Reham Khan confusion over details of study (Image, Facebook)

Confusion reigned today over the qualifications and place of study of Reham Khan, wife of politician Imran Khan (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) after a UK newspaper the Daily Mail tried to check out her credentials.

Last year, Reham Khan tweeted on May 7th 2014…

“8 yrs ago I started my career as Lead Presenter on Legal TV while pursuing a post graduate in Broadcast Journalism at North Lindsay College.”

She did not specify at the time whether diploma or Masters degree.

Sebastian Shakespeare for the Mail Online reported,

“However, according to officials at North Lindsey, it has never offered such a course.

Indeed, it does not teach journalism at all. Furthermore, they can find no record of anyone bearing Khan’s name or age ever having enrolled.

‘We do not have anyone by those names or date of birth having attended this college,’ says a spokesman. ‘We have never done a degree in broadcast journalism.’”

See following link,

“Mystery over credentials of Imran Khan’s BBC presenter wife who claimed she studied journalism… at a college that doesn’t offer the course”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3161669/SEBASTIAN-SHAKESPEARE-Fresh-intrigue-past-Imran-Khan-s-new-wife.html

Reham herself seemed confused spelling “Lindsey” as “Lindsay” and then issued the following statement claiming she had in fact undertaken “a one year postgraduate course for a diploma in Broadcast Media that she obtained from the Grimsby Institute Media Centre.” The statement also clarified that she has no postgraduate degree in Broadcast Journalism to support her “meteoric rise in Pakistani Media”. I had repeatedly asked her to state yes or no as to whether she had a degree in Broadcast journalism.

Reham Khan statement

The issue of qualifications is an important one in Pakistan given recent stories of fake degrees and several persons being outed as not having the qualifications that they claimed, see following link,

“Pakistan rocked by ‘fake degree’ scandal”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-32910734

Reham’s statement suggests media were being diverted away from other important issues. On the contrary, she has repeatedly claimed an interest in the rights of women. Gender issues continue to arise for working women and all should have equal opportunities in the workplace. One issue is the ongoing difficulty of obtaining equal pay and the fact that females still fall behind males in their salaries in many parts of the world. Another is one of discrimination against those not considered attractive enough for employment and that if you are an attractive person, particularly a woman, you are more likely to get a job than a person considered unattractive. This gives a negative message to young women, that working hard and striving for qualifications are unimportant.

First a woman may have to overcome prejudice around physical appearance to actually get a job, then she has to battle for conditions and pay to match a man. In September 2013, the Guardian newspaper reported the findings of an academic study from the University of Messina as follows,