The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs has recently stripped three city-based Singaporean schools of their business licenses after they were found running unauthorized programs.

The Melior Business School Vietnam had its license revoked because it had enrolled students in junior college and university courses even though the school was only allowed to offer short-term (less than one year) vocational courses.

Melior unexpectedly shut down overnight last month, leaving hundreds of students in limbo.

City authorities have also worked with relevant parties to freeze the school’s bank account and ban the school’s director, Cheng Sim Kok, from leaving Vietnam.

The second school whose permit was withdrawn by the department is the ERC Institute Vietnam, which was permitted to provide occupational training, but then recruited students for undergraduate and graduate programs while charging exorbitant tuition.

November departmental inspections showed that 326 students were enrolled in ERC’s college and junior college courses, while 120 students were undertaking master’s modules there.

ERC was required to pay a fine and refund its students.

The other violator, the Singapore Informatics and Business Management Education Company, was discovered running a number of illegal undergraduate programs in cooperation with foreign partners.