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Big
scams in education business “The figures are only a fraction of the frauds that actually take place because most victims do not complain until it is too late,” declared T. Sunilshantha, Officer-in-Charge of the Fraud Bureau. Most frauds have taken place where agencies which claim to be registered under the University Grants Commission and other authorities, receive money from students and then fail to send them abroad. “This kind of thing can easily take place because there is a huge market available in the industry of education,” Sunilshantha said, adding that lack of awareness in the consumer results in many frauds taking place regularly. Most of the frauds take place within a given time period where the offender would earn as much as possible and then disappear without a trace. He urged potential students and parents to be vigilant and avoid being victims of such scams. His warning comes at a time when a growing number of such courses are being advertised by a host of outfits offering opportunities for higher education, especially in business subjects, some of which have mushroomed virtually overnight. These institutes advertise heavily in the mass media to entice potential customers, usually school leavers with limited chances of getting into university, the pent up demand for which has provided them good business opportunities. Illustrating one example of fraud, Sunilshantha said that an agency in Wellawatte had defrauded more than 15 students of sums of money ranging from Rs.150,000 to Rs.250,000. The scam had followed a familiar pattern where students had to pay an initial sum of Rs.25,000 as registration and administration fees and then a further sum of Rs.150,000 or more in order to receive the acceptance letter from the relevant university. The students were issued with receipts and with letters bearing a seal and the signature of the chairman of the company. They were also told that the total cost of the course would be in the range of Rs.450,000, significantly less than the amounts advertised by other institutes offering courses abroad. The prospective students were offered courses in different countries ranging from USA to Cyprus and most of the applicants had been interested in following courses in business administration. The victims were asked to pay the last instalments on a given date, where the company promised to deliver the acceptance letter within 10 days enabling the student to approach the relevant embassy. The 10 days however extended to many months, culminating in the unexpected closure of the bogus company. The suspect in this case is evading police arrest and the agency has been closed, leaving the victims with virtually no redress. Sunilshantha also said that frauds are taking place regarding higher education within Sri Lanka itself. “There was one case where some students had followed a computer degree programme at an institute in Colpetty where they found that the exam was being continuously postponed and they suspected a scam,” he said. By the time the Fraud Bureau was contacted the institute had closed down and the owners had disappeared. Some of the lecturers at the institute had been tracked down and the bureau had found that they lacked qualifications to teach a degree course in computing. Questions arise then as to how qualified the teachers are of the hundreds of institutes offering various courses today. “There is no mechanism to my knowledge where institutes are screened for their credibility,” Sunilshantha said, adding that many students blindly sign up for courses allowing the bogus institutes to gather thousands of rupees simply as registration fees. He said that due to the reluctance on the part of the victims to inform the bureau as soon as the scam takes place, catching the culprit becomes difficult. (Investigative report on the business of education next week in The Sunday Times FT) |
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