Maldives Qualifications Authority (MQA) fined Avid College today after it repeated an issue involving the issuance of qualifications or certificates to students who were not registered at the college.

In a statement issued by MQA, it said that earlier this year, the institution had been advised and action was taken against it regarding an issue where certificates were issued to Sri Lankan students who were not registered at Avid College.

However, after that as well, it has come to the attention of the authority that the college has given qualifications to unregistered students, MQA's statement noted.

Therefore, MQA stated that Avid College has now been instructed not to repeat the matter and, with the counsel of the authority's advisory board, Avid College has been fined as a second disciplinary step.

However, the amount fined was not mentioned in the statement.

MQA said that while running programs in violation of the authority's program accreditation regulations and regulations on running accredited programs abroad is prohibited, it reduces international trust in the standard of the Maldives' higher education sector and increases the chance of questions being raised regarding the validity of certificates issued by Maldivian institutions.

MQA appealed to the public and educational institutions to verify via the website that a program is permitted by the authority before participating in or running any program.

The first step was taken against Avid College last January when it was discovered that courses accredited by MQA were being run illegally in Sri Lanka.

Avid ran programs accredited by the authority in Sri Lanka without permission, in collaboration with that country's "Amazon College" and a university named "Alzet University", the home country of which is unknown. The matter came to light when certificates obtained by completing Avid's programs at those two places were submitted to MQA for verification of authenticity.

As a first step in that case, with the counsel of MQA's advisory board, Avid College was advised and the matter was publicly notified and announced.

However, Avid College stated at the time that it had not run any course illegally and that MQA's announcement was meant to tarnish the name of Avid College. The college also stated at the time that it did not run any program accredited to be conducted abroad in violation of the regulations on running courses.