Market self-cleaning? Educational institutions shut down more than 10,000 a year
If it is said that the school's burdens are affecting the sensitive nerves of many "middle-aged mothers", then the education and training institutions run their money and let them say, "I'm too difficult!" While talking about it, they have to find the next training course for the child.
2019 may be the worst year for the education industry in the past ten years. In this year, over 10,000 educational institutions were shut down. People in the industry believe that this is a phenomenon of market self-purification after the tightening of policies and stricter supervision, but there are also some training institutions who are maliciously circling money.
12,000 homes closed, adults and early education are hardest hit
Business survey data show that in 2019, more than 12,000 education companies were shut down. Among them, many education and training institutions belong to the unrefunded students' tuition for no reason. A half-monthly reporter survey found that adult education and early education are the hardest hit areas for educational institutions. Some educational institutions are still frantically promoting charges after operating problems, and the intention of maliciously staking money is obvious.
“The company has recently been unable to resolve a series of problems, and this week began to suspend classes. The start time is yet to be determined.” Near the end of 2019, after a teacher from a store in Hangzhou Meiqi Wonderful International Creative Center sent this message in the WeChat group, students Parents "fried the pan" instantly. Mr. Chen soon realized that most of these were idiomatic formulas and tricks before the training institute ran, so he hurriedly registered with the store staff to refund the fees.
A statistics table of the remaining class hours provided by one parent shows that of the more than 400 students enrolled in the Meiqi Wonder International Creative Center, there are hundreds of students with more than 100 classes. The remaining class hours add up to more than 20,000 knots, involving more than 2 million yuan. What made Mr Chen angry was that as early as a few months ago, there had been a problem with the operation of this company. Since then, he has frequently promoted courses. Many parents have reported on National Day, Double Eleven, and Double Twelve. A large number of courses, "As a result, less than a few sessions, the store closed first, this is obviously a malicious money ring."
It is incredible that some criminals have taken the initiative to act as "receivers" to cheat parents' money. Recently, a Shanghai police investigation found that Xu and others, who claim to have a strong background in capital, have been in the name of the education complex in the market since October 2018. More than 30 stores of tutoring institutions, ran for money.
In addition, some educational institutions in the name of instalment payment to reduce the pressure on tuition fees, induce students to apply for installment loans. “We never expected that a training institution as large as Webb would run away.” In July 2019, Ms. Zhou from Shanghai spent 32,000 yuan to sign up for Webb English courses, and on the recommendation of Webb staff, she chose Zhaolian Finance installment. Not only can't we get out of class today, we're still owing a bunch of loans.
Around the National Day of 2019, Webb English revealed that many campuses were in arrears with employees' salaries, and then stores in Beijing, Shanghai and other places were closed, making it difficult for tens of thousands of students to refund their fees. Many students also carry education installment loans. Funders include Guangfa Bank, China Merchants Finance, Baidu Rich Money, and JD Baitiao. Once these students overdue payment, there will be credit risk.
Tighter policies, blind expansion, and prepaid consumption are the main reasons
People in the industry believe that the shutdown of some training institutions is closely related to the tightening of policies, and some "small scattered" institutions are eliminated because of this. It is not a bad thing for the entire industry to expel bad currency and purify the market.
"Tighter policies have increased the threshold for opening training institutions and operating costs." A staff member of a large training institution believes that in the past, training institutions opened a teaching site, rented a few private houses, and opened it with a few teachers, and received tuition for more than half a year, cash The stream is abundant. Relevant policies have now increased the requirements for the venues, firefighting, teachers, and fees of educational institutions.
A relevant person in charge of a municipal education department introduced that in the past, provincial, municipal, and district administrative departments of education, human society, and market supervision all had the authority to approve educational institutions, but their standards differed greatly. After the implementation of the newly revised Law of the People's Republic of China on the Promotion of Private Education in 2017, the education industry has entered the era of "compliance and orderly, classified management" from the initial "barbaric growth and Kowloon water management" status. Many institutions, especially primary and secondary school discipline training institutions, have been identified as violating institutions because they do not meet their qualifications, and some of them have been banned because of poor financial management.
The blind expansion of "yin eats food" with advance payment is also an important reason. Education scholar Xiong Bingqi believes that the competent authorities have clearly stated that the fees for teaching institutions should not exceed 3 months at a time, which can effectively reduce the risk of escaping funds and force the institutions to improve the quality of services and attract students to renew, but it also increases the operating costs and financial pressure.
"Some institutions are running horse enclosures with prepaid tuition fees." Cui Lijin, secretary general of the Zhejiang Consumer Protection Commission, believes that parents surrendered tens of thousands of yuan at once, and they were in a passive position from that moment. In the event of an unexpected situation, parents will have to return the pre-stored high tuition fees, which will cause problems in the funding operation of the educational institutions.
Standardize industry governance and reduce unsolicited runs
The running of educational institutions has become a pain point for people's livelihood. Some training institutions have large scale trainees. Once they run, there is a risk of causing mass incidents. People in the industry believe that it is necessary to further standardize the governance of the education and training industry, implement a classified supervision system, promptly release black and white lists of training institutions, early warning of consumption, strengthen credit supervision, and explore the establishment of a third-party fund depository system.
The above-mentioned municipal education departments believe that to further promote classified management, it is necessary to strengthen the pre-examination and approval of training institutions, especially when it comes to the approval of discipline education institutions in primary and secondary schools, and the venues, teachers, and assets must ensure compliance. At the same time, it is also necessary to strengthen supervision during and after the event to ensure that education institutions always comply with regulations in the course of operation and that rights complaints are received in a timely manner. To this end, education, human society and market supervision and other departments can actively borrow the power of industry organizations to engage industry associations through authorization and purchase of services to help administrative departments regulate the development of the industry.
The administrative department inspects the site safety, teacher qualifications, financial funds and other contents through the annual inspection and annual report, and publicizes the results to the society. Institutions that fail the inspection will be restricted from enrolling and require rectification within a specified period of time. Only after the rectification is completed and acceptance is passed, can enrollment be continued. The annual inspection and annual report system and the black-and-white list publicity system can strengthen the organizer's emphasis on compliance operations and reduce the probability of the institution's running out of funds.
The Consumer Protection Commission of Jiangsu Province believes that governments at all levels should actively guide relevant departments to jointly strengthen the construction of a credit system in the prepaid consumer sector. The commerce department, market supervision department, consumer protection committee and other departments should cooperate with local governments to do a good job in the construction of the credit system, create a new pattern of coordinated supervision, functional supervision, and full-coverage supervision, and jointly establish a "one trustworthy, everywhere restricted" Credit system.
Third-party funds supervision can also effectively reduce or prevent consumers' financial security risks when the institution runs out of business. The implementation of effective fund supervision must be based on an information platform and unified contract management. Institutions enter the platform and publish courses. Consumers pay through the platform and generate unified contracts. Third-party financial institutions freeze and transfer funds in accordance with platform instructions. This will ensure that before the end of the class, some frozen regulatory funds can be recovered, reducing consumer losses. (Reporter: Zheng Shengzhu Yuchen Intern Wang Dongli)