Vietnam Centre found training thousands of MBA’s illegally

The southern office of the Centre for International Training Cooperation in HCM City

The Vietnamese partner is the Centre for International Training Cooperation (CIEC), which was established under the umbrella of the prestigious, semi-official Vietnam Study Encouragement Society (Há»™i Khuyến Học). The American partner is ‘Columbia Southern University’ (CSU), a for-profit distance learning institution.

CSU – what is it?

Googling reveals that CSU was established in 1993 in the US to provide online training to people who want to earn degrees but cannot take time to study at schools. CSU claims to have a current enrollment of 23,000 students and to have developed “since 2004, Learning Partnerships with hundreds of companies, cities, and police and fire organizations around the world.” It also says that it is approved to provide training at US Department of Defense expense, and that about half of its students were previously in the American armed forces.

It appears that in contrast to some foreign training institutions exposed recently by the Vietnamese press, CSU is not a total fraud. However, according to College Board, a university entrance testing organization in the US, CSU has not been recognized by any prestigious accreditation organizations in the US. Only the ‘Distance Education and Training Council (DETC)’ recognizes CSU as a distance training establishment.

In principle, people who want to study in the US for a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree ought to score at least 600 points on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), have two years’ experience, get good scores on the GMAT (Graduated Management Admission Test), and have letters of recommendation from their undergraduate university professors.

CSU’s standards are considerably lower. Learners just need to have a TOEFL score of 530 or score 6.0 on the IELTS. The requirements for following the MBA training course at CSU are easier than the requirements set by an average traditional university in the US.

Although the study can help improve knowledge of learners, the degrees and certificates provided by such online training schools do not have much value. However, as will be seen, CSU had ideal conditions in Vietnam to develop its training programme.

CITC’s Role. Not revealing his identity, a Tien Phong reporter approached a representative of the Centre for International Training Cooperation (CITC), saying he wanted to register for the CSU master’s programme. Nguyen Ngoc Nha Truc of CITC told the reporter-learner that if learners cannot meet the English skills requirements, they can take a supplementary English class organized by CITC which would last three weeks and cost 1.5 million dong. After participating in that course, Truc said, the learners will be capable of joining the regular training programme.

The CSU training programme is not listed among the 121 foreign training programmes that the Ministry of Education and Training allows to operate in Vietnam.

The courses are lucrative as well as illegal

CITC says the legal basis that allows it to carry out the joint training programme is Dispatch No 8621 (September 27, 2002) of the Ministry of Education and Training.

However, Tien Phong learned that in the document, the Ministry only authorized the centre to “provide consultancy, introduce and provide information to Vietnamese learners about online training programmes of prestigious domestic and international training establishments.”

This time identifying themselves as reporters, Tien Phong staff contacted CITC’s southern office at 7 Nguyen Binh Khiem Street in HCM City. Nguyen Ba Dat, an official there, said the office only introduces training programmes and provides enrolment information to learners.

However, the incognito reporter who met Nguyen Ngoc Nha Truc, got quite different information from the centre. Learners have to enroll with CITC and pay tuition directly to the centre. Tuition for the MBA programme is $8230, which does not include the cost of textbooks, $600.

Tien Phong reports that since 2002, CITC has organized 20 training courses in both the north and south of the country for a total of 2000 learners, many of whom were staff of State agencies.

Source: Tien phong