1) South Birmingham College recruited the AAT (Association of Accounting Technicians, Level 3-4) & ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, Level-5) students under their sponsorship and indicated the campus location as 1 Victoria Square, Birmingham, B1 1BD on students’ pre-departure visa letter whereas the above mentioned address is Finance and Management Business School’s registered address. Both of the course had been offered with 6 month free pre-sessional English course.

2) Finance and Management Business School (Renowned as FM or FMBS) is claimed to be in partnership with South Birmingham College (Renowned as SBC) registered international office as South Birmingham College (Digbeth Campus) High Street Deritend, Digbeth, Birmingham, B5 5SU

3) The introductory 2 Years Full Time AAT course with 6 months Free English was offered only for fee range from £3300-4050 which was below the market price for AAT just to attract more students.

4) SBC had previously located their ACCA course on their website and after clicking the ACCA tab on their website, the link was being directed to the FM’s website which gained confidence and trust to students that both the colleges have a real partnership and that is why students did not hesitate to enrol by paying their deposit (£1650-2000, 2400 in some cases) to FM before they apply for their visa under SBC’s sponsorship. Thus, within November’09 and January’10 session, presumably over 300 AAT &ACCA students successfully got their visa clearance by UKBA in their home country.

5) A few of ACCA students who already been in the UK, paid & enrolled directly to SBC, were attending their ACCA classes at FM Business School, 1 Victoria Square, Birmingham, B1 1BD which proves again that SBC & FM is/was in partnership or ran the ACCA &AAT course collaboratively.

AAT issues:

6) Approximately above 50 AAT students enrolled late to the course by paying their deposit and later applied for the visa to their home country. After applying, they subsequently received a letter on SBC letter head to their home address saying that SBC is no longer running the AAT course therefore the visa letter they had was no longer valid for visa purpose. Possibly, SBC sent the same instruction to UKBA office to the students’ home country. Hence all them late visa applications had been refused for that reason causing them thousands of pounds of loss on overall process. The same letters have been sent to all AAT students who already in the UK and continuing their studies with pre-sessional English at FM. The letter was signed by Mani Kumari Lal from International Team of SBC.

7) FM business School mainly specialized with Business, Accounting and Finance courses and they have enough tutors and admin staffs to run them courses. Among all the other courses of SBC, AAT & ACCA, the only two course have been running at FM campus. The moment ACCA & AAT students enrolled for the courses (which was November’09 and january’10 sessions), FM did not have their UKBA Tier-4 licence therefore they had to collaborate with SBC to recruit international students.

Because FM was only authorized to run two SBC courses at their campus, if SBC says that they will no longer run either of them courses under their sponsorship, then students will have to change their course or sponsor to continue with their study and visa status.

In the month of March when SBC sent those AAT Course Withdrawn Letter to all AAT international students, all the students had no choice but to run to the digbeth campus door begging for their fate. After begging for 2/3 months, seemed like all the stressing of students and their guardians came to an end when SBC international office asked the students to come for an assessment. In between, there had been plenty of drama relating to that so called assessment. Few days after the assessment drama, SBC informed that they will continue with the AAT course. Students and their guardians felt so relaxed and happy!

But neither students nor their guardians did not realize, that was only a trap to bring the students from FM’s campus and solely under their control!

9) But the trouble started again after the assessment when the time came to re-enrolment into Digbeth campus, the college asked tuition fee of £3900/year instead of total tuition fee offered between £3300-4050/year. The balance of total tuition fee is being asked to pay as the balance of 1st year tuition fee instead. All students refused with their right which was not on their pre-departure budget.

Then, after so many requests, drama, time wasting, they brought the fee down to £3500 for next year. 1st year fee was agreed to £2000 and the balance to be adjusted with the 2nd year fee which will be starting from January 2011.

10) Understanding the 2nd year fee will be far higher then actually offered by the college, students all agreed with the new proposal just because they are desperate to finish their course and did not want any more hassle indeed. As a result, everything started to be going ok.

