A visit by Thanh Nien on Sunday found the Britannia School building in Singapore has been leased by another tenant. The school closed without notice leaving two Vietnamese sisters thousands of dollars out of pocket.

Two Vietnamese students who paid nearly US$19,000 for a six-month course in Singapore may have lost their money after the school closed and the principal disappeared after only a month of study.

Singapore’s Small Claims Tribunal (SCT) has ordered school Director Zuliana Ibrahim to refund the girls SGD$9,425 each by February 16 for Chi and March 2 for Linh.

The pair had paid a total of more than SGD28,000 ($18,348) for the six-month English course they had signed up for last August.

They had only attended the course for about a month when they were shocked to find the school gates closed after they returned on January 5 from a two-week holiday.

The school, located at International Plaza, posted a notice that it would resume operation on February 2. But it is still closed.

Chi and Linh said they asked a friend in Singapore, Phuong, to help them get their money. They said Phuong met with Ibrahim to ask for the tuition fees to be refunded.

Ibrahim allegedly said she would return the money by the Vietnamese Lunar New Year (January 26) but instead of paying, she cut off her mobile phone service as well as the school phone and had her name removed from the Accounting and Corporate Regularity Singapore website.

It was not the first time the sisters had asked for a refund as they had tried to cancel their enrolment last October. At the time, Ibraham had also agreed to return their money but didn’t make good, the sisters said.

Court decision ignored

Desperate for their refund, Linh and Chi went to the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) who advised them to make a claim through the SCT.

A judgment was passed in Ibrahim’s absence ordering her to refund the full amount.

Linh has returned to Vietnam but Chi is still in Singapore waiting for their money.

An SCT staff member Monday told Thanh Nien the sisters could petition the bailiff’s office, which would enforce the court’s decision.

Phuong said two students from China and the Philippines were also asking for a total refund of SGD5,329 ($3,492) while another 16 students, mostly from Indonesia, have returned home without incurring major losses as they were paying for the course per class.

One of many

It has been a year since a spate of unannounced school closures in Singapore, like the one at Britannia School of Education, put a thorn in Singapore’s bid to become a hub for private schools. The Southeast Asian island had planned for 150,000 foreign students to be enrolled by 2015, the Singapore’s Straits Time newspaper reported Monday.

Froebel School of Education, which lost its license to operate in October 2007, was the last private school at the center of controversy following complaints by both students and staff, the newspaper reported.

The newspaper said several other private schools had shut down suddenly in recent years amid complaints about poorly qualified teachers, unsatisfactory teaching materials and programs.

Since July 2006, up to 32 private Singaporean schools have had their certification of quality revoked by CASE Trust for Education, closed or ejected from the organization, which was launched by CASE for Private Education Organizations.

Reported by Thuc Minh