Thursday, September 01, 2005

Uproar in Dubai over USQ closure :: The Australian

This story just gets curiouser and curiouser:

As reported in The Australian on Friday, USQ vice-chancellor Bill Lovegrove said the Dubai venture would close next month.

He blamed the move on a decision by Knowledge Village, the campus landlord, to impose unacceptable licensing conditions which would shift all the financial risk for the campus to USQ.
. . .
Professor Lovegrove said any refund of fees was the responsibility of USQ's former partner in Dubai, the International Academic Corporation, not the university. "All the money is with IAC and it's IAC's legal responsibility to refund the students because they accepted and retained the money," he said yesterday.

The Dubai debacle began a year ago when Professor Lovegrove first learned about the new campus through a newspaper advertisement just weeks before it was due to open. It had not been approved by the university's governing council. Three senior staff, who have since left the university, were marched off campus when the issue erupted.

2 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

He may be but being from the Middle East, I can tell you that Arabian governments always change their laws and regulations to suite their internet or make more money wherever possible! It sounds like the usual to me… KV probably wanted more control or more money (which lets not forget will be coming out of the pockets of students!) and the USQ partner said no, you're not keeping in line with what we agreed so we're closing the place down. The vice chancellor might be placing more blame on them but in the end of the day he could have kept it running and accepting students and taking their money but he decided not to because obviously he wants to do what’s best for the uni. Sure its reputation might suffer for a few months but its better than its quality standards being run down over time by incompetent money hungry people. I've witnessed this happen in my own country (Bahrain) so many times… We’ve even had warnings issued recently about universities claiming false affiliation to universities abroad. Its shameful how authorities in this region act!! And as a graduate of USQ in Australia, I can proudly say that university was always good, fair and helpful and I’m really glade to see they want to MAINTAIN that!!

12:53 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

sorry ..I meant interest.. hehehe

12:56 PM  

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