Up to 1,000 students, including 800 Chinese students who were left stranded when one of four bankrupt colleges closed, gathered for an emergency meeting at Melbourne Town Hall yesterday.

The Australian Council for Private Education and Training (ACPET), the agency in charge of handling the crisis, organized the meeting to ask students from Meridian Hotel School to sign relocation request forms.

The form allows students a chance to have their studies moved to another institution but without financial compensation. Students who don't sign are ineligible for assistance in transfer by ACPET.

Jimmy Qiu, a Chinese student at the meeting, said former Meridian teachers offered to tutor students set to graduate in two weeks for free, but their proposal was rejected by ACPET.

"We feel so helpless now and are totally lost," he said. "I want to stay and work in Australia for a couple of years, so I really need to get a permanent residency," he told METRO in a phone interview yesterday.

"I might not be qualified for immigration when the new policy takes effect in 2010, and now I can't even manage to get my diploma."

He said most of his classmates were planning to return to China for the Chinese New Year, but many have now canceled their plans.

Song Baoying, a senior manager at the Australia-China Educational and Cultural Development Center, a Beijing overseas education agency, predicted the Australian government might relocate international students to other international schools. Refunding tuition fees was very unlikely though, she added.

According to Song, when Global College closed last year from unauthorized study programs, about 75 percent of its students were moved to Meridian. Some are now facing the closure of their school for a second time.

She suggested Chinese students planning to study abroad should enroll in public schools for security.

She also predicted there would be a 30 percent reduction in Chinese students studying in Australia next year, due to the collapse of some private education institutions. The website for the Chinese Embassy in Australia said Sunday 10 private education institutions have closed since May 2009.

"Some of my Australian technical and future education (TAFE) institutions told me last week they expected a 50 percent decrease in Chinese student applications," said Song.

In July this year, there were 130,000 Chinese students enrolled in education institutions across Australia.

"Education has become the third largest export service, after minerals and animal husbandry in Australia," Song said.