But probably its in their fate to be fighting with trouble instead of studying. Now the college came up with a new agreement paper and auto-extented the course by saying £2000 will be towards their 1st year tuition fee, 2nd year as agreed £3500 and 3rd year fee will be £4400! Please note, this time they are considering 1st year as from Jan-July’10 which is gone in vain mostly, 2nd and 3rd year from September 2010 and 2011 respectively. The College fearing the students of withdrawing their sponsorship if they do not sign the agreement paper. A few of the students already signed it Before they realize what that paper was! Some students signed because they thought whatever will happen in future but lets get away with current sponsorship withdrawal threat first!

11) A few cleverer students noticed the new fee structure with one extra fee paying year and asked the authority, why is that? They said, its just only written on the paper and actually its a course changing request if you want to. And the real trouble occurred when them students still refused to sign. And them are mostly in risk of sponsorship withdrawal.
Now, the reality is, If the college finally withdraws their sponsorship, students either will have to go back-home without having finished 1/4 of the course or Apply under a new sponsorship paying new deposit and visa application fee and wait few months for UKBA decision. And because of their sponsorship suspension, they are worrying they might not get clarence from UKBA.
Now all the AAT students can only blame to God for their luck!

ACCA ISSUES:
1) South Birmingham College tried the same trick with the ACCA students but in a different way. Because some students were not happy with the tuition method which the have been receiving from FMBS campus and ACCA is not a easy course itself that is why students were finding it difficult to continue with the course and requested to SBC and FMBS if they can change their subject. FMBS came up with a survey where students can express their interest of course. Approximately half of the ACCA students requested to change the course and been waiting for the decision from FMBS apparently from SBC. But actually there was not such a course change probably because FMBS knew that if the students be able to change their course of study, they will no longer have them ACCA students under their control and will loose their portion of tuition fee.

2) Now, the SBC tried their last trick to beat FMBS & ACCA students by sending letters to all existing students mentioning three issues: 1) failed or delayed to register with ACCA awarding body 2) Did not attend Computer Based Exam (CBE) on their scheduled date or 3) Lack of attendance. The College informed in the letter that all individual student has fallen into either one or more of them issues and that is why the college have withdrawn the course completely and therefore the visa letter they had is no longer valid.

Even though the Accounting courses were promised with a 3-6 months pre-sessional English but 90% of the students only had just a month long pre-sessional English. It was not enough to settle down in a new place leaving own country. Before jump into the main course of study, the longer english could help the students settle down with the issues like home-sickness, finding a comfortable accommodation, ACCA registration, But if students arrived UK only in the month of January-February-March how would you expect them to sit for the exam in April/May without having registered or settled down with the new place or having enough tuition on it?

Some students have their lack of attendance but them are the students have been promised to change their course and could not motivate themselves to continue with ACCA as they were waiting for the decision from college.

ACCA is a private awarding body and they have so many CBE dates all the year round and registered students can seat in any exam date at any exam centres. Even though, the weaker students did not seat on FMBS scheduled exam date because they were not ready for it or haven’t got the registration clearance from ACCA yet still they had the chance to attend exam on their preferred date once they are registered with ACCA.

Still there are some serious and brighter students who have their ACCA registration done, attended exams, passed and waiting to start with next papers of their study. But their sponsorship also withdrawn without offering any alternatives.
FMBS and SBC partnership never worked good and students had to suffer for it, ACCA students never been given any paperwork like Bank letter, Council tax letter etc because they have been studying in FM campus.

Now, I am really down and don’t know how to finish up with this but all I can say that these was not expected from a govt funded and years reputed college. They invited the students with cheap tuition fee trap and now squeezing them like orange, treating like they are animals.
If anyone investigates these in a proper way I hope he/she will find the truth.

This post was submitted by SHIFUL ALAM.

You may also like:

• Study Group teams up with university partners to host third annual Nigeria Roadshow
• Visa Extension and IELTS
• Register of Tier 4 Sponsors – 22 Jun 2010
• Calling all Students of Unity College
• Update on Twin Training International’s Tier 4 Suspension