Clarify the entry threshold of education and training institutions
The report shows that over 70% of the negative public opinion on education and training consumption last year was recommended by experts
● "Analysis of Public Opinion Data on Education and Training Consumption in 2020" shows that the whole network has monitored 3,847,566 pieces of public opinion information about education and training consumption by 2020, of which 2,712,138 pieces of negative public opinion information, accounting for 70.49%
● Negative public opinion on education and training consumption is mainly concentrated in four aspects: difficulty in refunding fees, false propaganda, training quality and contract disputes
● Improve laws and regulations related to education and training as soon as possible, further clarify the regulatory responsibilities of the regulatory authorities, clarify the entry threshold of education and training institutions, and make specific requirements for advertising, teacher certification, teaching quality, and dispute resolution to ensure education and training There are laws and regulations to follow in the development and regulation of the industry
□ Our reporter Zhang Wei
Either in the training class, or on the way to the training class, this is the daily routine of many primary and middle school students today.
However, outside of school and home, the education and training industry, which has the closest relationship with students, has been infamous in recent years.
Especially in 2020, when the new crown pneumonia epidemic is suddenly coming, disputes about education and training are even greater than before.
In the past year, official statistics show that complaints about education and training consumption have increased significantly, and it is not uncommon for consumers to pre-pay after well-known training institutions have closed their doors.
To this end, education departments, market supervision departments, consumer associations, etc. have repeatedly issued relevant documents to regulate or warn.
It can also be seen that further regulation of the education and training industry is imperative.
Recently, Beijing Sunshine Consumer Big Data Research Institute and Consumer Network released the "2020 Education and Training Consumption Public Opinion Data Analysis" (hereinafter referred to as "Analysis"), showing that the entire network has monitored 3847566 pieces of education and training consumption public opinion information by 2020. Among them, 2,712,138 pieces of negative public opinion information, accounting for 70.49%.
"Analysis" pointed out that the negative public opinion on education and training consumption exceeds 70% of the total public opinion, which shows that while the education and training market is developing rapidly, there are still many problems that need to be resolved.
Well-known institutions shut down and run away
Pre-paid fees are difficult to refund
For the education and training industry, 2020 will definitely be an "eventful time".
First, at the "3·15" party of CCTV, the problem of difficulty in refunding money for Hixue.com students was exposed: before signing up, they were given "Class type guaranteed, but refund agreement signed" "One subject, 100% guaranteed refund." "100% guaranteed smooth registration" and other promises, after the students paid the money, these promises were denied.
Since then, many well-known training institutions have experienced thunderstorms, and Winning Education is one of them.
In October 2020, many physical stores of Yousheng Education in Beijing were found to have closed down one after another. Many students were suddenly notified that they could go to the headquarters to apply for refunds.
However, when some parents went to apply for the refund, they found that the headquarters of Yousheng Education had been empty.
What dissatisfied the parents most is that shortly before the incident was exposed, Yousheng Education still collected money among the parents and was suspected of fraud.
Earlier, the Beijing-directed campus of the youth rugby training organization Stone Touchdown was also exposed to the lack of optimism in funding. It may suspend business, and will start to default on employee wages and stop paying social security from January 2020.
As soon as the news came out, the group of parents in several directly-operated campuses of Jushi Touchdown in Beijing exploded. They were worried that the organization boss would run away with money. Parents began to seek refunds, but it was difficult to respond.
Also suspected of running off is Xuebajun, an established online education institution.
At the end of 2020, Xuebajun was rumored to be owed wages, bankrupt, empty buildings, and difficult to refund fees.
It is worth noting that during the "Double 12" period, Xuebajun was still frantically making money for activities, and many parents renewed their fees at this time.
According to public reports, Xuebajun’s funding chain has broken, and a large number of students’ parents and teachers across the country are facing difficulties in refunding fees and being owed wages.
According to public information, some media have summarized a list of educational institutions that closed down in 2020, and 98 of them are among them.
At the same time, the education and training institutions that are still in operation are not worried.
Xueersi Online School has prominent problems in mobile applications such as vulgar videos and instigating premature love. The person in charge was interviewed by the Beijing Cyberspace Affairs Office according to law and ordered to rectify within a time limit.
Ape Guidance, which you can often see in advertisements when you turn on the TV, has also been questioned.
Radar Finance statistics found that from the completion of the A round of 10 million US dollars in August 2012 to October 2020, the accumulated financing amount of Yuandao's AG round has reached 3.744 billion US dollars. According to the latest exchange rate, it is equivalent to 24.972 billion yuan, becoming a global The most highly valued education technology unicorn company.
However, with the rapid development of the company, a series of negative issues such as false propaganda and user complaints have also begun to emerge.
The website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection later reported that some online training institutions did not spend their money on improving the quality of their services, but instead advertised overwhelmingly, creating an atmosphere where all children need to participate in training, and aggravating parents' anxiety.
Some training institutions maliciously lowered fees and operated in a money-losing mode, squeezing small and medium-sized institutions and causing unbalanced development of the industry. Once the capital chain is broken, they may quickly close down, causing the pre-charges to be unable to be refunded and harming the interests of the masses.
