Washington University of Barbados

Last updated
Washington University of Barbados
MottoWe Listen - We Invent - We Deliver
Type For-profit medical school
Active2016–2018
FounderGopi Venkata Rao, CEO
Accreditation Unaccredited
DirectorDeoraj Dalchand
Students200+
Address
Casa Grande Hotel, Hibiscus Block, Oldbury
,
St. Philip
,
Barbados

13°05′39″N59°28′27″W / 13.09430°N 59.47421°W / 13.09430; -59.47421 Coordinates: 13°05′39″N59°28′27″W / 13.09430°N 59.47421°W / 13.09430; -59.47421
LanguageEnglish
Website www.wubmed.org
Washington University Of Barbados.png

Washington University of Barbados (WUB) is a defunct medical school which opened in 2017 and closed the following year. [1] [2] The for-profit university received a charter from the Barbados Ministry of Education in 2016, but was unaccredited. [3] [4] Allegedly part of an international scam in which 200 students from India were conned out of ₹25 crore, the CEO and director of the school were arrested by the Royal Barbados Police and charged with fraud in 2018. [2] [5]

Contents

Background

In May 2016, The Barbados Advocate reported that WUB was "in the very early stages of making inquiries to be established in Barbados". [6] Senator Harcourt Husbands mentioned the school while debating a bill to establish a Caribbean Accreditation Authority for education in medicine and other health professions. [6] At the time, the American University of Barbados and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill were already operating medical schools in Barbados. [6]

According to its website, the WUB was established in 2016, but was also "a renowned healthcare institution that has offered Medical Degrees for over a decade." [7] WUB claimed that it was "devoted to preparing and educating students from across the globe to become professional doctors", and that it was exceptional in "[implementing] the elements for USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Examination) within its curriculum." [7]

In February 2017, the NationNews reported that WUB was "preparing to welcome its first batch of students" after postponing its opening by one year. [8] The article noted that the campus would be based at the Casa Grande Hotel at Oldbury in Saint Philip, and quoted WUB director Deoraj Dalchand as saying that the school was in the process of finalising negotiations with the hotel. [8] Casa Grande had previously been under fire when Nigerian students attending Barbados Community College complained of lack of running water and air conditioning. [9]

Student, faculty, and staff concerns

Washington University of Barbados

The first students were admitted to WUB in April 2017. [1] By August 4, 2017, Barbados Today reported that "15 of the 80 foreign students have indicated a desire to leave," citing a letter circulated to the media by a source claiming to represent the student body. [1] The letter explained that the students, who were mainly from India, felt that they had been made "false promises" before embarking on their journey to Barbados. [1] Upon arrival, they found "inadequate classroom furniture and equipment, a lack of air-conditioning, improper ventilation, poor quality food, a lack of study materials and, unlike traditional universities, no proper campus", and felt that they had been "mistreated" and "harassed". [1]

In addition, a video surfaced of WUB Dean Dr. Ram Prasad Upreti addressing students and complaining about the lack of books in the library, the lack of drinking water, and what he characterised as prison-like living conditions for the students. [1] [10] Questioning the very legitimacy of the medical school, he suggested that WUB could lose all its teaching staff because both the faculty and staff had not been paid. [1]

Dalchand told Barbados Today that the students' grievances were being addressed, claiming that the first batch of students had originally been headed for a school in Guyana, but had been redirected at the last minute to Barbados due to delays by the Indian medical board in providing the required documents. [1] Three weeks later, Upreti was referred to in the press as a "former dean" of the school, as CEO Gopi Venkat of WUB accused its rival, the six-year-old American University of Barbados, of a smear campaign against WUB. [10] One year later, on August 15, 2018, the Casa Grande Hotel held a first anniversary celebration for WUB, promoting the school as an example of how "health tourism" could benefit Barbados by bringing foreign exchange into the country. [11] Mrs. Asha Ram Mirchandani, the owner of Case Grande Airport Hotel & Resort, told The Barbados Advocate that WUB intended to bring 500 more students into Barbados. [11]

