The website
has the school's name and logo at the top of the page and, with
almost all the information in Chinese, it appears to be a Chinese
version of the school's website.
There are at
least eight of these sites, for the polytechnics and three
universities here, but none are run by the institutions
themselves.
In a
statement sent yesterday to the media at 1.35am, the Ministry of
Education (MOE) warned that there are fake websites for the five
polytechnics here - Nanyang, Ngee Ann, Republic, Singapore and
Temasek polytechnics.
MOE said:
"Police reports have been filed by the respective polytechnics. We
will work to bring down these websites and will continue to monitor
for such websites."
The official
websites are not affected and can still be accessed.
Responding to
queries from The Straits Times, MOE said examples of the fake
websites include www.nap.ac.cn, www.nypsg.com,www.rp.ac.cn, www.sp.ac.cn and www.sgtp.com.cn. An ST check found that all five
bogus poly sites were down at about 11pm yesterday.
An ST check
also found fake websites of three Singapore universities -www.ntuedu.cn, www.nusedu.cn and www.smuedu.cn.
The website
addresses are similar to those of the official school websites and
have photos of the schools on the home pages. They also list
corporate profiles of the schools and course information.
A closer look
suggests that the eight websites are set up by a single group that
wants to offer advice to international students interested to apply
to the schools. There are articles to answer questions such as "Are
there language requirements for studying in Singapore?"
A disclaimer
at the bottom of the www.nap.ac.cn home page says in Chinese: "This
website provides information related to Ngee Ann Polytechnic, and
is not the school website."
This is not
seen on some of the other sites though, and the line gets blurred
as to whether the sites are school websites, or that of an
education consultancy.
For instance,
in a section titled "Contact us" for www.nap.ac.cn, the heading is "Ngee Ann Polytechnic
contact information". But the next line says: "Welcome to the
Singapore NP Chinese study abroad advisory network".
All the
websites have an EduTrust logo - a quality mark issued by the
Council of Private Education, which regulates private schools here
- but none of the institutions are private schools.
The sites all
have the same China and Singapore hotlines. But calls to both
hotlines went unanswered.
IT expert
Paddy Tan, of BST Consulting, said telltale signs of fake websites
include suspicious website addresses - such as school websites not
having ".edu" - and obvious spelling errors. In one fake
polytechnic website, the word "Polytechnics" was used as part of
the school name.
In the past
two months, the Singapore Workforce Development Agency, Central
Provident Fund Board, and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority
have issued warnings about fake websites or sites that resembled
official ones.
In its
statement, MOE said: "Fake websites surface from time to time and
we would like to remind members of the public to remain vigilant,
especially for transactional purposes."