panaji at least three major cases of persons offering fake certificates of higher educational qualifications have been registered by the states police in the last one year at the goa headquarters of indira gandhi national open university ignou potential students walking in to enroll with invalid graduate certificates are an everyday reality during the july cycle of admissions this year itself 57 cases of invalid certificates have been identified according to ignous assistant regional director g shrinivas shrinivas said that this number of students providing invalid certificates at the time of admissions to ignous courses has been constant in recent years with over a 100 such cases found by the open university each year during its two admission cycles in a year he said that inquiries made with students show that most of these invalid certificates are being issued by agents operating within goa itself students mostly submit the invalid graduate certificates at ignou in the hope of pursuing a specialized or postgraduate course at the open university ignou set up by an act of the parliament in 1985 is the only open university that has jurisdiction across the country the distance education council norms do not allow state universities from any particular state both governmentfunded and private to operate beyond the respective states boundaries shrinivas said the certificates issued to students cannot be termed as fake but they are issued by a method which is not permitted thus rendering them invalid he added he said that these agents who issue such certificates often begin from their homes posing as a franchise which is prohibited by the distance education council of a state university located outside goa they start out by acting as mediators between the university and students by submitting students admission forms to the university and by collecting the student fees on behalf of the university eventually these franchises flourish into institutes shrinivas said he said that the students who fall prey to these agents are those who are desperate for a job due to circumstances but do not possess the necessary educational qualifications some of the institutes are found freely advertising their courses on an everyday basis and promising to provide a degree certificate by answering only a single exam in some cases students weep when they are told that their degrees are not valid there are many people who are in need of qualifications but there is not enough awareness that a university from outside the state cannot issue certificates in goa there is no foolproof monitoring mechanism to keep a check on such agents as of now creating awareness is the only method by which students can be prevented from falling prey shrinivas said