Eden College in Dublin has been shut down with immediate effect, following a Sunday Times investigation that exposed staff of offering to alter attendance records, an act in breach of visa regulations. An estimated 450 ELT students have been affected of the total 1,200 enrolled students on a number of courses at the college including business, nursing and hospitality programmes.
The Department of Justice issued advice to students on its website this afternoon and is working with Marketing English in Ireland (MEI) to place the affected students in alternative schools.
David O’Grady, CEO of MEI, told The PIE News that while some genuine students have been affected, MEI suspects “most of the students are not ‘bona fide’ students, they are essentially economic migrants.”
O’Grady suspects that some “students” will not become aware of the school closure for a number of months.
“Marketing English in Ireland suspects “most of the students are not ‘bona fide’ students, they are essentially economic migrants.”
“Essentially what we’re having to deal with here is charade schools pretending to be schools,” O’Grady said. “They’re not schools, they’re merely ways of exploiting the needs of economic migrants and trying to get around the law,” he added.
MEI is currently dealing with each case individually and hopes to place non-EEA students of Eden College registered with the immigration authorities as pursuing a programme previously recognised by Accreditation and Co-ordination of English Language Services (ACELS) in other ACELS recognised schools.
Non-EEA students that don’t fall under this bracket will be deemed to be on “academic holiday.”
The Irish Council for International Students (ICOS) website also issued the following statement this morning: “As with the recent closure of Kavanagh College, ICOS will once again be offering all the support it can to the much larger numbers affected by the closure of Eden College.”
Eden College lost its ACELS license last year but O’Grady voiced concerns that it is “merely one of a few” bogus colleges in Ireland.
“I’m not pleased that there are students who are left high and dry but I am pleased that the disreputable and illegal way that schools have been able to operate hitherto is being addressed,” he said.
“Places like Eden over the years have undermined all the schools in markets abroad,” he added. “They’ve ruined markets, all the students come here, then they close shop and go away with the money, and we’re left having to pick up the mess.”