Meanwhile, WUB remained unaccredited by the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions (CAAM-HP), the United States Department of Education's National Committee on Foreign Medical Education Accreditation (NCFMEA), or any other body empowered to certify medical schools in the region. [12]

Arrests

Students and staff at WUB first became aware that CEO Gopi Venkata Rao was wanted in India for fraud on September 30, 2018. [4] On September 29, The Hindu newspaper in India reported that police had raided an educational consultancy firm in Bangalore suspected of having conned over 200 students out of a total of ₹25 crore. [13] The police alleged that the owner of the consultancy, Gopi Venkata Rao, and his staff had targeted students taking the Common Entrance Test, promising them seats at medical schools in various countries including the United States, Canada, Guyana, and China, [13] [14] and charging between ₹30 lakh and ₹40 lakh each. [13] Six people were arrested in India and charged with cheating and forgery, but Venkata Rao, and an associate were said to have escaped. [13] Back in Barbados, a group of students from WUB took their grievances to the Ministry of Education, which began investigation into their living conditions at the school. [15]

Following an international manhunt, Venkata Rao was arrested on campus and taken into custody by the Royal Barbados Police Force on Friday, October 5, 2018. [15] [16] [17] His executive secretary, Tricia Newton, told the media that 40 staff members had not been paid for more than three months, and that both students and staff had no access to food on campus. [4] She also disclosed that the school had refused to renew work permits for Indian staff members, and routinely replaced them when their permits expired. [4]

Soon after the arrest, a group of approximately 200 students gathered for a meeting with Barbados government officials, led by Cynthia Forde, Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs, and representatives of the ministries of labor, health, education, and welfare. [17] Frustrated and confused, the students complained that they had had no access to food, electricity, or water, because the school had neglected to pay their utility bills for five months. [4] [15] While some students said they wanted to return home to India, ministry officials suggested that they might be able to transfer to other medical schools in Barbados. [4]

On October 8, 2018, Gopi Venkata Rao, age 42, was charged with four counts of evading liability, including three dishonoured cheques totalling BDS $210,000 made out to Casa Grande, Inc., and another in the amount of BDS $30,000 owed to Furniture Ltd. T/S Builders Value Mart. [18] Although police initially reported that WUB Director Deoraj Dalchand, age 32, was assisting them with their investigations, [19] by October 16, the reported that Dalchand had been remanded to prison at HMP Dodds, along with Venkata Rao. [20] Both men were scheduled to reappear in court on November 12, 2018. [20] It later emerged that Venkata Rao allegedly owed nearly BDS $3,000,000 for use of the Casa Grande Hotel facility. [2]

Aftermath

Indian students and staff

On October 14, 2018, Prime Minister Mia Mottley stated in her address to the nation that WUB students would be taken care of and provided with shelter, food, and basic necessities until they were transferred to other schools or returned home to their countries, depending on their individual preferences. [21] As of October 28, 2018, Nation News reported that there were still 35 to 40 students left at the Casa Grande Hotel, including some who were waiting for refunds, despite the lack of electricity or running water. [2] By then, most of the staff and students had left for India, Guyana, Saint Lucia, and Europe. [2] Only a few Indian students remained in Barbados and transferred to American University of Barbados School of Medicine. [5] In February 2019, the new Indian High Commissioner Mahendra Singh Kanyal met with members of the Sindhi Association of Barbados, including two former students from WUB, and assured them that Indian government would not tolerate fraudulent activities by Indian offshore institutions and would do more to protect Indian students from mistreatment in the future. [5]

Indian school officials

On November 13, 2018, Gopi Venkata Rao and Deoraj Dalchand were granted BDS $200,000 bail, on the condition they surrender their passports. [22] They were scheduled to return to court on January 24, 2019, to answer various fraud-related charges, including dishonestly inducing Casa Grande to wait for payout of BDS $2,863,080. [22]

Barbados politics, education, and business

In her address to the nation, Prime Minister Mottley said that the WUB incident was one of many "things" the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) had been confronted with since being elected into office on May 25, 2018. [21]

