Many students from the Darjeeling hills may want to study in the Uk, the USA, Australia, New Zealand for their bachelor or master level. This may help.
I am not aware of any educational consultants based in Darjeeling Hills, but hopefully you may find many. In fact, parents are the ones who will invest a lot of money to educate their kids abroad, so they are always apprehensive that some consultants will run away with their money doing nothing but promising big. Well, if you are interested to study in the UK, the best place to start is from London where you will find thousands of Nepalis studying. Most of them will be helpful in terms of room sharing, accommodation, jobs, etc.
First things first. You need to determine which course you want to pursue. Normally, the student visa is granted for students seeking degree courses, though people from Nepal and India are going for diploma courses like ACCA, IMIS, ABE, etc. To play a safe game, it is best to try for degree courses which are of 3-year durations. Degrees are awarded by universities, but it is very expensive to study in universities. They charge anything between £9,000 to £12,000 per year for international students. However, same courses can be studied elsewhere in private colleges who provide admission and tuition at much lower costs, say £3,000 per year maximum.
Actually there is no need to hire a consultant if you can try yourself. In extreme cases, there are very good consultants based in Kathmandu who take NC Rs. 20,000 for their charges and provide you College Admission Letter for visa application, other guidance, visa interview tests, etc. But they can’t do anything than that because granting a visa is dependent on VFS Global based in Delhi. They can only organise your documents. Kathmandu is far away from Kalimpong and if you cannot afford to meet a consultant, you can try yourself with little help from me.
First of all, you need to search for courses suitable to you. The visa is granted depending upon which course you are going to study and whether your high school / senior secondary school (ICSE/ISC) courses were of the similar subjects. In other words, if you have taken science in ICSE/ISC, you may want to go for computing or science or technology subjects. If you have studied commerce, you may want to study ACCA or business management courses.
There is no B.Com subjects available in UK as far as I know. It is called management. For example, check this website:
http://www.holborncollege.ac.uk/. That is one of the affordable colleges, low price, high reputation. Many Indian and Nepalis study there. You can study either Business or Law only in Holborn College. Their fee is very low. Also look at
http://www.greenwichcollege.co.uk/ and
http://www.lahe.org.uk/. Explore all subjects, duration, fees and how to apply.
In those colleges, may be you don’t have to do IELTS. Students have to do Academic IELTS, not General IELTS and that is not so easy. Someone said IELTS can be done in Siliguri, but that is expensive. May be around IC Rs.18,000. Look into IELTS.org and see what sorts of tests are required. IELTS can also be done in Kathmandu and the cost is perpaps NC 25,000. There is no need to attend any classes though there are hundreds of institutes providing IELTS coaching. If you have IELTS scores, there is good chance of getting student visa. You can order a CD ROM from ielts.org directly by paying online or sending payment from your nearest bank. There are also many online free tests found in Internet. You only need a headphone and computer with Internet access. You can learn online.
I am not sure how much your parents can invest for your education in the UK. Whether you want to do part time work (it is allowed) or just dedicate yourself for full time study? If you have plenty of money, it is worth to study in Kingston College in the outskirts of London. Visit their website:
http://www.kingston-college.ac.uk/ . I think they charge between £7,000 to £8,000 only per year but Kingston College is attached to Kingston University and they have range of courses to suit you.
The most important thing is that if you get admission in Kingston College or Kingston University, there is high probability of getting student visa because Kingston is highly reputed institution. You don’t have to pay any commission to anyone. Just look at the costs in college’s website and decide where and what you want to study. Let me know whether you want to study in low cost college or in reputable college? If you want to study business, you can try Holborn College. In private colleges, the entry is direct, just apply online or send completed application form to the college directly. But if you want to study in renowned colleges like Kingston, the admission is controlled by UCAS. See
http://www.ucas.org.uk/ or ucas.org. You have to earn sufficient points in UCAS to be eligible to study in the UK. Don’t be confused because I gave you so much information.
Before taking any step for application abroad, ask yourself these questions:
1. What you want to study – diploma or degree?
2. Subject? Discipline? (Arts, Business, Forestry, Computing, Engineering, Graphics Design, Multimedia…Publishing…Journalism…Economics, social studies…)
3. Where you want to study? London? Birmingham? Leeds? Liverpool?
4. Private college or university?
5. Have you passed class XII?
Private colleges also take students in January, April and June. But in renowned colleges like Kingston, Holborn, etc. September is the starting session for which you should start processing from June.
MIRIK BOKAR MONASTRY