COULD DALC BE A LEGITIMATE FRAUD?

Many ask, How can DALC be a fraud? How can it be a scam yet they have offices everywhere? They hold graduations ? They have a CHE certificate validating their courses?We go to class and write projects.

DALC is a cleverly arranged composition that covers the bases that an ordinary person would question and that is one of the reasons why it is going to be a hard nut to crack. There are loopholes in law that make it hard to nailthem as easily as you would a pyramid scheme.The governments incompetence at stopping scams that fleece Kenyans is also a big contributing factor.Up to this day, we have pyramid schemes that run openly , have offices, bank accounts but actionis always taken when peoples money has beenlost.There was DECI and AKIBA, 2 countrywide PonziSchemes that were questioned by economics experts in theirinfancy yet were allowed to thrive and con Kenyans off billions of shillings by authorities. DALCis no different.

LEGITIMACY

Theinstitution has the necessary papers from the Commission for Higher Education and the Ministry of Education though one of the letters from the Minister of Education is in doubt. The accreditation is on the basis that offers its own diploma programmes in Computing and Business studies. The CHE validated DALC on the understanding that students are awarded a DIPLOMA by DALC on a DALCletterhead.Justlike Graffins, Augustuna, NairobiInstitute of Business Studies do by awarding Diplomas in their name. The CHE has not and has never accredited CAM/OXIM courses. You can ask them.

(CHE commissioners inspecting DALC)
(CHE commissioner at a DALC graduation)

DALC is abusing this accreditation of just two Diplomas in Business Studies and Computing to offer a myriad of courses in Public Relations, Accounting, Project Management, Health care Management, Pre Medicals/Engineering, Environmental Studies, Actuarial Science etc. In fact., DALC has about 160 courses on offer. They present the argument that courseslike PR, Accounting, Project Management and 90 other courses are Business related courses and therefore the single accreditation for Business Studies covers all of them. They also say that course like Graphics and Multimedia, Robotic Technology,Software Engineering, Network architecture are computing courses thus covered by the COMPUTING DIPLOMA accreditation CHE accreditation.Thatis one biglie.In fact, every course has to be accreditedindependently and DALC says soin one of the MEMOSit posts to students. Bottomline, the CHE did not accredited courses by CAM/OXIM.

The first fraud they are committing is using the CHE accreditation to hoodwink you into joining their courses thinking you are getting an accredited course. In fact DALC says on its website that its courses are so recognised that students will get credit transfers to any public university. You might need to ask yourself the courses they are speaking about it because as of today, there is not one single university that accepts DALC qualifications. Not one.They also are teaching graduate courses before they even have an accredited Bachelors programme.Simply put, DALCis running whileit should be crawling by teaching postgraduate diploma's. Those can only be taught by a University and not a collegelike DALC.Find out at the commission's office.

In sum, DALCislegitimate fraud becauseitis accredited by the Commission of Higher Education andis registered by the Ministry of Education.Itis using the registrations to make you believe that CAM/OXIM courses are accredited as welland that they willlead to academic qualifications that are valid.DALCis like a supermarket that touts its licenses, VAT no.,it history etc but sells expired food products to the same customers. The expired goods in this case are the dubious CAM/OXIM qualifications that are not accredited anywherein the world.

HISTORY

If DALC was a shady downtown college, they'd not teach you a thing.So they maintain a rigorous system thatis taxing to students, tutors and parents in addition to being uniqueinits mode of testing through case studies. To understand why a fraudulent institution would actually have a system that taxes students, we must first go to the History of DALC.

When DALC started,it was was teaching courses from genuine Cambridge University known as the Cambridge International Examinations (CIE). CIE is the body that awards all non degree courses by Cambridge University to InternationalStudents allover the world.CIE courses examinations werein the case study format and were sent from the UKin addition to being publishedin the CIE website.Unfortunately, the CIE courses administration is locally done by the British Council who were not impressed with Oborah's misleading advertising where DALC created animpression thatit was almostlike a branch of the Cambridge University.

