Substandard Education

It took me a few months to write this review because I needed to vent my anger before sitting down to write fairly and honestly so that potential future students are aware of how this organization runs, and make an informed choice about how they spend their hard-earned money.

From previous reviews here, it seems that Blo Bar was a very good institution and this is what convinced us to do the 1-year hairdressing course with them, under the new name Prestige International training academy. Note that the previous reviews are more than a year old. My wife did this course, and I helped her through this time. For this review, I will refer to both of us collectively as we or us.

The salon is impressive, the prices are really good and the sales pitch is excellent. The old adage remains, if it's too good to be true...

When my wife joined the course the barber at the salon next door was the lecturer. We believe she was not qualified as a lecturer because she confided in one of the other students, which we became aware of. After 2 months, and for 3 weeks in a row we were just washing hair, this is when we started to grow suspicious about the quality of this course.

The lecturer was replaced with another lecturer after three months, and he quickly realized that what we had been taught was incorrect and we needed to be taught from the beginning of the course again. During the six months we were there, new students were continually added to the class, so the lecturer has to continually re-teach the same material over again.

We witnessed the SITA accreditor visit the institution and being spoilt with a handsome lunch. This made us question if this accreditation was ethically gained.

We were expected to attend a modelling shoot without the appropriate training. We chose not to attend this, because of the risk posed to the model.

There are various tests along the way which are incredibly expensive and are not covered by the tuition fees. The terms and conditions of the organization are in contravention of the Consumer Protection Act, and they use these terms and conditions to deny any refund to the student.

During the 6 months we spent there, we noticed at least 3 people leave giving up their money and certification realizing that they too have been scammed.

Various students raised this with the owners Vania and Megan, however, the owners are aggressive towards the students and have on many occasions threatened them.

Due to their aggressive nature, we, unfortunately, had to interact with the owners via an attorney. We had various other students approach us to bring a class action law suite against the owners, but we were just relieved to get out of there. We eventually said goodbye to our R50 000 and settled for the fact that we were out of the hostile environment and had piece of mind.

We still today get messages from current students telling us how things have gotten so much worse, and how they are threatened by the owners. Most of these students have spent all their savings to attend these classes and are not as fortunate as we are to afford an attorney and give up that sum of money.

As the reader of this review, you have the choice of the seemingly good deal, or avoiding the trauma that we have experienced. You have worked hard for your money, spend it wisely.