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Christian college is investigated

A Christian college operating in Northern Ireland is under investigation after complaints about the quality of the degrees it offers.

Trading Standards has told the BBC they are investigating the European Theological Seminary and College of the Bible International.

It was founded in 1993, by Gordon Beck who is from Scotland.

Interviewed on Radio Ulster's Sunday Sequence, Mr Beck defended the quality of his college's degree programmes.

"We are a college which is entirely different. We don't claim to be a college, like a university college, we don't claim that.

"Our standard is this - that we claim to be part of the body of Christ, we do not claim to be a secular college," Mr Beck said.

The seminary, which has no buildings in Northern Ireland, offers PhDs for £500 and for weeks, not years of studies.

Its operations in NI are run from the home of Mr Beck who has lived in the country most of his life.

He founded the seminary in 1993 and since then a few hundred students from across the world have taken degrees or other qualifications.

One man who paid £500 to receive a doctorate in philosophy from the seminary in May 2001, said he wrote a 60,000-word dissertation based on limited research in six weeks.

The man, who did not want to be named but is now a minister in Northern Ireland, said Mr Beck looked at his work for about 20 minutes before determining that it was a PhD.

Full story at BBC Northern Ireland News.