The late January collapse of yet another private college chain - this time in the English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) sector - has reinforced fears of overseas-controlled private education colleges making business decisions to cut and run from Australia. And ironically it appears that the collapse of eight Australian colleges from the Japanese GEOS group may have been precipitated by a precautionary audit by one of the regulators, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority. The VRQA, beleaguered by accusations that it hadn't done enough to protect private college students, had been directed by former skills minister Jacinta Allan to conduct “formal financial health checks” of colleges with international students. “Through our financial heath assessment process, the VRQA discovered that the directors have been diverting revenue from GEOS Melbourne to support the operations of other holdings in Australia and overseas,” said director Lynn Glover.

Glover said that the VRQA had been negotiating for the establishment of a trust fund and other arrangements “which would have secured funds in the Melbourne business”.

Source: BERNAMA