The special Senate commission established to investigate the irregular issuance of university degrees in Paraguay has begun its work with the goal of identifying those responsible for a scheme involving approximately 100,000 undergraduate certificates issued without proper accreditation between 2023 and 2025.
The commission's vice chair, Senator Esperanza Martínez, stated that of approximately 173,000 undergraduate degrees issued during that period, around 60% correspond to programs that did not undergo quality certification processes. In the case of graduate degrees, the situation is even more severe: only 5% are accredited. Martínez emphasized that students are not the target of the investigation, but rather "the owners of the business and their accomplices" who allegedly profited from selling degrees with no academic backing.
The commission's board is composed of Patrick Kemper as chair, Esperanza Martínez as vice chair, and Dionisio Amarilla as secretary. Kemper reported that the work will be divided into several stages, beginning with an institutional and regulatory assessment, followed by a national census of universities, institutions, and higher education programs. The goal is to consolidate information currently scattered across different government agencies.
In the coming days, the commission will send information requests to the Ministry of Education and Sciences (MEC), the National Council of Higher Education (Cones), and the National Agency for Evaluation and Accreditation of Higher Education (ANEAES), as well as the Comptroller General's Office, the Public Function Secretariat, and the Supreme Court of Justice. The intention is to map the competencies and legal responsibilities of each institution and to verify whether Cones, as the governing body for program accreditation, identified irregularities and what actions it took.
The first institution to be investigated will be the Universidad Sudamericana, from which former Senator Hernán Rivas graduated. Rivas resigned from the Senate last May amid the scandal sparked by doubts about the validity of his law degree. The commission intends to verify the issuance of approximately 2,500 degrees across ten programs in a period of just three years.
Senator Blanca Ovelar warned about the spread of a "culture of deception" in the country and called for an "energetic and sincere" response from the State in the face of irregular degrees and deficient training at some educational institutions, particularly in the field of Medicine. Ovelar questioned universities that "take on eight hundred students in a single year just because they want to charge tuition" without ensuring adequate training, and stated that the commission must examine not only fake degrees but also the ways in which professional training mechanisms are being undermined.
The commission's ultimate goal, according to its members, is to develop a national action plan with technical, legal, and legislative reports, an institutional risk database, and a legislative agenda to be presented to the full Senate, in order to strengthen oversight mechanisms and restore credibility to Paraguay's higher education system.