An article in Barbados Today pointed out that WUB had been "one of the earliest and brightest jewels" of the Freundel Stuart administration's efforts to establish Barbados as a "hub for medical education", before the Democratic Labour Party was defeated in the 2018 elections. [4] A former consultant to WUB claimed that before leaving India, all WUB staff had been shown a video featuring the previous Barbados prime minister, Freundel Stuart, and Minister of Health John Boyce, guaranteeing that the WUB met all the necessary health requirements. [4] According to consultant Subash Agarwal, one month after the Barbados general elections, the former Minister of Education Ronald Jones had visited campus and promised staff and students that accreditation by the Barbados Accreditation Council was imminent. [4]

University of West Indies Vice Chancellor Sir Hilary Beckles expressed his sympathy for the students, and described the WUB scandal as an embarrassment to higher education. [3] Calling for stricter checks and balances for all educational institutions and rigorous vetting of foreign teaching staff in the Caribbean, Beckles distanced public universities such as UWI from for-profit universities such as WUB. [3] Similarly, Barbados International Business Association (BIBA) President Julia Hope told Loop News that the scandal underscored the importance of conducting careful due diligence before doing business with new entrants to Barbados. [23]

In January 2019, when the Ross University School of Medicine relocated from Dominica to Barbados, Education Minister Santia Bradshaw reassured Barbadian citizens that unlike WUB, it was a legitimate, accredited institution, and that the BLP-led government had done its due diligence on the school. [24]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Miami</span> Private university in Coral Gables, Florida

The University of Miami is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. As of 2021, the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, including the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine in Miami's Health District, the law school on the main campus, and the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science on Virginia Key with research facilities in southern Miami-Dade County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osmania University</span> Public state university in Hyderabad, Telangana

Osmania University is a collegiate public state university located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Mir Osman Ali Khan, the 7th Nizam of Hyderabad in 1918, He released a farman to establish OSMANIA UNIVERSITY on the day of 28 August 1918. It is the third oldest university in southern India, and the first to be established in the erstwhile Kingdom of Hyderabad. It was the first Indian university to have Urdu as a medium of instruction — but with English as a compulsory subject. As of 2012, the university hosts 3,700 international students from more than 80 nations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education</span> Private university in Mexico

Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), also known as Tecnológico de Monterrey or just Tec, is a secular and coeducational private university based in Monterrey, Mexico, which has grown to include 35 campuses throughout the country. One of only 45 universities in the World to be ranked with 5 QS Stars, it is widely recognized as one of the most prestigious universities in Latin America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. George's University</span> University in Grenada, West Indies

St. George's University is a private medical school and international university in Grenada, West Indies, offering degrees in medicine, veterinary medicine, public health, the health sciences, nursing, arts and sciences, and business. St. George's University was established by an act of Grenada's parliament on July 23, 1976. Classes in the School of Medicine began January 17, 1977. In 1993, the university added graduate and undergraduate programs. In 1996, it was granted a charter for the School of Arts and Sciences and a Graduate Studies Program. In 1997, undergraduate courses in international business, life sciences, medical sciences, pre-medical and pre-veterinary medicine were added. The School of Veterinary Medicine was established in 1999, as was the university's Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.

The Art Institutes (AI) are a collection of private for-profit art schools in the United States. Since 2019, the schools have been owned by Education Principle Foundation, a non-profit that also owns South University. The Art Institutes offer programs at the certificate, associate's, bachelors, and master's levels. The Art Institutes have faced accreditation and legal issues and student loan debtors have appealed to the US Department of Education for debt cancellation through defense to repayment claims. These efforts are premised on allegations they were defrauded. The student debt group "I Am Ai" has acted as a support group for students and former students of the Art Institutes, offering advice about debt cancellation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of the West Indies</span> International university in the Caribbean

The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 17 English-speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turks and Caicos Islands. Each country is either a member of the Commonwealth of Nations or a British Overseas Territory. The aim of the university is to help "unlock the potential for economic and cultural growth" in the West Indies, thus allowing improved regional autonomy. The university was originally instituted as an independent external college of the University of London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Benin (Nigeria)</span> Public university in Benin City, Nigeria

