Praneeta Prakash 
The Higher Education Commission will use Fiji’s overseas missions to verify foreign schools as more students head to non-traditional destinations like Japan and China.
Chair Steve Chand says the move will help weed out fraudulent institutions that lack proper facilities or do not exist.
“For too long, we have never checked on the corresponding institutions, if they really exist. Some of them do not exist. We’ve had cases where the children have come back and said, look, we went to classes. There’s no classes. There’s not even a school room there. Some, not even lecturers. So look, these are the issues that we’ll have to bring up with our overseas missions.
Chand says the rapid expansion of student destinations has exposed gaps in monitoring and oversight.
We have students that are going in Japan, China, and all the other countries. We won’t be able to resolve the world’s problem, but perhaps if we have our check and balances in place, we can provide our Fijians with a solid framework to work out of, or at least to refer to.
He says the Ministry of Immigration is also tightening its processes.
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