ANDREW DENHOLM and CALUM MacDONALD

A bogus college uncovered in an investigation by The Herald has been struck off an official government register which allows it to bring overseas students into Scotland.

Commonwealth College in Glasgow has been registered with the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) for more than a year, clearing it to recruit foreign students on short-term visas.

However, the college has now been removed from the list after The Herald uncovered a series of discrepancies in courses it was offering and false claims made on its website about affiliations with professional bodies.

Two of those organisations - the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants - said they had no connection with Commonwealth College.

The college's Glasgow prospectus even featured photographs of Manhattan in New York and and Central Square in Brussels rather than images of the city where it was based.

Although Commonwealth College will now be unable to bring any more students into the country, three other colleges in Glasgow which featured in The Herald's investigation - Great Regent, Middlesex and Glasgow College - are still on the register.

Yesterday, The Herald uncovered a fifth college in Glasgow, the LSMT Business School - also on the register - which is believed to be actively recruiting students in Pakistan for courses starting in October. A spokeswoman for the DIUS said she could not comment on individual cases, but added: "If a college is removed from the register it is because it no longer meets the entry requirements." Umbreen Iqbal, principal of Commonwealth College said she would no longer be recruiting students, but hoped to get back on the register once she had changed the name of the college.

The existence of Commonwealth College, and hundreds of similar unlicensed colleges across the UK, have fuelled fears that fake institutions are routinely used as a front for bringing illegal immigrants into the country under student visas.

Concerns over the immigration scam were made more acute by the fact that all four of the colleges uncovered in Glasgow were on the official DIUS register of providers, despite their questionable credentials.

Although the DIUS argues that the register is not a guarantee of quality, in effect it is seen as such because overseas students are issued visas on the basis the institution they will attend is on the list.

The LSMT Business School, which is advertising a series of degree-level programmes in business management, computing and tourism, is operating from a run-down premises in Dixon Street, beside the River Clyde.

The college prospectus claims Dundee University is one of a number of legitimate universities which is acting as an accrediting body for its courses.

However, a spokesman for Dundee said yesterday that LSMT had no connection with them.

The prospectus for the LSMT Business School also includes explicit instructions for prospective students on how to pass an interview with an immigration officer.

Concerns over the activities of such colleges has now prompted the Association of Scotland's Colleges (ASC) to call for a change in the law to protect the reputation of the further education sector in Scotland.

The ASC has written to Des Browne, Secretary of State for Scotland, calling for the 1985 Business Names Act to be changed to include protection of the term "college".

The Act currently protects the names "university", "polytechnic", "institute" and "special school" and only those who have approval from the Secretary of State can use such terms. However, "college" is not protected.