By Gurbir Singh
New Zealand, July 25, 2017: An estimated 100 students - mostly from India, have been impacted as another Indian-run institution, International College of New Zealand (ICNZ) has been stopped from delivering three business programmes.
WThe New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) has withdrawn accreditation to the Auckland-based private tertiary institute, ICNZ for delivering National Diplomas in Business (Level 5 & 6) and Diploma in Business Management (Level 7).
Earlier in March this year, ICNZ was stopped from enrolling any new students and declaring results of business courses.
Chirag Solanki is the Director of ICNZ and migrated to New Zealand in 2001. ICNZ was registered with the NZQA in early 2003.
The withdrawal of accreditation was the result of serious concerns about ICNZ’s assessment practices. Most of the assessments that ICNZ marked as a ‘pass’ should not have been passed.
As a result, most of the affected students of ICNZ will not be gaining any credits/qualifications even after studying for a year or so. It is up to each student now to decide what they want to do next, for example, return home or apply for a new visa to study at a different institute.
Both NZQA and ICNZ are working together to support the students and NZQA has been holding ongoing meetings with affected students.
In a statement issued yesterday, the Deputy Chief Executive Quality Assurance,Grant Klinkum said, ‘NZQA has monitored these business programmes and found that most of the assessments (95% of the Level 5 and 6 and 70% of the Level 7) were marked by ICNZ as a ‘pass’ when they should have failed. ICNZ has significantly failed to deliver the quality of education in these programmes...”
‘As a result, we have withdrawn the credits ICNZ had awarded to students meaning they cannot be used towards a qualification. In most cases students will need to start their programme again with a new provider”.
With regard to ICNZ, Dr Grant Klinkum of NZQA also stated ‘‘We will not tolerate poor quality education provision. Where (education) providers are not meeting the standards we expect of them, we take action to ensure the integrity of New Zealand’s tertiary education system.’
NZQA’s monitoring also found that in some cases ICNZ enrolled students without having ensured that they met the minimum English proficiency requirements.
NZQA has decided that students should receive a full refund of the fees paid to ICNZ because the credits that ICNZ awarded to students cannot be used towards a qualification.
When this journalist contacted Chirag Solanki today for his comments, he issued a statement that “ICNZ has agreed to give up accreditation in delivering the three business programmes...as ICNZ considered that such an agreement is in the best interest of its Business students and will reduce uncertainty arising from the statutory actions taken by NZQA to date”.
Chirag has also reassured that the Diploma in Homeopathy (Level 7) programme “continues to operate as normal” and that “NZQA recently conducted a monitoring visit ...and found no significant concerns”.
Babushahi readers may recall that in May this year, Linguis International Institute was deregistered and shut down by NZQA.http://www.babushahi.com/full-news.php?id=59612 - “Closure of NZ education institute affects 53 Indian students”.
Again in June this year ‘Babushahi’ reported NZQA having stopped Imperial College of New Zealand from enrolling new students in its business and management courses.
http://www.babushahi.com/full-news.php?id=60698 - Govt stops Imperial College of New Zealand from enrolling new students, dt June 19, 2017.
Such reports about NZ education institutes may have some temporary impact on student enrolments from India. Parents and prospective students planning to study overseas are now likely to be more cautious in selecting their institutes for study.
Education in New Zealand, on the other hand, still commands high respect and students should take this on a positive note.
NZQA’s actions are keeping in line with its policy of ensuring that “high quality tertiary education is delivered to students” and that “New Zealand qualifications are robust, credible and internationally recognised”.
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Gurbir Singh is a New Zealand-based journalist & feature writer. Gurbir can be reached at: gurbir@journalist.com