Going to Singapore to study is now the biggest choice for Vietnamese students, who hear that the tuitions set by Singaporean schools are “reasonable”, while living expenses are “affordable”. However, this proves to be not the best choice for many.

These days when most of high school students are sprinting to prepare for the university entrance exams, some other students are busy considering the “profiles” of Singaporean schools and the offers by Vietnamese overseas study consultancy firms to make decisions on registering for Singaporean schools.

Singapore – a reasonable destination

Statistics showed that about 1000 Vietnamese students go to Singapore to study every year. Most of these students fund their own studies and do not receive scholarships. Most of the students study in Singaporean private universities, because public schools only enroll excellent students.

Nguyen Thi Duong, Director of Goldenway Education, said that Singapore has become a favorite destination for Vietnamese students because the schools here commit to shorten the study time, offer low tuition, especially the tuition for “hot” majors, such as business administration, hotel management, or finance and banking.

For example, students only have to spend 12-15 months to get a junior college degree and spend 18 months to get advanced junior college degree. The tuition is about 3000 US dollars at mininum for a degree program. If counting on living expenses, a student would have to pay 5200-6000 Singapore dollars, or 100-150 million dong, a year. The expenses prove to be much lower than the expenses students have to pay when studying in other countries, or even lower than the expenses for some degree programs in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese students can easily register training courses and begin studying at any time of the year. If studying in Singapore, they can study in an international environment, while they can shorten the time required to study, which allows them go get jobs and earn money sooner.

After obtaining junior college degrees in Singapore, Vietnamese students can easily transfer credits to study at British and Australian universities and get bachelor degrees from the universities.

Also according to Duong, many Vietnamese students like going to Singapore to study because enrollment is very easy and there are no interviews. In many cases, students do not have to show learning records and do not have to prove their financial capabilities.

Risks existing

Phu Nu newspaper reported that the editorial board once received K.H, who left for Singapore to study under a contract signed with the Canh Tan, an overseas study consultancy firm. H planned to study at Queensfield Business School and had to pay 98 million dong for the consultancy service and other procedures. However, H realized that she was tricked, because she had to study at a quite different school in Singapore.

T.H.A was told by an overseas study consultancy firm that if she wanted to study in the US at low costs, and did not want to prove her financial capability or English skills, she should register to study at a Singaporean school for one year and then transfer credits to study at an US school.

However, after one year of studying in Singapore, the Singaporean school “forgot” to transfer credits for H.A, while the consultancy firm refused to help, saying that it has fulfilled its duties.

Bui Minh Diem Chau, Deputy Director, Dean of Cetana PSB Intellis, a 100 percent Singaporean invested school, said that there chaos in the private education market in Singapore. And in order to settle the problem, in May 2010, the Ministry of Education of the country decided to apply “edutrust”, the certification standards to protect students’ rights.

By the end of January 2011, only 17 private schools in Singapore had got four-year edutrust, and 43 schools had one-year edutrust. Meanwhile, many other private schools are still illegally enrolling international students.

Source: NLD