Bengaluru colleges may have fooled overstaying African students

BENGALURU:In the summer of 2012, a middle-aged farmer in Mbarara met recruiting officials of a Bengaluru college who were visiting the western Ugandan nation offering various courses at `affordable' fees. Attracted by the prospect of good education for his son, the farmer sold a portion of his land. And that's how Kaikara Gueye reached Bengaluru, with dreams of quality education.

Soon enough, Gueye (name changed) discovered that what his father had paid for was only the admission fee and not for his business management course, said Bosco Kaweesi, a citybased activist from Uganda fighting for the rights of African students in India. Gueye was asked to pay tuition, hostel and other fees and his father sold another portion of his land in Mbarara.

Matters finally reached a stage when Gueye's father couldn't afford to send more money . Gueye couldn't pay to obtain a certificate from his school for extending his visa so he could reappear for exams he had failed, and has been in prison for the past 20 months for overstaying, Kaweesi said, declining to identify the institution.

Gueye's case is representative of the plight of several foreign students, many of them Africans, coming to the city for higher education, lured by colleges that actively recruit in their countries offering courses at what seem to be reasonable fees. Currently , at least 30 African students in the city are on bail after being arrested for overstaying, Kaweesi said. Many others have been deported without being able to complete their courses. Two weeks ago, P Harishekaran, additional commissioner of police (crime), formed a co-ordination committee to address the problems of the about 6,200 African students in the city, following clashes between some of them and locals. One of its primary tasks will be to address their reasons for overstaying of the 912 foreign students overstaying in the city , 455 are from Africa.

Harishekaran included state higher education department principal secretary Bharath Lal Meena in the panel after hearing complaints from African students of institutions overcharging them. Meena told ET that if any institution overcharges foreign ers, they can approach the Police African co-ordination panel as well as the higher education department.

In April last year, five students from Africa filed a complaint with the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) that their institution demanded additional fees for everything from tuition to hostel accommodation and disallowed them from taking their finalyear examinations until all these were fully paid for.

The commission asked the institution to allow the students to write the exams pending a probe.

The larger outcome of this case was that SHRC in December directed Bangalore University to regulate admissions of foreign students in city colleges under it, including in terms of fee structure, visa exten of fee structure, visa exte sions and issuance of hall tickets for examinations.

Bangalore University registrar (evaluation) K N Ninge Gowda conceded that some city institutions exploit foreign students.