University of Benin (UNIBEN) is a public research university located in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. It is among the universities owned by the Federal Government of Nigeria and was founded in 1970. The School currently has two campuses with fifteen faculties including a central library called the John Harris Library. The buildings in UNIBEN are sparsely built, they are not close to each other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Chicago School of Professional Psychology</span>

The Chicago School of Professional Psychology is a private university with its main campus in Chicago, Illinois. Established in 1979, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology was primarily focused on the professional application of psychology. Today it has more than 6,000 students at campuses across the United States and online. The university offers more than 30 academic programs in a variety of professional fields such as psychology, business, health care, health services, education, counseling, and nursing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine</span>

The Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) is a private medical school in Erie, Pennsylvania, Greensburg, Pennsylvania, Bradenton, Florida, DeFuniak Springs, Florida and Elmira, New York. Founded in 1992, LECOM confers medical (D.O.), dental (DMD), pharmacy (PharmD), as well as master's degrees in the health sciences. LECOM operates one of the few accelerated three-year pharmacy programs in the country, and is one of 2 pharmacy schools in the country with a distance education program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Health Sciences, Lahore</span> Public university located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan

The University of Health Sciences, Lahore is a graduate, affiliating public university located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ross University School of Medicine</span> Caribbean medical school in Barbados

Ross University School of Medicine (RUSM) is a private for-profit medical school. Its main campus is located in Barbados, and separate administrative offices are located in Iselin, New Jersey, and Miramar, Florida, in the United States. Prior to 2019, the university's main campus was in Portsmouth, Dominica but moved to its present location in Barbados in January 2019. RUSM is owned by Adtalem Global Education Inc.

The American University of Integrative Sciences (AUIS), is a private for-profit offshore medical school with a single campus located in Barbados. Founded in 1999, it was formerly known as the University of Sint Eustatius School of Medicine (USESOM). For a period, the school was based in Sint Maarten, where it was taken over by IEMR LLC, a US-based company. Since October 2017, AUIS has operated in Barbados, and it is currently a candidate for accreditation by the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions (CAAM-HP).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine</span>

The South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) is a privately owned educational institution providing higher education in Sri Lanka. It is recognised as a degree awarding institute under section 25A of the Universities Act No. 16 of 1978. In 2018, the parliament of Sri Lanka passed a special provisions act to abolish SAITM Medical faculty and to transfer the students to General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herguan University</span>

Herguan University was a private, unaccredited, university and alleged visa mill in Sunnyvale, California operated by Dr. Ying Qiu Wang. As of 2019, its domain names herguanuniversity.edu and herguanuniversity.org appear to be abandoned.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Texas Rio Grande Valley</span> Public university in Texas, U.S.A.

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) is a public research university with multiple campuses throughout the Rio Grande Valley region of Texas and is the southernmost member of the University of Texas System. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) was created by the Texas Legislature in 2013 after the consolidation of the University of Texas at Brownsville/Texas Southmost College and the University of Texas–Pan American.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Axact</span> Degree mill

Axact is a Pakistan software company that runs numerous websites selling fraudulent academic degrees. The company also owns the media company BOL Network.

California Northstate University College of Medicine (CNUCOM) is a private for-profit medical school located in Elk Grove, California and is one of the four colleges of California Northstate University, granting the degree of Doctor of Medicine (MD). Although the proposed California Northstate University hospital will operate on a not-for-profit basis, CNUCOM will remain a for-profit educational institution. The college of medicine was approved by the WASC in August 2013 and gained preliminary accreditation in June 2015 and provisional accreditation in June 2019 by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). In January 2022, the LCME denied CNUCOM full accreditation status; the school will remain provisionally accredited until further evaluation. California Northstate currently lacks authorization through the Higher Education Act title IV, Student Assistance section or Title 38 of the Veterans Benefit Program. This impacts access to Federal Student Loans, any Federal Student Funding, access to refinancing, and limits to currently 3 lenders.

