From: "eaglesm23@yahoo.com" <eaglesm23@yahoo.com>
To: media_monitor5@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, 22 July, 2009 19:12:20
Subject: [issuesonline_worldwide] A Study in Shams/Scams
Posted on: Indian-Australians@ yahoogroups. com
http://www.theaustr alian.news. com.au/story/ 0,25197,25778649 -601,00.html
Indian student industry a study in shams and scams
July 14, 2009
AUSTRALIA'S lust for high-dollar Indian students has led to a thriving black market in sham marriages, forged English language exams and bogus courses, and turned a once-respected international education sector into a recognised immigration racket.
While the federal government and industry work to repair the damage caused by a recent spate of attacks on Indian students in Australia, education agents say the violence has shone a light on a $14 billion industry riven with corruption.
An investigation into the overseas student industry has found thousands of Indians each year are being enrolled in dodgy courses at inflated prices and sold unrealistic dreams of cheap living and plentiful jobs.
The Australian has found operators across the Punjab, the main feeder community for Indian students in Australia, openly advertising "contract marriages" for aspiring immigrants to partners who have passed the mandatory English test for a student visa.
For an additional fee, agents will arrange bank documents and loans to satisfy Australian immigration law that demands students have the means to support themselves for the duration of their course.
Industry insiders say a flourishing market has also developed around the International English Language Test System, with students paying anything up to $20,000 for a good result.
Sonya Singh, a respected Indian education agent servicing the Australian market, says the myriad scams offered to foreign students each year have made "Australia a supermarket where people are buying stuff off the shelf".
"A good-quality Indian student notices a completely no-good student on the same flight as him to Australia and starts to wonder where he's going," she said. "Indians are so conscious of branding and Australia's reputation has suffered a lot because of the recruitment process.
"My own kids didn't want to study in Australia because they had a perception that poor-quality students go there and that if they told their friends they were going to Australia, they would be laughed at or thought of as lesser."
Corruption is now so rife among India-based education agents that Ms Singh says she has had to institute a new policy across all 24 of her agencies in India and Australia. "The first thing they must tell every student that walks through the door is 'We don't arrange funds and we don't arrange marriages'," shesaid.
"In Melbourne, we get lots of requests to arrange IELTS scores and work-experience permits (to satisfy new requirements that a student must have completed 900 hours of work before being granted permanent residency)."
Last week, police arrested three people in the Punjab city of Ludhiana for impersonation and forgery after they were found to be sitting the IELTS exam for aspiring foreign students.
A police spokesman told local media the scam was an "organised racket" and further arrests were expected.
Foreign students and a voracious Indian media have reacted angrily to the recent attacks, prompting government and industry to announce legislative reviews, investigations into student welfare and a 10-point plan to reform the sector.
A delegation of government, police and education officials will tomorrow) conclude an eight-city tour of India designed to assure agents, parents and an Indian government made nervous by intense domestic media coverage that everything possible is being done to ensure the safety of foreign students.
However, Ms Singh says the root cause of student tension is not the attacks but a deep disconnect between the life they were told would be theirs and the debt, loneliness and disenchantment they find is the reality.
Fifty-one foreign students committed suicide in Australia last year, a fair proportion of them Indians whose families had sold land and taken on huge loans in the hope their child's success would repay in multiples.
Robert Palmer, who runs the Overseas Students Support Network in Melbourne, says supplying students to Australia has become a gold mine for education agents.
While universities and TAFEs pay about 25 per cent commission on first semester fees, equivalent to about $1200-$1500 per student, private institutes will pay up to 30 per cent of the entire course fee, providing a clear financial incentive for agents to channel students their way, and even into courses in which they have no interest.
And there is no shortage of willing students. The Australian approached six young men on the streets of Jalandhar, three of whom said they aimed to be studying in Australia by the end of the year. Among them was Jaspreet Badhan, who said he hoped to get permanent residency in Australia after studying hotel management. He added that many of his friends were hoping to study overseas.
Harmeet Pental, South Asia director of the Australian university-owned IDP Education agency, believes the problem lies with Australia's immigration processes. "The US interviews every single student going there -- whether it's for two or five minutes -- and then makes a call on their fitness," he said. "For Australia, agents have a list of skill sets given by the high commission and of the documentation required. That's it. The process is driving the behaviour."
Ms Singh says the Australian government policy of giving priority visa consideration to students who train in fields listed on the Critical Skills Shortage register has turned "genuine" students away.
"Every time a new (critical skills) list comes out, education providers start introducing those courses."
But Colin Walters, the federal Education Department official leading the Australian delegation in India, says that should change following the Indian government's decision last week to regulate the agent industry.
"The sector has grown very rapidly and there are some criticisms about some providers, so we need a vigorous audit system so their outcomes can be carefully scrutinised, " he said.
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