Closure of Vancouver’s top tech school leaves teachers, students in financial mess

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The rumours swirled for weeks of financial trouble at Red Academy due to rapid expansion, but Leon Wong didn’t want to believe that a reputable technology training institution in Vancouver would shut its doors and leave him with thousands of dollars in unpaid salary.

Launched in 2015, Red Academy attracted local and international students who were eager to work in Vancouver’s technology sector in the offices of Hootsuite, Slack, and Unbounce. Generally, the diploma programs offered six months of courses in web development and digital marketing, followed by six months of internships for a fee of $12,000 to $21,000.

When Red Academy abruptly shut its doors on March 27, 2020, dozens of international students were suddenly left with unanswered questions over their visa status, and how they would get their hefty tuition back. Some students hadn’t even started their courses yet before their money disappeared along with the company going financially bust.

Teachers missing thousands of dollars in unpaid salaries

Wong, who taught digital marketing as a contractor at the academy, says he is still owed $2,000 in unpaid salary. Wong believes his contractor status means he is lower on the priority list than the students and full-time colleagues, who are owed more money.

“The thing that really makes me mad is they [the students] were right about to graduate. They were doing their final project,” Wong said. “If you are going to go bankrupt, why can’t you just wait for them to finish the whole semester and before going bankrupt? Now they have to start over again. I was even more angry about how they treat the students than my salary.”

Fiona Samson, who taught user-interface courses at the academy, said she is owed roughly $5,000 in unpaid salary, vacation, and severance.

“At the time, I was like, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to pay for rent. I don’t know how I’m going to pay for food.’ So, that was financially very stressful,” Samson said.

She was one of many faculty and students on a Zoom call about the school’s closure and says they were told by Roy Agostino, the chief commercial officer at Red Academy, that the closure was related to the pandemic. But things didn’t add up, she said, because lockdowns caused by the pandemic were just starting to happen.

Agostino declined to comment on Red Academy’s closure.

A year later, still no refunds for students caught in “nightmare” experience

One of those students who was halfway through her one-year program was Edna Rojas. She has spent 10 months chasing $6,000 she is owed with B.C.’s governing body of private institutions known as the Private Training Institutions Branch (PTIB), which operates under the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training.

Not only are the students missing thousands of dollars, Rojas said the academy’s abrupt closure meant that their visas, which allowed them to work in B.C., were suddenly invalid.

“It was very difficult, I had to choose what am I going to do now. So, I had to leave my apartment of 11 years and that was very painful,” she added.

According to PTIB’s website, after Red Academy had closed and “surrendered its designation certificate”, refund claims were directed to and processed by PTIB.

Jose Garrote from Spain is still waiting for his refund of $12,000 from PTIB. Garotte said he has contacted the PTIB, but he’s not sure whether he will get a refund and the application process has been confusing and frustrating.

“It’s been a nightmare,” he said.

Out of five students CityNews reached out to, only one had received their refund of a $1,000 deposit. Another student, based in India, was told she would be receiving $21,000 in refunds the next month.

A spokesperson from the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training said in a statement that PTIB is “assisting individual students on a case by case basis who were impacted by the closure to make claims on the Student Tuition Protection Fund (STPF).”

The statement added that applications for claims are ongoing and the “remaining claims will be adjudicated in the coming weeks.”

Who is paying for the refunds?

Every year, private intuitions are required by the provincial governing body to set aside a contingency fund based on the number of students that are enrolled and the company’s financial status, according to Jeremy Shaki, CEO of Lighthouse Labs, a technology education company with offices across Canada.

An amount of money is then determined by the provincial governing body and collected to ensure that students are reimbursed in unforeseen circumstances.

Shaki said he is very “appreciative” of the safeguards in place to protect students if a school can no longer operate.

“We cannot touch that money. We do not receive any interest on that money. That’s for them [the government] to protect students.”

Editor’s note: CityNews has changed a reference to the company going bankrupt. We are still looking into the financial status of the company.