| Jun. 22nd, 2006 @ 01:45 am Got this in my mail box.. |
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Overseas students may sue over uni courses
Lisa Macnamara
20 June 2006
ONE of Victoria's top universities is facing legal action from international students who claim they have been misled into forking out thousands for courses that failed to live up to the hype of university promotions.
The 30 Japanese, Thai and Chinese students who paid thousands of dollars for TAFE courses at RMIT University will meet lawyers this week over claims that supervised teaching hours fell far short of what is promoted on the university website.
Japanese student Tomoko Shimomura paid $6700 for an intensive six-month translating and interpreting course run through the Melbourne-based university, but, according to the university, the 300 hours of student contact time was "nominal" and included study at home as well as the time her teachers used to assess her work.
In all, the six-month course amounted to only 3 1/2 months of "supervised" study.
"If I pay this much, I want what I paid for," said Ms Shimomura, who calculated that she received just over 200 student contact hours. "I asked a co-ordinator and she said the contact hours included unsupervised and supervised hours and included teachers assessing my homework and tests."
The action comes after Thai student Prapass Chairat, 34, won compensation from RMIT late last month.
"I don't like the way they (RMIT) treated the international students. We pay a lot but they treated me like shit," said Mr Chairat, who paid $24,000 for a two-year furniture design course.
He was offered $1000 worth of project material by RMIT in compensation but the university has denied that the reparation was "for alleged overcharging".
"For invoice purposes, the semester fee is expressed in nominal contact hours. These hours are not the same as classroom contact hours and include an allowance for workplace visits, assessments and other non-classroom activities," said RMIT TAFE director Allan Ballagh. But RMIT student rights officer Liz Turner said contact hours were always defined as supervised.
I got this email from International Students Committee's Convernor. I guess RMIT seriously in deep shit! But the management there always so terrible! I think only Peggy can judge this as ex-student of RMIT! Haha.. What u reckon? |
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