KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 20 — Another local institution has rubbished a claim made regarding prominent motivational speaker Azizan Osman's education status, clarifying that he is not a PhD student there.

"Based on our students’ record, there is no data of Azizan Osman as a doctorate student in business administration," a spokesman from City University College of Science and Technology (CUCST) told Malay Mail Online in an email response today.

CUCST had in a press statement issued October 17 clarified that a claim in a blog was untrue.

It referred to a blog's article which had alleged that Azizan was undertaking his studies for his second PhD — a Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration — purportedly at the CUCST.

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"We view this matter seriously as it involves CUCST's reputation and we hope that the confusion can be cleared up through this press statement," CUCST said in the statement.

Recently, several universities denied claims regarding the academic qualifications of Azizan, who applies the “Dr” prefix to himself.

On September 29, Universiti Malaya (UM) was the first to come forward and refute claims that it had awarded an honorary doctorate to Azizan, while Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Infrastruktur Kuala Lumpur (UKL) were reported the next day as confirming that they did not award him any doctorates.

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On October 6, Azizan claimed he was “targeted and misled” by several individuals not related to UM into believing that he is to receive a doctorate from the university.

His firm had also then insisted that Azizan “never claimed to have” doctorates from UKM and UKL despite both the doctorates having been listed on his website, asserting instead that the inclusion of the doctorates in the list of his qualifications was due to “shortcomings in the operation procedures.”

His website previously listed him as having a PhD in psychology from UKM and a PhD in business administration from UKL.

In the statement then, the firm continued to claim that Azizan possessed a doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire and a “Doctor of Science (Metaphysics)” from a purported “Gordon University” in Florida, United States.

On October 7 however, the University of Hertfordshire confirmed that it had in a letter stated that it has no record of having awarded a doctorate to Azizan or his details, besides stating that it believes the information on the purported doctorate to be "fraudulent".

A check today by Malay Mail Online of Azizan's biodata on his website showed that it did not contain any claims of him holding any doctorate awards.

On Tuesday, Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh reportedly said the government will come out with guidelines soon to curb the abuse of academic qualifications, with the rules to cover degree, master's degree and doctorate qualifications.