Illegal IELTS centres dot city

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, August 24

Bathinda has become a hub for IELTS and immigration centres in the past five years as the trend of going abroad is catching the fancy of Malwa youth.

The Deputy Commissioner’s office has issued 89 licences to run IELTS (International English Language Testing System) centres in the city, but many illegal training centres are flourishing in the absence of any regulatory authority. Some of these institutes don’t have even qualified staff to train students.

The ‘outbound student mobility’ has risen significantly, expanding the ‘study abroad’ market in the city. Banners of IELTS centres and consultant agencies dot every nook and corner of the city, especially on the Ajit road.

However, dream to study abroad is not easy to achieve. It comes with a heavy price. To pursue it, many youth from rural areas are mortgaging their properties, including agricultural land, and borrowing loans. Without proper knowledge and verifying about colleges, they are going abroad with 5-6 IELTS bands and facing survival problems in the foreign country. The pressure to send money home is also adding to their woes, say experts.

Parmeet Singh Sethi, an immigration expert, said: “There is craze among youth to go abroad on a study visa, but they lack knowledge about courses and institutes to enrol for. Just to fulfil their foreign dream, they are taking loans, thus falling into a debt trap.”

Bhavdeep Kohli, an IELTS and image consultant, said, “The joblessness in the country is one of the reasons the youth are looking to go abroad.”

• Rs 100-crore business in Bathinda with the opening of many training centres 

• 70-80 students enrolled in an institute

• Rs 9,000-11,000 monthly fee for a student

• 10,000 taking coaching in city institutes