Sham ‘ghost colleges’ target Indian students-by Leith van Onselen

In 2019, just as Australia’s international student numbers were peaking, we read multiple media reports on how private ‘ghost colleges’ providing fake diplomas were targeting international students from India.

“Indian students are being exploited to the hilt.. out of which a large proportion was from Punjab”, Chandigarh-based education agent Avtar Gill told SBS.

Gill claimed the common thread behind the rampant rorting is the increased privatisation of the sector.

“To be honest privatisation does not suit the VET sector. At the very least, the government must ensure the gaps in the system are sealed and that is only possible when they start conducting repeated physical raids on the premises of such private to ensure they are not operating as ghost colleges”.

“Otherwise, scammers like Mr Singh would continue to ruin the future of students”, he added.

Former High Court justice, Ian Callinan, also claimed in 2019 that the surge in bridging visa applications to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) was being fuelled by organised criminals using “ghost colleges” offering “fake vocational training programs”.

This view was confirmed by the regulator of the higher education industry – the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) – who warned that criminals using “ghost colleges” offering “fake vocational training programs” were driving bridging visa applications to the AAT.

Dr Bob Birrell from the Australian Population Research Institute likewise accused private “ghost colleges” of opening “shopfronts” in Melbourne offering cheap business and IT courses that provide the minimum requirements for a skilled visa application, aimed primarily at students from South Asia.

“It has little to do with the excellence of the education that’s offered here”, Birrell said.

“It seems to be effectively selling access to jobs and permanent residence”.

Fast forward to 2023 and student visa arrivals have soared to record levels, which is fuelling Australia’s unprecedented net overseas migration:

This surge in international students is being driven by Indians taking advantage of Australia’s expanded work rights and longer period of residency post graduation.

Like déjà vu, a parliamentary inquiry has heard of private vocational education and training (VET) providers collaborating with unregulated international education agents to steal students from prestigious public institutions for large commissions, to sell work visas, and construct “ghost colleges” where students do not attend classes but are awarded degrees.

“Year after year, nothing seems to happen. Home affairs isn’t even enforcing the current rules, let alone new rules”, Labor MP Julian Hill told the inquiry.

“All the evidence we get is you don’t regulate quality, you regulate the ecosystem around the provider, police paperwork, you have no line of sight to the quality of the graduates which are being produced from these institutes”.

“I could see from the inside how unethical the entire operation is”, a former teacher who taught English at a private educational institute with campuses across Australia said in comments separate to the inquiry.

“The agents act as the sketchy middle point … they find students – friends, friends of friends, and shuffle them to Australian offices who shuffle them to the courses”.

“They’re not concerned about the quality of the course, they just take a massive cut”.

The existing regulatory structure is failing, according to Menelaos Koumides, managing director of the Australian Academy of Vocational Education and Trades.

“We see institutes that we think really should not be here … they’re highly competent in licensing requirements [and they’re] gaming the system”, Koumides said.

“[There are] blow-outs in agent’s commissions … 98% of students are going through agents … these are all consequences of a regulatory system … that was never fit for purpose.”

Koumides claims students were receiving automatic passes with minimal study requirements.

“It’s not fit for purpose when it comes to quality, it never was”.

All of this comes on the back of recent comments from International Education Association of Australia CEO Phil Honeywood, who claimed Australia’s international education system has become a “Ponzi scheme” for enticing non-genuine students through migration pathways.

Honeywood said sometimes money was being “handed in an envelope under the table” to agents who directed young people into courses.

“These agents need to be regulated”, he told Guardian Australia. “It’s not hard to do but they’ve been getting away with it for two decades”.

We have been here time and time again.

More than a decade ago, Australia experienced a massive boom in Indian students enrolled in dodgy VET courses like hairdressing, many of whom went on to receive permanent residency.

Private colleges and agents operated as ‘middlemen’ for Australia’s immigration system back then, as they do now, clipping the ticket on people wanting to exploit student visas as a backdoor to work rights and permanent residency.

Back then, like now, the Indian cohort remains both a prominent consumer and a victim of this flawed system.