In Macedonia, there are numerous cases when citizens were employed at jobs in state institutions with forged diplomas that they submitted to job advertisements after they had previously managed to notarize them. A good number of them get away with a dismissal or a suspended sentence, which shows that falsifying diplomas to get a job is not a priority of the rule of law.

The archive of the Administrative Court, in which "Sloboden Pechat" carried out a "scanning" of the situation, shows that 15 people with fake diplomas for secondary vocational education were employed in REC Bitola for the position of "mill operator", and they were convicted in 2022.

There was also a registrar employed by the Registry Office, who was later hired by the Intelligence Agency to work for them, and according to the court ruling we reached, he did not have a valid secondary education certificate. Even for physical education teachers, it cannot be claimed with certainty that they "sweat" their way to the diploma, because there is a case from 2020 whose documentation we had access to, according to which a woman submitted a fake diploma from the Sports University of Albania for allegedly having completed higher education in physical culture, and then even her diploma was nostrified in Macedonia and she became a physical education teacher in Debar.

However, the University of Albania informed the Macedonian authorities that the diploma they had nostrified was not reliable, and so the physical education teacher immediately resigned from her job. The court sentenced her conditionally, at the request of the prosecutor.

It is also worth noting that the employees of REC Bitola, who had forgeries, delivered forgeries on which were written the name and surname of the manager and the director of the institution, stamp from the institution and business number. However, when REC Bitola started to check in the high school if their employees really have high school diplomas, they had something to see, because the high school submitted a notice that such diplomas, with that level of education, were not issued.

There is another category of Macedonian citizens, those who studied at private universities in the region, received master's degrees, but when they came to Macedonia to nostrify the diploma, they failed, because they found out that the faculty where they studied abroad worked without a license. This is shown by the archive of the Administrative Court which we reviewed. We are talking about faculties in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In addition to the fact that forged diplomas destroy society in a way that misleads employers, they are also dangerous for the reputation of educational institutions in the country and in the region. The government recognizes this and announces changes. Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said last week that he was ashamed that his colleagues from the neighborhood pointed out to him that in Macedonia diplomas are obtained overnight. But no university has been singled out as a laundromat for degrees.

- I am ashamed, because both in Washington and in London when I talked with my colleagues, both of them told me that here we get diplomas overnight. And they make a problem for us in our countries. It can't happen anymore. Especially since I come from higher education. You cannot get diplomas overnight, that must change - says Mickoski.

The Minister of Education and Science, Vesna Janevska, told "Sloboden Pechat" that a temporary national body for the reform of higher education will soon be established.

– The body has yet to be formed. We will ask for representatives from the National Council for Higher Education, professors, students, representatives of employers and chambers.

We will create a body that will be managed by me, whose main function will be to make an overall scan of the data we have in the Ministry, in the State Educational Inspectorate, and we will take measures regarding the overproduction of higher education institutions.

Our goal is to improve the quality of education. We will check the higher education institutions in terms of the staff they offer, the technical conditions that are met or not met, the satisfaction of the students. Several factors will be analyzed and we will act according to the law - says Minister of Education Janevska in a statement to "Sloboden Pechat".

She adds that if they find fake diplomas, which are not real, then they will inform the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Financial Police. In Macedonia, there are 40 universities, institutes and high schools which, according to Janevska, do not deliver enough quality. Does the state need 20 law faculties and 5 medical faculties, is the discussion she opens. Prime Minister Mickoski says that the universities and faculties that are found to have deficiencies will have a deadline to remove them, and if they do not do so, they will lose their license to work.

And the Balkans are not immune to the issuing of fake diplomas. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the International University in Gorazde is rocked by a scandal. Six people were arrested there in March this year on suspicion of issuing fake university degrees in collaboration with an Italian professor from Sicily, Giuseppe Maria Messina, who appears to be the mastermind of the scheme. Project reportedon Organized Crime and Corruption (OCCRP).

Operation "Index" was discovered by the Bosnian Prosecutor's Office. The alleged scheme involved getting money for fake degrees, including in medicine – for students who never showed up at the faculty of medical sciences because it didn't even exist, that is, it didn't have accreditation. The scandal broke when the media The journal published them the bogus "Doctors of Dentistry" degrees.

Edina Brutus, Damir Žuga, Elma Brutus, Kaja Imširović, Hariz Beqirović and Mevludin Jasharevic are suspected of illegally issuing diplomas from the International University in Gorazde to "students" in Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Libya, Turkey and beyond. according to the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to the Prosecutor's Office, a systematic process for enrolling students in the ledgers, falsification of exam results, falsification of professors' signatures and creation of complete files for the buyers of diplomas who were foreign students took place at this University. Although they knew that this University did not have the authority to operate outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to the Prosecutor's Office, the deans and the rectorate deliberately signed diplomas for the final cycle of studies.

In most cases, the money charged to the students is equivalent to what they would have paid if they were actually studying, the office of the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina said.