A BRITISH university is under police investigation in Israel over a multimillion-pound scam in which fake degrees were awarded to thousands of government employees.

Teachers, police, army officers and senior civil servants were among 5,500 people who paid for fictitious qualifications from the University of Humberside.

Four managers of the university’s operation in Israel have been arrested and the country’s fraud squad officers said yesterday that at least one member of staff in Britain was involved in the fraud.

News of the inquiry will send tremors through universities across Britain, which have enthusiastically opened similar franchise operations in agreement with foreign universities and colleges. There are virtually no independent controls over the quality of education at these institutions.

At the height of the Humberside scam, franchised branches of the university were being set up all over the country. From an office in one Druze village alone, a total of 2,500 people received University of Humberside degrees in education or business administration over five years.

Yehuda Maman, a police spokesman, said: “Anywhere that was big enough to hold a desk and a chair, including in one case a petrol station, became a branch of the University of Humberside.”

In many cases, the enrolled students are understood to have received their British degree certificates without taking any exams, writing any essays or completing any assignments. Up to 350 teachers suspected of receiving the bogus BA and MA qualifications face suspension or dismissal. Other government employees, who used the degrees to secure pay rises, have been told that they must repay the money and could face imprisonment.

The University of Humberside, a former polytechnic, gained university status in 1992 but changed its name after a 1996 merger to the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside. It is now known as the University of Lincoln, but still runs a campus in Hull. It set up campus branches in 26 countries across Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia.

The university ended its Israeli enrolment programme in July 1999, when concerns were voiced about the validity of the degrees.

Suspicions had been raised after the university’s Israeli operation doubled its student body in the year before it closed. A treasury official also reported a severe drain on the government’s salary budget caused by a dramatic escalation in the number of highly qualified employees.

Education officials asked Israel’s state attorney’s office to begin an investigation in 2002. It lasted for more than a year and uncovered a web of deceit involving bribery, fraud, forgery and blackmail.

Police Superintendent Aharon Gal-Or told an Israeli parliamentary committee this week that a variety of scams linked to the university had been identified. “Three hundred and fifty teachers were accepted by the Humberside branches for masters degree studies before completing their bachelors degree,” he said. “Humberside gave some of those students credit for having done courses without actually having studied for a bachelors degree.”

Lincoln University said that it was co-operating with the police investigation in Israel.

Times recommends

• University black hole as applicants surge
• Students to be offered 'no-fee degrees'
• Women are outperforming men at university