Education Agents

When I set out to write a piece on education agents, I was struck by two realities at the end of my research.

a)    Education which has become as much a business as any other trade is getting messier. More so because government has never played its role of an effective enabler, facilitator, partner or an arbitrator. 

b)    Most Indian students are not good at deciding, taking responsibilities or holding oneself accountable for any wrongs if they happen (destiny is blamed). These characteristics have become the norm because schools never encouraged them to think independently or mended their mistakes in a constructive way, nor did parents. When windows of small mistakes are nipped in the bud, big ones naturally occur and then they cost heavy- to students, parents and society at large. 

These two observations might seem unrelated in an agent’s write-up but they blend seamlessly when one notices how dodgy education agents fool students and rob them of their future and how they continue to operate unhindered.

A lot of students aiming to go abroad land up at education agents' doorstep to figure out what will work for them. I call them ‘platter students’. They want all the information on their platter. They will not cross check and will blindly follow what the agent has convinced them into; any course, any institution, any country.

Cross-checking requires hours of verification starting with self and then with the college they want to enroll in. I wonder how many really do a first level of self-assessment before taking an agent's suggestion. For example - What programme do I want to pursue, what is my objective in pursuing that particular progamme, what is my aim of going abroad, which college(s) do I want to apply to and why, which part of the country do I want to stay in, how will I fund my education,what will be the living cost of staying in that particular city of the country, how many extra bucks do I need to keep handy for emergencies, can I get a scholarship or fee waiver, and so on.

Students hardly get trained in schools to do self-research, to think, to analyze, to list down pros and cons, to observe (schools should have a class solely dedicated on the topic : 'observation'.

Has an Indian XIIth-grader ever been given an assignment of writing a 500-word essay on “parameters of choosing a college abroad,” or “college education abroad and challenges.” or  “your career goals and the road map for achieving it” or “ How I can fund my college education,”... 

Let alone schools, most parents too don’t let their kids to act or think independently. Neither do they train them to handle failure with dignity. This kind of protection covers are damaging. Why can’t parents limit themselves be an A-class supervisor? Protection makes for a stunted emotional and judgmental growth. And that’s when they fail to ‘sense’ things.  

Let me tell you how shady education agents operate. They will check students’ grades first and then suggest colleges which are on their list. Most agents act as agents of foreign institutions and would refer students only to those colleges who they have partnered with. Higher the grades, more expensive the colleges suggested. Reason? A higher commission in the kitty. By a very conservative standard, the ongoing commission rates, per student is anywhere between five-seven percent of the tuition fee. Some agents take commission of up to USD 3000 on each student.

Now, if a student has already done his/her research before visiting an agent, he/she will certainly get a drift of something ‘wrong’. If he/she has dealt with people independently, he/she will certainly sense the ‘wrong’.

But the larger point is why trust agents over your self research? An agent’s entire machinery operates like a shop where if a Rs100 grape cookie is out of bounds for a financially weak student, no problem, the student can still ‘shop’ for a Rs 15 apple cookie, but an agent will not let any student walk away sans a cookie. You see he is running a shop and he needs business.  

Agents may not encourage you to apply in good colleges, even if your grades are good because those colleges may not be in the agent’s list.

  

Dodgy agents, who go by fancy names, like education consultants, counselors and partners, function in an unregulated environment and get away pretty much scot-free. Worse, they end up overshadowing genuine counselors by advertising hugely and remaining visible at all times. There are no official guidelines under which they need to function. The government is yet to monitor this area. Till it does so, students.... you are on your own!