Beware of Education Consultants

Given the rising complaints of fraud and cheating against education consultants in Kashmir, be careful and cross check online before securing admission outside Kashmir

Earlier this month, police registered a cheating case against the proprietor of a ‘ career counsellor’ for duping a student on the pretext of securing admission in a medical college outside the state. Just two weeks prior to that, crime branch registered a another case of cheating and criminal conspiracy against unnamed consultancies and individuals who deceived Kashmiri youths in lieu of providing them admissions in colleges across the country under the controversial Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme ( PMSSS). There are many more cases and complaints coming up against these consultants at various places. This year these consultancies are in the limelight for all the wrong reasons.

In the absence of any proper law governing conduct of these consultancies, they are running their operations freely without any accountability.

Over the last few years Kashmir has been seeing a boom in career consultancies.

Sensing an opportunity to earn hard cash, every Tom, Dick and Harry has joined the bandwagon. Most of the consultants don’t even know how to counsel a student, let alone help him or her decide a future better for themselves as well as for the society.

Their only criterion is money and wherever they get extra commission, they will encourage students to take up that course and join the institution.

Much like drug mafia pushing fake drugs into Kashmir, these consultants are pushing fake colleges and degrees into Kashmir. Fake drugs will have short term effect on us but fake education will have serious consequences for our society in the long run.

Modus operandi These consultancies lure the potential student with juicy advertisements like ‘ free admission, on spot admission, 100 percent scholarship’ and so on. These ads are simply published to generate interest. Once a student or parent takes the bait, the consultants sweet- talk them into taking admission in an educational institute decided by the consultant. The deal is done, the consultant charges its fee from student and gets paid by the college too.

The offer of free admission or scholarship often vanishes after making various excuses, like the student has not enough marks or the offer just lapsed.

Given the amount of commission offered by colleges, the consultant always tends to the push the student to that college unmindful of its ranking and standard of education. Lower the grade of a college, the higher is the commission for a consultant.

Another way the consultant cheats the student is by offering him admission in one college and then forcing him to join another. For example, after promising a student with admission in college A, the consultant gets his fee and the admission fee for college. But when the student reaches college A, the fee turns out to be more ( already agreed with consultant beforehand), which the student is unable to pay.

When confronted, the consultant denies any responsibility and instead offers them another low ranking college.

The helpless parent again falls for it and admits his ward to save an academic year. The consultants walk away with a cool second bonus from that college.

Some consultants lure the students by offering them ‘ free MBBS seats’ under SAARC quota. Remember it is a highly competitive arena where cutoff marks can go as high as 98 percent.

Check the procedure on internet and do not pay anything to consultants in lieu of any form. All forms are freely available on internet. There have been some cases of consultants offering to tamper the marks card of a student to get admission in Bangladesh under SAARC. Never get tempted as students are later dismissed when colleges undertake its verification. There have been few such cases too.

A student should always be mindful of scholarship offers. Never accept any offer from a consultant for getting admission under PMSSS or any other government scholarship. There are clear rules which indicate that NGO’s and consultants have no role in it.

During the last few years, career of thousands of students was destroyed by these consultants as they posed as facilitators of PMSSS but ended up being frauds and agents of cheap colleges.

What to do? While choosing a college, do all the research yourself. Do not take consultants word as a gospel truth. Google it; ask your friends relatives and try to contact outside students to know which college is best for you.

Visit at least five to six consultancies before making a final decision.

Compare the fee details and choice of colleges offered by them and then pick the best deal among them.

Never handover the original documents to consultancies. Contact college yourself and check their admission procedure. Most colleges just need photo copies. Once you handover original documents, you are stuck with that consultant unable to back off easily if you found out some fraud.

Read the fine print when scholarship is offered to you. Most scholarships end up making no difference as only meagre amount in tuition fee is deducted and not from the overall annual fee. Calculate entire package and fee per year for the course duration.

Check the website of the college and crosscheck the fee and other procedure.

Call them and see if the consultant is telling the truth about the fee structure.

Try reputed institutes first and then colleges affiliated to government universities. Always check UGC, AICTE etc websites to check whether an educational institute offered by a consultant is recognized.

Always pay fee by a draft or cheque in the name of college. Do not pay college fee to the consultant. Whatever you pay to a consultant should be against a proper receipt.

Google the college name and see if there are any cheating cases registered against it. Read reviews published by former students for the particular colleges on various websites. Also check how safe its environs are.

Do not be tempted by glossy brochures and campus pictures of colleges.

Remember the more a college advertises, the more there are chances of it being not up to the mark. Good colleges almost never advertise. A student should always be mindful of scholarship offers.

Never accept any offer from a consultant for getting admission under PMSSS or any other government scholarship.

There are clear rules which indicate that NGO’s and consultants have no role in it.

Haroon Shah