"Analysis" presents these negative public opinions on education and training in the form of data.
It shows that the whole network has monitored 3847566 pieces of public opinion information about education and training consumption by 2020.
Among them, 458,997 pieces of positive public opinion information, accounting for 11.93%; 676,431 pieces of neutral public opinion information, accounting for 17.58%; 2712138 pieces of negative public opinion information, accounting for 70.49%.
Negative public opinion on education and training consumption is mainly concentrated in four aspects: difficulty in refunding fees, false propaganda, training quality, and contract disputes.
Among them, 16,23718 information about difficulty in refunding fees, accounting for 59.87%; 387,953 misleading information about publicity, accounting for 14.30%; 301,047 information about training quality, accounting for 11.10%; 225,656 information about contract disputes, accounting for 8.32%; and 173764 in other areas. Articles, accounting for 6.41%.
The number of public opinion information about refund difficulties is the largest.
Among them, the problem of closed doors and running off the road was the most, reaching 855,234, accounting for 52.67%; 405,493 problems of capital fracture, accounting for 24.97%; 194,738 contract disputes, accounting for 11.99%; 168253 other problems, accounting for 10.36%.
The sum of public opinion on closed doors and runaways and broken funds accounted for nearly 80% of the public opinion on difficulties in refunding fees.
Public opinion misleading public opinion is second only to public opinion that is difficult to refund for education and training.
Among them, there were 169,365 price misleading information, accounting for 43.66%; 115,047 information about masters’ capital, accounting for 29.65%; 44,956 sales anxiety information, accounting for 11.59%; 35,824 false promise information, accounting for 9.23%; 22,761 other information , Accounting for 5.87%.
It can be seen that the problem of price misleading is the most prominent, and the low-price marketing activities of many training institutions have serious misleading problems.
Negative public opinion on the quality of education and training is also more prominent, mainly involving problems such as low quality of teaching, software problems in class, unauthorized replacement of teachers, and provision of pirated content.
Among the 30,1047 negative public opinions on the quality of education and training, 148,365 related to teacher information, accounting for 49.28%; 93,847 related to training content information, accounting for 31.17%; 32,536 information related to training methods, accounting for 10.81%; 26,299 other information , Accounting for 8.74%.
Explain that the quality of training mainly involves two aspects: the instructor and the training problem.
In terms of public opinion in education and training contract disputes, it mainly involves issues such as non-fulfillment of contracts, overlord clauses, and non-signature contracts.
Public opinion data shows that among the 225,656 public opinion on education and training contract disputes, 98,472 pieces of non-fulfillment contract information, accounting for 43.64%; 75,627 information about the overlord clause, accounting for 33.51%; 38,635 information about non-signing contracts, accounting for 17.12%; others There are 12,922 pieces of information, accounting for 5.73%.
Lack of integrity awareness in the industry
Supervision is difficult to implement
Various irregularities in education and training that infringe on consumer rights have also attracted the attention of relevant departments.
In June 2020, the General Office of the Ministry of Education and the General Administration of Market Supervision jointly issued the "Out-of-school Training Service Contract for Primary and Secondary School Students (Model Text)".
The contract model text is the first national model text in the industry. It fully considers the responsibilities, rights, and interests of the parties involved in all aspects of the process of participating in off-campus training for elementary and middle school students. It covers training programs, training requirements, and dispute resolution. In particular, detailed regulations are made on training fees and refunds and liability for breach of contract, aiming to effectively standardize the contract signing and performance of the parties to the training contract, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of the parties.
In October 2020, the Ministry of Education and the General Administration of Market Supervision issued the "Notice on Centralized Rectification of Off-campus Training Institutions' Use of Unfair Format Clauses to Violate Consumer Rights and Laws."
Require local education and market supervision departments to focus on various types of non-primary and secondary school training service institutions that use unfair format clauses in contracts to infringe on consumer rights and illegal activities, increase law enforcement inspections, and use format clauses to exempt training institutions from their own responsibilities and increase consumer responsibilities , Excluding consumers' statutory rights shall be resolutely investigated and punished.
In the same month, the China Consumers Association issued the "Special Report on Complaints about Off-campus Education and Training", reminding consumers: Recently, off-campus education and training institutions such as Weber English, Stone Touchdown, and Yousheng Education have been shut down due to poor management. A large number of consumers are involved, and property losses are huge. Similar situations have not been effectively contained, and they are even getting worse.
One of the important reasons for the difficulty in resolving consumer disputes on off-campus education and training is the adoption of a pre-paid business model. Some unscrupulous merchants use large discounts to entice consumers to pay large amounts of fees in advance due to the lack of effective funds under the banner of "recharge and enjoy discounts." In the regulatory system, consumers' prepayments may be misappropriated by merchants, and merchants may run away or operate poorly in the later period, making it difficult for consumers to defend their rights.
In particular, the development of the Internet has made online collection of prepaid fees extremely convenient, and has also opened up a thoroughfare for the behavior of collecting money, and has even been used by criminals to carry out fund-raising fraud.
