A hairdressing college in Australia has permanently shut down leaving fate of many overseas students, including from India, hanging in balance.
The Sydney college that charged USD 7000 each as fees and equipment three weeks ago from the overseas students finally announced its closure, apparently due to amended migration skills programme.
A 24-year old hairdressing student Neil Ahuja of New Delhi was quoted as saying that he had paid the college USD 5000 for his first semester fees and USD 2000 for equipment.
“We asked the principal about the academy about the course after the new rules were announced. She told us, ‘Don’t worry you guys are safe’,” Neil was quoted as saying by Sydney Morning Herald.
“They had been pressuring us to pay the USD 2000 for our hairdressing kit, which we could have got for a few hundred dollars. Otherwise we couldn’t do the course. Now we have been left high and dry. I just arrived in Australia and I don’t know what to do.”
Students and staff were locked out of The Edge Academy, whose registration renewal was under consideration by State government authorities.
The closure of the privately-owned college in Sydney’s west is being seen as a result of the recently- amended immigration rules announced earlier this month that delinked certain trade occupations including hairdressing and cookery from permanent residency.
