About 500 Chinese students arrived recently at the Comme un
Chinois à Paris, a private language school in the French capital,
to find they were locked out of their classrooms.
The police had detained the principal and suspended the school's
operations following an office raid on March 1.
The principal had been accused of falsifying legal documents to
secure visas for the students, who came from all over China, and is
still under police investigation. The future of the school remains
to be decided.
The Chinese Embassy in Paris has helped to find new schools for
some students and others are being sought, the embassy's Dai
Tianhua told China Daily on Tuesday.
Some may need to review or extend their residents permits, but
all are expected to stay to resume and complete their studies, Dai
said. They are paying for their own accommodation.
Chinese students at the school were legally required to provide
registration documents and course plans for one full year of study
in order to obtain visas. Comme un Chinois à Paris, in a bid to
attract more students, offered such documents to students while
only requiring them to pay three to six months' tuition.
It is unclear what financial losses the students incurred, but
China's Ministry of Education (MOE) has posted alerts on its
website -- the first of its kind for this year -- warning overseas
students to be cautious.
The number of poor-quality language schools is increasing as
unscrupulous operators seek to cash in on Chinese students eager to
be educated overseas.
Cen Jianjun, deputy director of the MOE's International
Cooperation and Exchange Department, warned those en route
or planning to attend foreign schools about the pitfalls, saying,
"Some overseas institutions with dubious qualifications and
China-based agents will do anything to make a quick buck."
Reports of students being marooned overseas after being fleeced
out of their money are becoming more common. Some institutions fail
to match the descriptions in their recruiting brochures.
In one recent incident, a small school in Berkeley, California,
gave the impression in the information it sent out to overseas
applicants that studying there was tantamount to attending the
world-famous University of California at Berkeley. Students
received a harsh lesson when they arrived to find a single building
tucked in a cul-de-sac staffed by half a dozen part-time
teachers.
In New Zealand, where international students help sustain a
US$1.7 billion industry, some 140 language schools do brisk
business. But sudden, recent closures have left hundreds of Chinese
students out in the cold.
Now a list of qualified and vetted schools in 21 countries is
available on the MOE's website. "For those schools not on the list,
we suggest that you seek independent information from reputable
sources," Cen said.
Most applicants receive information only from agencies whose job
it is to sell the schools they represent.
Cen called on all students planning to study abroad to be
vigilant and to report misleading ads.
(China Daily March 16, 2005)