Prativa Shrestha, February 22, 2019
More than 50 students have come forward claiming that ETEA (Education Training and Employment Australia) based in Melbourne, Victoria enrolled them in Diploma of Nursing before getting the accreditation. They have claimed that the institution failed to assist them in any way after the course failed accreditation from ANMAC (Australian Nursing & Midwifery Accreditation Council). Neither did the students receive any credit points nor were they refunded by the provider.
The first batch of 26 students were enrolled in Diploma of Nursing in August of 2017 while the second batch had more than 50 students. They have come forward to us claiming for full refund from the institution, as complaints made to the provider were not heard.
The students who came forward were counselled by Chandra Yonzon, the Consulate General of Nepal to Victoria. Speaking to students, he stated, “All the students should submit the refund application to the college at first. The college should respond within 14 days. If no resolution is provided, we along with other authorities will stand for students”.
Currently, most of the students have changed their provider by themselves, starting courses from the very beginning. Huge amount of money was wasted, and they won’t get their wasted time back. Therefore, they want justice by at least getting the refund.
The unaware students almost finished their course without realising that when they finish their study, they would not be able to get the registration. They got suspicious only when some of the students received anonymous emails from ETEA Sydney students alerting them about the failed accreditation. The Sydney based ETEA college has already collapsed.
When the students confronted the college authority, they did not receive satisfactory response. Instead blames were put back to those students. Students received a memo from college authority stating that information of pending accreditation was publicly available in the website, to which students deny of its existence prior to their enrollment. Nothing was mentioned to students in the offer letter as well.
The memo also mentioned, “The submission to ANMAC is currently in the last stages of approval, with site visits being undertaken by ANMAC in late January”. However, the course failed the accreditation.
One of the students mentions, “I remember ANMAC had come to college, they asked us various questions regarding the facilities and quality. We thought the college would get the accreditation. But we had no idea that current students would only get registered if the college had accreditation prior to our enrolment”.
In the end, most of the students had their COEs cancelled by college or by themselves. College cancelled their COEs showing low attendance and no submission of assignments. Some of the students withdrew themselves by seeing no future through the degree.
Another student claims, “I was enrolled to ETEA for Diploma of Nursing by my agent. I trusted the agent thinking that was the best option for me. But when I left ETEA, I got entry into Bachelor of Nursing with same IELTS score of 7 with no added qualifications. My question is why my agent did not enroll me directly into this university directly from Nepal?”
The victimized students have thousands of questions towards the providers and agents. This added case of ETEA shows there might be many other providers who are robbing students and ruining their career and time.
ETEA did not respond to Nepalese Voice’s queries.
* MNTV Australia Chief Editor Chiranjebi Devkota discussing with ETEA Melbourne victim students
**Whilst this article states that “ETEA joins the list of dodgy providers to enroll international students” and that there are “victimized students”, for clarity, these are not views held by Nepalese Voice but rather are views held by various ETEA students who have directly contacted Nepalese Voice about ETEA. ETEA denies these allegations. Updated 02:47 pm AEDT Friday, 22 March 2019
