VietNamNet Bridge – A lot of Vietnamese students in Australia and Japan have been asked to return home because they did not go to school, but went working at factories and farms for money.

The miserable life in foreign lands

Finishing high school with the learning aptitude at “average,” Tran Hoai Nam in Hong Linh town still dreamt of studying at a foreign university and then obtaining a good job overseas.

The ad piece about the work-study program in Australia, Canada and Portugal with the 15 percent fee discount was then really attractive to Nam.

After 15 days, he got the certificate on a savings book with the value of VND1.2 billion – the evidence about the financial capability – thanks to a relation with a senior executive of a bank. Other required documents were also completed; including the IELTS 5.0 certificate, after Nam’s parents paid $20,000.

Nam left Vietnam for Australia three months later in the jubilation of the whole family.

The majority of Vietnamese students attended the English training courses at English centers in Sydney. On the first days at school, Nam met a lot of Vietnamese friends. However, later he did not meet them any more. It was estimated that 80 percent of students gave up study.

Nam had to go work to get money, because he could only get a visa extension if he paid tuitions.

Nam and a lot of other Vietnamese students spent all day working on grape, peas and fresh bamboo shoot fields. The income of over AU$1,000 a week and a big debt he incurred helped him endure more.

However, the biggest terror for Nam and his friends was that he had to hide himself to escape migration officers. One day, Nam and the other 10 friends, most of them were Vietnamese, whose visas got expired, were caught by the officers.

Tran Thi Quynh N in Ha Tinh City went to Japan to study after six months of learning Japanese with the total expense of $13,000 – a big sum of money that her mother borrowed from bank after mortgaging their house.

However, N realized that it was not so easy to follow study and take extra jobs to earn money in Japan, so she was told in Vietnam.

Under the Japanese laws, students from other countries can work no more than 4 hours a day and no more than 28 hours a week. On average, Yen750 (VND160,000) is paid for one hour of working.

However, a lot of students have to work hard with more than 28 hours a week in order to get more money to cover their basic needs and the high tuitions. As a result, they have no more time to sleep and study.

Too easy to study abroad

More and more Vietnamese cherish the hope of going abroad after finishing high school so as to study at foreign universities and get good jobs. And more and more overseas study consultancy firms have been established to help turn the dreams into reality.

When the reporter came to AN – a well-known overseas study consultancy firm in Vinh City, which helped Nam get the visa to Australia, an officer told him that the firm can help anyone go to Australia if the client accepts to pay $25,000.

Bao Ha Tinh