Why do consumption problems occur frequently in the education and training industry?
Experts from Beijing Sunshine Consumer Big Data Research Institute believe that the main reasons are as follows:
The first is that some education and training institutions lack the awareness of honesty and compliance.
In order to obtain more economic profits, some education and training institutions do not hesitate to adopt various marketing methods that are not commensurate with education. Some training institutions unilaterally praise the power and training effects of masters, attracting students and parents to sign up; some training institutions sell education at low prices After training services, they reduced operating costs by lowering service standards and replacing teachers; some training institutions even suddenly closed their doors after charging a large amount of tuition and ran away, causing many consumers to have no way to refund fees.
These training institutions lack a sense of integrity and law-abiding and social responsibility, which not only violates the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, but also has a negative impact on the reputation and healthy development of the education and training industry.
Secondly, relevant laws and regulations are not sound and supervision is not in place.
Except for the Private Education Promotion Law, there are very few laws and regulations related to education and training.
Although the Private Education Promotion Law stipulates that for-profit private schools must apply for business licenses and school permits in accordance with the law before they can engage in education and training activities.
However, in reality, since there is no corresponding supporting regulations and the relevant supervision responsibilities are not clearly defined, it is difficult to implement the supervision of education and training.
According to the "Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Regulating the Development of Off-campus Training Institutions", the education department should be responsible for investigating and punishing institutions that have not obtained school permits for illegal operations, and focus on the supervision of training content, training classes, enrollment targets, teacher qualifications and training behaviors Work, take the lead in organizing the comprehensive law enforcement of the off-campus training market.
However, in reality, a large number of institutions that have not obtained school permits still carry out education and training activities illegally. The level of teachers and the quality of teaching are not guaranteed at all, and these training institutions are not effectively supervised.
In addition, some consumers lack self-prevention awareness.
When consumers choose education and training institutions, most of them obtain relevant information through online advertisements, and then communicate through the Internet or telephone. It is easy to trust the salesperson's publicity and verbal promises.
Some consumers have paid high tuition fees to training institutions without even signing a contract. There is no agreement on the lesson schedule, charging standards, and refund mechanism.
If they encounter problems, consumers do not have favorable evidence, mainly based on the unilateral policy of the training institution, and it is often difficult to successfully defend their rights.
Consumers' lack of self-prevention awareness, on the one hand, makes their own rights and interests vulnerable to damage, on the other hand, they also condone violations of laws and regulations and other bad behaviors of training institutions.
Improve laws and regulations as soon as possible
Clarify the responsibilities of the supervisory authority
Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the China Consumer Rights Protection Law Research Association, told the reporter of the Rule of Law Daily that the monitoring results of consumer public opinion for this education and training can be improved from the following aspects:
Improve laws and regulations and clarify the division of responsibilities of supervisory departments.
It is recommended to improve the laws and regulations related to education and training as soon as possible, further clarify the supervision responsibilities of the regulatory authorities, clarify the entry threshold of education and training institutions, and make specific requirements for their advertising, teacher certification, teaching quality, and dispute resolution to ensure education There are laws and regulations to follow in the development and regulation of the training industry.
Especially for the fast-developing online education and training issues, it is necessary to refine the regulatory standards and strengthen law enforcement. The relevant departments of education, market regulation, personnel and labor, and Internet management should strengthen cooperation to form a combined regulatory force to truly ensure compliance. The education and training industry develops in standardization and standardizes in development.
Strengthen industry self-discipline and enhance the awareness of integrity and law-abiding training institutions.
At present, my country's education and training, especially online education and training, is still in the stage of continuous exploration and experimentation.
In order to reduce irregularities in development and promote the healthy development of the industry, it is recommended that relevant industry organizations actively formulate relevant standards, exercise self-discipline, and explore from the source to curb the occurrence of phenomena that damage the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
Education and training institutions should adhere to the original intention of education, strengthen self-discipline, consciously resist violations of laws and regulations, and continuously improve their awareness of social responsibility.
Especially in terms of teacher recruitment, course design, teaching quality, after-sales service, etc., we must set strict requirements on ourselves to ensure that we provide consumers with high-quality education and training services.
Only when education and training institutions operate in good faith and abide by the law, treat consumers sincerely, and take the initiative to assume social responsibilities can they ensure the healthy and stable development of the industry.
Improve self-prevention awareness and carefully choose education and training institutions.
When consumers choose training institutions or purchase education and training services, they should check the relevant qualifications of the training institutions in advance, compare and listen to relevant courses, and then make a choice based on their own actual conditions. Do not read advertisements or listen to salespersons. Promise, just pay in a hurry.
When signing a contract, pay attention to the relevant terms, especially pay attention to the terms of refund and exemption.
If you don't have to pay with a loan, try not to choose a loan method.
After signing the contract, keep written materials and other relevant evidence.
During the training process, if you encounter a problem of damage to your rights, you must collect relevant evidence in time to protect your legitimate rights and interests in accordance with the law.