Many students in Vietnam have no idea when their next
school day is after some of the country’s leading education centers have had to
cancel cooperation arrangements with foreign colleges that has been deemed
illegal.
The Raffles international
vocational center in Ho Chi Minh City was filled with panicked students on
Friday after it was punished for offering illegal joint training programs with
a foreign college. A similar situation applied to ILA and ERC.
The three foreign-invested
centers were fined VND220 million (US$10,500) in total by the Ministry of
Education and Training earlier this month and asked to stop the programs that
granted certificates in different majors from foreign colleges and universities.
The ministry said ERC, the
German Education and Research Center, was found providing illegal college
training in cooperation with the UK’s University of Greenwich, and
post-graduate training with the Australian Institute Of Business Administration
PTY LTD and University of Wolverhamton in the UK.
ILA foreign language center was
cooperating with the Martin College in Australia and the Raffles center with
Raffles College of Higher Education in Singapore, the ministry also said.
The centers have offered to
refund students their tuition fees.
Raffles has sent a notice to
its students saying it will cancel the January course as ordered by the
ministry, but will open a new one and inform the students after it wins a
permit.
Until the new course is
available, those meeting the entrance requirements and willing to go will be
sent to study at Raffles centers in Australia, Singapore and Thailand, said
Hwong Kee Hong, general director of Raffles Vietnam.
Hong said the center will cover
the tuition fee difference but the students would have to pay all other
expenses.
Otherwise, the students can
study at Raffles Phnom Penh, and the center will take care of their transport,
visa, and accommodation.
But as the centers in
Australia, Singapore and Thailand require students to enroll for at least six
months, all senior students will be sent to Phnom Penh.
Those who disagree with this
plans will get a refund, Hong said.
Raffles has around 900 students
in such programs.
The ILA, meanwhile, is trying
to solve the problem for 23 students in a course that would have ended in
March.
La Ngoc Trang, head of the
Communication Department at the center, said the center plans to suggest to the
ministry that it makes an exception for the 23 students.
In the worst scenario, the
center will negotiate refunds with the students, she said.
Trang said graduates of the
program will be instructed to apply at multinational companies in Vietnam or
study overseas. The ministry has said that the program’s graduation
certificates will not be accepted at Vietnamese firms.
Similar offers have been made
by the ERC, Vietnam Education and Research Company, whose general director Tran
Thi Nhat Hoan said “we will return the tuition at different levels if the
students disagree with our plan.”
And the plan is for 365
students to study at ERC Institute in Singapore, paying the tuition difference,
transport, food and accommodation.
By Dang Nguyen - Ha Anh, Thanh
Nien News
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