A 23-year-old youth of Karur district, who had gone to Philippines to train as a pilot about six months back by paying Rs 17 lakh, was shocked when the institution where he had been training closed down without notice.

The youth has filed a complaint with the city police commissioner hoping to recover his losses.
Mr M. Ramasamy, son of a farmer, told Deccan Chronicle that he underwent some tormenting days after the Ace Pilot Academy at Manila allegedly withheld his passport and forced him to vacate the hostel after it shut shop.

He had completed his graduation in aeronautical engineering at Park College of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore, in 2010. He went to Manila through the Sun Sea Aviation Services Pvt Ltd in Gandhipuram.

The agency took Rs 17 lakh and sent him for an 8-month training course at the academy on October 25, 2011. “Even before the training began, the academy was ordered to be shut by the civil aviation authority of Philippines, which had also cancelled its licence,” he said.

The academy provided him accommodation for two months saying it would resume soon, but then suddenly forced him to vacate the hostel and withheld his passport.

“With the intervention of the Indian Embassy, Manila, I was allowed to stay at a gurdwara in Manila. My father Muthusamy then took up the issue with home minister P. Chidambaram, who forwarded it to external affairs minister S.M. Krishna and they helped me get back the passport and return to India on March 21,” he said.

At least 20 other Indian students, including five from Tamil Nadu, are still stuck in the Philippines.
Last week, Mr Ramasamy had submitted a complaint to CoP T.P. Sundaramoorthy, who forwarded it to the central crime branch wing police where assistant commissioner R. Mohan said a probe is on.

Sun Sea Aviation Service’s Coimbatore official T.V. Pathy said they were negotiating with the academy to get back Mr Ramasamy’s and six others’ fees. We have brought back five students, and one student joined another institute, he explained.

Seasonal agents making fast buck

The allure of a foreign degree has given rise to many “seasonal agents” who take students for a ride and swindle lakhs of hard-earned money in the name of sending them to reputed
institutions abroad.

“There are cases where they hype up institutions abroad, but often the reality is otherwise. In one instance, a medical student landed in an institution that hardly had accommodation facilities. Sadly the student had to continue as the fees had been paid,” said an overseas consultant.

Being an education hub, Kovai attracts many overseas consultants and education fairs. Utilising this trend, many seasonal agents too come in to lure students for overseas education.

“Students must do their homework before listening to an overseas consultant. They should check an agent’s profile, the countries they are working for, institutional tie-up and their experience,” said Mr Satish Chandra, head of Storm Group, Tamil Nadu, on Tuesday.

While choosing an institution, a student should consider whether he or she likes the country, the institution and the subject, whatever the consultants might say.

Mr Satish added that there were many seasonal agents who set up office for a while before vanishing. He indicated that some even had websites with attractive features highlighting the universities abroad as well as testimonials.

Vice-Chancellor of Bharathiar University (BU) Prof. C. Swaminathan said that there were many agents trying to attract students into their trap. “It is the responsibility of students to check the credibility of the agents.

They should check with the institutions, whether they actually have a pact with the agency or not,” said Prof. Swaminathan adding: “We can only warn through advertisements about being careful of the agents.”

Experts warn against fake varsities

Overseas education advisors and academicians say there had been several cases in the past where foreign higher education institutions cheated Indian students.

They cite the recent case of US law enforcement department detaining 1,000 Indian students who joined the fraudulent California-based Tri-Valley University.

Speaking to this newspaper, Mr C. B. Paul Chellakumar, patron, Association of Accredited Advisors on Overseas Education (AAAOE) and chairman, Campus Abroad, blamed students and their parents, as they don’t check the credentials of the college/university they apply.

“You should not believe all that a consultant says. Ask him for details of alumni of the university. The student or his parent can approach consulates/high commissions to find out if the institute is accredited. This will help them eliminate fraudulent institutes,” he said.

Pointing out that students should interact with alumnus of the university they aspire to join, Mr Chellakumar said sometimes they might help students to identify best institutions in foreign countries.

It may be recalled that a couple of years ago several medical aspirants from Tamil Nadu joined various medical colleges in Russia, which were not part of the World Health Organisation list of recognised colleges. They had to face lot of hardship to write the screening test.

A senior professor of a state university requesting anonymity said that even vice-chancellors of universities get misled with the tall claims foreign universities make and some turn out to be fraudulent upon verification with the consulate concerned.