Financial Times

Scandal of sham schols
Students diddled for millions over bogus degrees in foreign countries
By Frances Bulathsinghala
Students who have applied for private foreign colleges with swirling dreams of studying and working in European countries are fast becoming the victims of foreign racketeers.

In their search for local students, the principals of these foreign colleges have their agents in Sri Lanka to represent them. These agents do the disappearing act when on occasions the Embassies refuse to issue visas to prospective students.

So far some twenty instances of alleged cheating have been brought to the notice of the Fraud Bureau where foreign colleges have refused to refund nearly twenty million rupees paid to them by local students yearning for foreign qualifications.

The down payment paid by students, most of them Tamils, varries from 3,000 Canadian dollars to 7,000 Canadian dollars and while they live a life of uncertainty and hopelessness the local agents or representatives meanwhile are absconding having fled abroad, mainly, to Canada.

"It is the ordinary employees who have to take the blame", states Renuka Nagodavithana a former employee of International Education and Migration Consultantcy (IEMC) 'Global Group' an agent providing student and migration consultancy.

The biggest case of alleged fraud was reported against a Canadian based college by the name of Pronto Data College purportedly specialising in e business and was represented in Sri Lanka by IEMC. The company had closed down in January this year and its Chairman Feroze Shajahan is reported to have fled to the Middle East.

"It is the employees who signed student recruitment documents on behalf of the company who have to face the law", Ms Nagodavithana said. The Sri Lankan arm of the Canadian based Pronto Data College had located its office in a rented out building in Colombo and had reportedly provided some hundred students a basic training in English, Computer science and marketing. The lecturers who were employed to provide this training were Sri Lankans under contract for a maximum period of six months.

A Tamil national who had been appointed as a local agent promoting the student recruiting business had returned to Canada after the college closed down having informed the students he would file legal action in Canada to compel the college to refund the money. He had communicated with the local students telling the college had gone bankrupt.

"He keeps in touch with us over the phone assuring us he will do his best and there is nothing more we can do but to trust him", said a student from Chilaw who had paid Rs. 700,000 as part payment for the course having obtained documentation from the college stating that the money would be repaid in case the visas were refused.

"When the Canadian Embassy started refusing visas, the college closed down without any explanation", says a teacher who had been recruited on a four-month contract to teach English.

"This is a big problem for us. We do not know these people personally. I saw the advertisement in the newspaper asking for a marketing executive giving the name of Feroze Shajahan as Director. I applied in January 1998 and was recruited on a salary of Rs. 5,000 which was later increased. My duties included student counselling. In the beginning visas were given to the students who applied to the Pronto College. However during the middle of last year about 11 visas were rejected on the grounds that the college was not a recognised institution", says Anusha Nirmalakumar.

"From time to time seminars on the college and its courses were conducted in Sri Lanka with the principal of the college arriving here to brief local students. We were asked to promote the prospectus of the college. At that time visas were being issued by the Canadian High Commission", says T. Prakalathan who hails from Jaffna and had been working at the IEMC as a marketing consultant from June 2002.

However, having left the company in June 2003, six months before the company closed down, he claims he together with the others who held the posts of marketing officers had to face police inquiries and having signed as witnesses to the monies paid to the college they were later produced in courts.

Former employees of the college said most of the cash had been remitted directly to Canada by bank draft. The whereabouts of IEMC Chairman Feroze Shajahan is not known although he is believed to be hiding in Dubai.

Persons who held positions as 'marketing executives' of the IEMC charged they were requested to attend 'marketing meetings', in India for meetings with the 'agent' in India but upon their return to Sri Lanka were told that none of the travel money would be refunded.

Fears of an organised student visa racket is heightened with another agent namely Universal Management Services informing of a delay in refunding money remitted to another Canadian based college called the Canadian College of Business and Computers.

According to Sarada Janaka Somarathne a prospective student, the college has delayed by nearly seven months to pay back the funds paid to the college by bank draft for a diploma course in laser and fiber optics.

"After sending the money I informed them that I had changed by mind as on further inquiry I had not been satisfied with the college. I informed the college of my decision and was informed by them early this year they would be refunding the money. However so far there are only letters with excuses sent both to me and to the agent", he says.

Meanwhile the agents claim that they are faced with the dilemma of differentiating the genuine colleges from the bogus ones. "When they approach us for representation we are usually invited for a function which they host at some opulent venue to which they even invite the High Commission officials. We take this to be evidence that they are a genuine student organisation and that they have the approval of the Embassy officials here", one local student migration agent said.

Meanwhile Fraud Bureau Chief SSP H. K. S. Pinidiya told the Sunday Times that some 24 complaints had been received from local students against local agents charging that monies obtained as student facilitation charges have not been refunded.

"There are complaints on two counts. One of which was that money was paid directly to the college and the college was not refunding the money. We have one complaint belonging to this category. In this instance too it was the agent who has to take the responsibility. The other charge is that the agent has taken a fee for arranging for students visas and had not refunded this fee -- an amount between Rs. 100,000 and Rs. 200,000", says SSP Pinidiya.

He said a similar problem exists with colleges in countries such as Russia and Australia. "We have also received complaints where the agent without considering the qualifications of the student refers the student to the foreign college concerned and because of the lack of the requisite qualifications the college does not accept the application and the agent refuses to repay the fee he has charged", the SSP said.

He said the police would spread a net to arrest the agents who had fled the country. "So far we have questioned the employees who had worked as staff members of these agencies and have produced them in courts. But since the head of these local agencies are the real culprits we have setup a network to prevent them from fleeing the country again once they return", SSP Pinnidiya said said.

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