This article is from page 5 of the 2006-06-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 5 JPG
THE PRINCIPAL of a Shannon college has lashed back at reports that she failed to refund fees to students, saying that her college has fallen victim to an immigration scam.
Ariston College has been temporarily suspended from the Internationalisation Register of the Department of Education.
Ann Magoufis said that the college, “has suffered by being caught in the middle of an attempt to fraudulently acquire entry visas to the country, by a group of Bangladeshis holding themselves out as students.”
A year ago, the college was invited to Dhaka in Bangladesh, by an educational agent, to interview 150 students who had reputedly expressed an interest in attending Ariston College.
“On foot of what now appears to be fraudulent documentation, the college offered places on its programmes to some 65 students,” the principal said.
“The Bangladeshi agent submitted documentation to the college in support of visa applications to be made by the college to the Department of Foreign Affairs, on behalf of these students. Under the department’s regulations, one of the requirements for a student to be granted a visa is that they must demonstrate that they have paid their fees. The college received full fees from these students in the spring of 2005. The standard practice is that the college holds these fees until a visa is granted or denied.”
After the college year had started, Magoufis was contacted by the the Department of Foreign Affairs and was told that the visas were being denied because “the applications had been supported through extensive use of fraudulent documentation,”
The principal said she was “horrified at the extent of the fraud. It was clear that many of these ‘students’ never wanted to study, but gain entry to Ireland, and thereby the EU, to work. Ariston College has fallen victim to an immigration scam.”
With valid applications being refused alongside the fraudulent ones, Magoufis said, she had no students for that academic year and had “no option” but to hold what would normally be returned to the agent, less visa and administration fees. All funds have now been returned to the students and the college expects to be reinstated on the internationalisation register in the coming weeks.