Tense moments between students and school officials
Students and their parents flocked to the school on Nguyen Van Troi Street, in Phu Nhuan District, Ho Chi Minh City on March 19, which was the deadline for the reimbursement. A tense meeting between the students and school officials took place, lasting nearly 10 hours. But no agreement was reached. The the local police eventually had to be called in to keep order.
Then students and parents sent a petition against the school, accusing them of fraud.
According to the petition, Raffles International School promised to reimburse all tuition fees for students within 60 days (from January 18 to March 19), but have failed to make the payments. The compensation for which they are asking amounts to less than what the students originally paid.
Students and their parents also asked the police to ban the school’s leaders from leaving the country.
Earlier, on March 17, Raffles International School sent a letter to students in which they offered the alternative of continuing the same programmes in Cambodia, Singapore or Australia.
On December 29 last year, the Ministry of Education and Training decided to penalise three high-profile international training institutes in HCMC for offering programmes for which they had not been accredited for.
The related institutes were ERC Vietnam, Raffles Vietnam and ILA Vietnam.
Besides penalising the institutes, the ministry also asked them to cease all advertising for programmes concerned and reimburse tuition fees.
