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Agence France Presse

Diploma mills in the Philippines have been placed in a spotlight recently after 13 officers from the South Korean army were sacked and prosecuted for faking Filipino university degrees.

An Agence France Presse report said military prosecutors have indicted the 13 lieutenant-level officers for getting fake degrees in Manila. A defense ministry spokesman said eight people waiting to be commissioned as officers were also found to have forged degrees from the same university.

"Their commissions have been canceled. They have been ordered to complete obligatory military service as enlisted soldiers," the spokesman said.

South Korea recruits hundreds of college graduates as officers each year in addition to military academy graduates.

Yonhap news agency said investigators flew to the Philippines on a tip-off in August that the officers had stayed in the country to secure forged college degrees through a broker.

The scandal erupted in early July when government prosecutors investigated Dongkuk University professor Shin Jeong-Ah for fabricating a Yale doctorate.

Shin, 35, was arrested last month with her alleged lover Byeon Yang-Kyoon, a former top policymaker. He was charged with influence-peddling by allegedly abusing his position to help Shin further her career.

President Roh Moo-Hyon dismissed Byeon and expressed embarrassment over the scandal, which prompted a probe into the academic backgrounds of thousands of professors and civil servants.

In recent months dozens of celebrities from the cultural, entertainment and religious worlds have either confessed to faking their academic records or were found out.

Education experts say the tendency to emphasise paper qualifications rather than ability, combined with loose verification systems, tempts some Koreans to forge academic backgrounds.

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