<i>Mooga Nomu</i> 1969 Indian film

Mooga Nomu is a 1969 Indian Telugu-language drama film, produced M. Murugan, M. Saravanan and M. Kumaran of AVM Productions and directed by D. Yoganand. The film stars Akkineni Nageswara Rao and Jamuna, with music composed by R. Govardhanam. It is a remake of the studio's Tamil film Kalathur Kannamma (1960). The film was released on 13 February 1969.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of the West Indies at Cave Hill</span> Education organization in Cave Hill, Saint Michael,, Barbados

University of the West Indies at Cave Hill is a public research university in Cave Hill, Barbados. It is one of five general campuses in the University of the West Indies system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American University of Barbados</span> Medical school in Barbados

The American University of Barbados School of Medicine (AUB), founded in 2011, is a private medical school with its main campus in Wildey, Barbados. When it opened in January 2012, it was the first offshore private medical school in Barbados, started as a branch of Era's Lucknow Medical College and Hospital, based in Lucknow, India.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Gilkes, Ryan (August 4, 2017). "Bad medicine". Barbados Today. Archived from the original on December 13, 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Greaves, Tre (October 28, 2018). "Wednesday deadline". Nation News. Retrieved September 11, 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 "UWI Head Describes Scandal at Medical School in Barbados as Embarrassing". Virgin Islands News Online. October 13, 2018. Retrieved September 16, 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 King, Katrina (October 8, 2018). "'Fraud U.'". Cayman iNews. Retrieved September 11, 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 Carter, Gercine (February 22, 2019). "Indian Students 'Protected'". NationNews. Retrieved September 16, 2022.
  6. 1 2 3 "Medical Schools Scoping Barbados". The Barbados Advocate . May 16, 2016. Retrieved September 11, 2022.
  7. 1 2 "About Us". Washington University of Barbados. Retrieved September 11, 2022.
  8. 1 2 Bradshaw, Maria (February 19, 2017). "Medical school to open soon". NationNews. Retrieved September 14, 2022.
  9. ↑ Bradshaw, Maria (January 8, 2015). "Nigerian students speak out". Barbados Today. Retrieved September 14, 2022.
  10. 1 2 Bradshaw, Maria (August 27, 2017). "Medical schools in war of words". NationNews. Retrieved September 14, 2022.
  11. 1 2 Brancker, Nadia (August 15, 2018). "Medical Schools a Good Move". The Barbados Advocate . Retrieved September 14, 2022.
  12. ↑ King, Katrina (October 6, 2018). "Fraud U". Barbados Today. Archived from the original on December 26, 2018. Retrieved October 8, 2018.
  13. 1 2 3 4 "Bengaluru – Consultancy raided for seat scam". The Hindu . Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. September 29, 2018. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
  14. ↑ Thomas, Bellie (September 30, 2018). "Medical admissions: firm cheats students of Rs 25 crore". The Deccan Herald . Retrieved September 15, 2022.
  15. 1 2 3 Brathwaite, Sheria (October 5, 2018). "CEO taken away by police". Nation News. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
  16. ↑ "International hunt for Indian CEO in university fraud ends in Barbados". Loop News. October 6, 2018. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
  17. 1 2 Greaves, Natalie (October 7, 2018). "Barbados police detain head of offshore University". Caribbean National Weekly. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
  18. ↑ "University CEO charged". NationNews. October 8, 2018. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
  19. ↑ "Director of Washington University of Barbados helping police". Loop News. October 11, 2018. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
  20. 1 2 "Washington University of Barbados Director, CEO remanded for fraud". Loop News. October 16, 2018. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
  21. 1 2 Gooding, Kerri (October 17, 2018). "PM says Barbados will 'pay' for students caught in university fraud'". Loop News. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
  22. 1 2 "BARBADOS–CRIME–University officials granted bail". CANA News. November 13, 2018. Retrieved September 16, 2022– via Gale OneFile.
  23. ↑ Gooding, Kerri (October 11, 2018). "Washington Uni of Barbados saga a red flag for Int'l Business sector". Loop News. Retrieved September 16, 2022.
  24. ↑ Gooding, Kerri (January 5, 2019). "Minister assures Barbadians: Ross University is accredited". Loop News. Retrieved September 16, 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.