Minister of Immigration and Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell says over the last few months his ministry has been made aware of a number of cases where Bahamian high schools students have fallen victim to fraud within the education system as it pertains to scholarships from schools within the United States.

He is urging students especially those receiving offers from high schools to be very cautious as some schools are not being forthright about what they were offering students.

“Parents should be very concerned about the schools which their children are applying for, this is dealing mainly with high school age students and the reason that becomes important is basketball is something that drives young males and females but young males in particular to drive them to want to leave school in the Bahamas and go abroad,” he said.

“The problem they have indicated is that many of these schools are not what they are cracked up to be.”

He said there have also been reports of individuals being caught in forms of human trafficking.

“In some cases there have been allegations of passports being withheld by the school or parents not being able to have access to the children,” Mr. Mitchell said.

“The children are told they are getting a scholarship and once they get over to the states they have to work for their school. So all of these things are contrary to what is presented by the school.”

Mr. Mitchell states that it is issues like these presented that have caused the rejection of some US visas as it pertains to Bahamian students.

He is asking parents to take the extra steps necessary by visiting the institutions and making sure they are accredited before moving forward.