Monitor
- 2009-10-31
The quote below is from the "Radio Australia online" website.
The relevant link is:
http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/200909/2688926.htm
'Shonky' collegesWhile scraping together a living takes up much of their time, some foreign students have also had to contend with colleges taking tens of thousands of dollars in fees, for little education in return.
The ABC's Four Corners program earlier this year reported on students who had lost tens of thousands of dollars to colleges, or migration or education agents.
Shonky colleges in Australia are full of Chinese students born with silver spoons in their mouths who previously paid through the nose in their homeland to "obtain" the GAC qualification in China.
It's high time the Aussies closed down their shonky colleges, and stopped flogging GAC in China, where it is being abused!
GAC, the Global Assessment Certificate, is a demanding and fast-paced pre-university 9-month preparatory course for learners who are non-native speakers of English who wish to study at Western universities. Here in China, it is too demanding a course for many Chinese learners. It is offered by training centers for around 60000 Yuan/learner, paid in its entirety at the start of the program.
Just to make ends meet, the typical Chinese provider needs to enrol around 6 learners while employing 2 foreign teachers, one a DOS, both capable of teaching modules such as academic writing, independent study techniques, computing and mathematics up to first year university level.
The problem is that many of the rich kids pushed into taking GAC by their parents neither have the motivation nor the grey matter to pass. There is a high degree of continuous assessment involving tests at the conclusion of each module in this course. What happens is that the foreign teachers pass students who should be failed as a favor to their Chinese employers. At last, the ''graduate students'' will study abroad, where many will be in trouble academically, and have to study at English colleges in their holidays, at great additional expense to their parents! Such students will never be able to obtain managerial posts, either abroad or back home in China. The whole GAC thing is a scam here in China. It's Australian-run and the modules are full of mistakes. Of course, there are plenty of poor quality higher education providers in Australia who have got into the market to provide migration outcomes for students rather than to provide high quality education.
Many education agents in China sell the prospect of studying in Australia by linking it with the possibility of permanent residency there.And so the scam continues. The rich in China are fleeced, but maybe they deserve to be, because of their naive mindset that money can buy everything in this world!Dishonest Chinese and wily Australians have united to perpetrate this scam. Unfortunately, I have no choice but to be in collusion to ean my daily bread. But next time, I'll avoid working for a GAC provider here in China like the plague!