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"Shops that sell and trade degrees": Libya's move to regulate its private universities, and the licence questions to ask a private medical faculty in Tripoli
Maaref University, also styled the International Medical University, is a private institution in Tripoli whose Faculty of Human Medicine is listed in the World Directory of Medical Schools. Its page is one of the most searched Libyan entries on this site. The searches come from students weighing a private Libyan medical degree, and the context they need is the state of regulation around private universities in the country.
According to Al-Fanar Media, Libya's Ministry of Higher Education moved in 2021 to bring the private higher-education sector under control after years of unregulated growth, announcing that it would no longer tolerate what an official called the chaos of "shops that sell and trade degrees". The ministry set out to license, inspect and, where necessary, close private institutions, and to confront fake and unaccredited degrees. Al-Fanar's reporting described a sector in which private universities had multiplied during the country's decade of conflict, some with programmes that had never been accredited, and in which employers and foreign regulators had begun to question Libyan qualifications as a result.
Nothing in that reporting concerns Maaref specifically, and this case makes no allegation about it. A listing in the World Directory means the school reported its existence and programme to the directory; it does not, on its own, establish that a given programme is licensed by the Libyan ministry for the year in question, or that the degree is accepted by the licensing body of the country where a graduate intends to practise. Those are two separate checks, and in a sector the regulator itself described as chaotic, both matter.
For a student considering any private medical faculty in Libya: ask the university for its current ministry licence and the accreditation decision for the medicine programme, with dates; ask the Libyan Medical Council whether graduates of the programme are registered; ask your own home regulator whether it accepts the degree; and get every answer in writing from an institutional address. A private university that is properly licensed will have these documents ready. One that offers a seat through an agent before it can produce them is, in the ministry's own phrase, closer to a shop than a school.
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This is a news-sourced case summary written by the TrustMBBS team, not a first-person account; see the sources above. They reflect one person's experience and are not a verdict on any institution. Report your own: Report a scam or tell your story.