Woman spared jail over forging PhD reference letter for Education University

A woman convicted of using a forged reference letter to gain admission to a Hong Kong doctoral programme has been spared jail and ordered to perform 160 hours of community service.

Fanling Magistrate Kenneth Chan Ping-chau said on Monday that he had decided to “make an exception” for 31-year-old Li Zuer, who earlier admitted falsely claiming that a former teaching staff member at the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) had written a reference letter for her in March 2024.

The letter praised the mainland Chinese woman for demonstrating “exceptional academic performance”, but was actually drafted by a Shenzhen-based agent whom she had commissioned.

The original letter, written by Li’s teacher Ho Wai-yip in 2021, noted that she still had room to improve her English proficiency. Li subsequently applied unsuccessfully for doctoral programmes several times.

She was eventually admitted to the programme last year after submitting the altered letter. But when university staff conducted an inquiry, Ho confirmed that he had not signed the letter.

Li pleaded guilty to one count of obtaining services by deception.