BRITISH COUNCIL DISOWNS DALC

The British Councilyanked the rights it had given to DALC as a teaching center for the courses and severed all links with DALCin a newspaper advertisement.DALC was going to be shut then because without the CIE courses, there would be no reason to study there.Soin a swift rejoinder, DALC told students thatit had willingly opted out of the British Council and had not been kicked out as alleged.

Oborah then went to the UK and came back with news. The CIE was winding up and the people at CAMBRIDGE had decided to create a new body known as Cambridge Association of Managers CAM. Students were told that some people at the British Councilwerejealous of DALC's success and had spokenillof DALC to CIE thus the sour relations. As a result of the sour relations, DALC management claimed that the CIE was failing DALC students maliciously.That was the beginning of the universaljealousy against DALC that seems to go on to this day and Oborah's incesstant claims of malice at everybody(and everything)who questions DALC'slegitimacy.

CAM/OXIM HIGHLY CUSTOMISED COURSES

As CAM wasintroduced, nobody told the students thatit was not connected to Cambridge University.The impression created was that CAM was to replace the CIE as an examination body but would stillbe under Cambridge University.The CAM was supposed to be better than CIEin allaspects including:

• More Courses e.g (Youth Entrepreneurship, Women Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation Management, etc.
• Cheaper-The CAM examination fees were about half of the amount charged by CIE
• Quicker-The CAM would release examinations in a month, shorter than CiE's 3 months
• Case Study Format-The CAM would examinein the case study format but the students would not be limited on the area of research.Students would henceforth decide on the topic of their case study.
• Pass Rate-The CAM would not failstudents unlike the CIE
• Accelerated-The CAM courses would take a much shorter time(fast track) than CIE.
• University-The CAM courses wouldlead to admissioninto UK universities justlike the CIE.
• Continuity-CIE students would be able to continue their courses with CAM seamlessly.
• Graduation-For the first timein Kenyans willstudy in Kenya and Graduatein the UK.

CAM/OXIM LAUNCHED

What followed next was the glamorous launch of the CAM/OXIM courses where two vice presidents of the two associations gave DALC the exclusive rights to run their courses in Kenya and 12 other countries in this region. Itis also at this event that prominent Kenyans were awarded FCAM(Cambridge Fellow)and franchisees named. During this event at the Hilton hotel, over a hundred courses were introduced and DALC officially switched to CAM/OXIM.

The dubious nature of the two(CAM&OXIM)was lost to most of those attending the event but I remember vividly that Sandhu wasin attendance though I did not know who he was. I also remember wondering why Oxford and Cambridge were collaborating with DALC and unveiling their collaboration on the same day.I mean these are differentinstitutions with different plans, strategies, faculty , decision makers etc. Why did both of them decide to collaborate with DALC? Why were both Associations of Managers? Why did both of them send their vice presidents for the occasion? Did they have to share the same day and stage?Why didn't one send a secretary and the other a President?

Summarily, why 2 prestigious institutions acted as if they had one decision maker was baffling.Can youimagine both Harvard and MIT sending vice presidents tolaunch a collaboration with a Nairobicollege?

(CAM/OXIM lauch in 2006)

IT WORKED

But despite your the unrecognized CAM/OXIM courses, DALC went on a marketing offensive and published glossy prospectus, TVinfomercials, front page newspaper adverts , branded their premises with Cambridge/Oxford signage and banners. In no time CIE was forgotten and we allbelieved Oborah when he said the CIE was going to be scrapped and Cambridge Universtiy would be working exclusively with CAM.DALC was clever to maintain the same system rigorous system that CIE required of students.

The difference was that with CAM, the entry requirements were much freer, distinctions aplenty and practically nobody failed. The certificate was more bling bling with a big star shiny seal. The results were out within a month and there were more examination sessions (4 in a year)so that you could take examinations allyear round.The fees were also reduced by up to to 40% and everybody was happy.

The rigorous CIE system carried overis what has created this illusion that CAM courses have academic merit and willlead to a proper University Degree(and ajob).DALC does not award Diploma for nothing,its trickis to make you study hard and pay a premium for a worthless Diploma thatis not recognised andis definitely worthless in UK.That way they can charge UK admission fees, UK examination fees, UK graduation fees, UK (insert your fee here)etc.They wouldn't be able to charge all that money if they offered DALC DIPLOMA's.