear, the people who established Duplichain may very well have been simply misguided, with no dishonest intention. My question is - are they willing and able to make the considerable effort necessary to put this "misguidance" behind them and move forward? I hope so.

Johann

 

This is not particularly important - but I think I should mention it:

I wrote a while back that BEDAF had accredited Suleyman Demirel University in Turkey. It turns out there are two Suleyman Demirel Universities - one in Turkey and another in Kazakhstan. Both schools appear to be bona fide universities, each named after the same person, who has served both as President and Prime Minister of Turkey. He appears to have had a role in the establishment of both schools.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCleyman_Demirel

I'm not sure which school BEDAF accredited. Their focus seems to be language schools and I note SDU in Kazakhstan has an extensive ESL facility, so it may be that one - I'm not sure, and I don't believe it makes much difference. Perhaps we'll know at some point.

Johann

 

According to BEDAF:

We know about Duplichain. But which SDU is it -- the one in Turkey, or the one in Kazakhstan?
It would seem to be the SDU in Turkey, because their website states:

 

I'm sure it is. Thanks. I'm pretty sure I saw that notice on the Suleiman Demirel (Turkey) site yesterday. Somehow, I clean forgot about it, not finding the same page today. It was only today that I found out about SDU in Kazakhstan -- which teaches some degree programs in English and has an extensive ESL and TOEFL preparation facility. I did not see a BEDAF notice.

This is off track, but the Kazakhstan SDU says it grants State diplomas and its fees seem something akin to South African costs. Around $2000 a year for F/T undergrad study, quite a few grad/undergrad programs taught in English, Ph.D. programs (5 or 6 of them) at 1,500,000.00 KZT = 8,182.19 USD complete. However, no sign of distance programs, AFAIK.

Johann