Many students aspiring to go abroad for higher studies are being cheated by various organized fraudsters as they lure the aspirants on the pretext of sending them to different countries for studies and promising jobs in those countries.
The gangs are running several overseas student consultancy firms claiming to provide consultancy services offering education packages to students aspiring to go abroad for higher education.
Due to the absence of law and proper monitoring bodies, overseas student consultancy firms continue to cheat aspirants of higher studies.
There are at least three hundred and fifty such institutions in different areas of the capital including Farmgate, Paltan, Motijheel, Fakirapul, Kakrail, Uttara, Gulshan andMohakhali.
According to law enforcers and officials of the concerned sectors, about 7,000 students have been cheated in the last 10 years by student visa consultancy firms in the capital.
Every year more than half a million students of the country go abroad for higher education, cites UNESCO's report titled 'Global Flow of Tertiary Level Education'. Most of them complete the admission process and visa processing in foreign universities through various ‘consultancy firms’.
These firms charge from Tk 50,000 to Tk 25 lakh per person, in addition, as it is very profitable, a few dishonest cycles have been active around this sector under the banner of 'Consultancy Firm'.
According to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), there are two types of fraudulent agencies that are engaged in frauds. Some take money before they get vanished overnight and others take a bulk of money but never provide a visa.
Fraudsters are now out of control as the number of students who want to go abroad for higher education has increased. Law enforcement agencies termed it as a new field of human trafficking and money laundering.
The Romanian government recently sent a letter to the government through Interpol. CID is currently investigating the matter, said Syeda Jannat Ara, special superintendent of police.
She said people can go abroad naturally. And those who lack the qualifications are tempted in various other ways. These include university scholarships, and the assurance of providing information about the language skills (IELTS, TOEFL, or scores of such assessment methods) or solving the problem.
In reality, students do not get the facilities they are sent for; rather, they fall into various legal complications. This tarnishes the image of the country, she added.
Gazi Tareq Ibna Mohammad, General Secretary, Foreign Admission & Career Development Consultants Association of Bangladesh (FACD-CAB) told the Bangladesh Post, “Currently consultancy firms are affiliated neither with the Education Ministry nor with other ministries. We are trying to be associated with the Education Ministry. Nearly 300 hundreds consultancy firmsare attached to us, hopefully the number will gradually rise in the coming days.”
Mentioning about fraudulence in study abroad he said, to evade deception a student must physically visit the consultancy firm, as well as without proper banking channel no money should be exchanged. Furthermore, they should also check which universities they are representing in Bangladesh, he added.
In this context, Professor Syed Manjurul Islam, an educationist, told the media that the demand of the time, shrinking job market in the country, and the quest for higher education have increased the tendency of students to go abroad. But it is the responsibility of the government to protect those students.
He said “It is necessary to bring them under one ministry. The loopholes in the law should be bridged and the perpetrators of fraud should be investigated and punished.”
At the same time awareness needs to be raised among students who want to go abroad about such scams, he further added.
