After the education and training institutions run away, where is the way for parents to defend their rights.
Experts suggest to improve the accountability mechanism and strengthen the supervision of prepaid funds
● The business staff of the training base all have a set of speaking skills, the purpose is to let parents buy more lessons.
A large number of lessons means that parents pay a large amount of prepayment
● It is difficult for training institutions to “run the road” to protect rights. In the final analysis, it is still the problem of prepayment. Therefore, the key is to ensure the safety of prepaid funds
● No more barbarous growth of non-disciplinary off-campus training institutions, they must be brought into the track of legal governance and transparency, and supervision must be followed up in time
□ Our newspaper trainee reporter Sun Tianjiao
□ Our reporter Zhao Li
The child had only been in class for less than 9 months, and was suddenly told to close it.
Zhao Yingchen (pseudonym) looked at the remaining 171 lessons displayed in the system, feeling angry and helpless.
Zhao Yingchen, who lives in Nanchang County, Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, enrolled her child in a local calligraphy and painting training class called Yishuge. As a result, the situation before her is that the door is closed and people go to the building.
Since October 18 this year, after Nanchang Yishuge Culture and Art School issued a letter of apology on its official account, this off-campus training institution, which specializes in youth painting and calligraphy training, has stopped at all teaching bases in Nanchang, Beijing, Jiujiang, and Ganzhou. In teaching services, a large number of parents of students reported that there is still a lot of surplus in the courses they have registered for their children.
The dilemma facing parents after the suspension of Yishuge is not an isolated case.
A recent investigation by a reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily" found that many non-disciplinary off-campus training institutions have large pre-charges, a large number of lessons, and even "run away" after collecting money.
Recently, the "Notice on Strengthening the Supervision of Pre-charging of Off-campus Training Institutions" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice") issued by six departments including the Ministry of Education has given many parents hope.
The "Notice" requires that a centralized investigation and rectification be organized and completed as soon as possible on the supervision of the pre-paid fees of off-campus training institutions in the province (autonomous region, municipality), and whether there are problems such as "difficulty in refunding fees", "rolling money away" and other issues.
Experts interviewed believe that due to the nature of training subjects, non-disciplinary off-campus training institutions may currently have certain blind spots in supervision. It is recommended that relevant departments explore the use of third-party fund custody and other fund supervision methods to ensure the safety of consumer advance funds ; At the same time, it is necessary to improve the accountability mechanism for the relevant persons in charge of the "runaway" organization to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
Educational and training institutions have many sales routines
A large number of lessons attract large payments
In January of this year, Zhao Yingchen wanted to sign up for an extracurricular training class on calligraphy for her child Dudu.
To be on the safe side, she ran to the base for several days to observe. She felt that the training base had a good environment and the teachers’ attitude was good. She happened to know that a parent wanted to switch classes, so she spent 6,500 yuan to take over the rest from the parent. 218 lessons.
"After I communicated with the parent privately, I changed the child's name in the official system of the Yishuge Training Base, and then I can go to class normally." Zhao Yingchen said.
The main reason why Zhao Yingchen chose to transfer courses privately was the price.
According to her, if you buy a course directly through the training base, a course is about 150 yuan, and only when you buy a certain amount of course packs, will there be a discount. "The more courses you buy, the greater the discount for a single course."
Many parents Zhao Yingchen knows bought 300 or 400 lessons.
"The business staff of the training base all have a set of speaking skills, the purpose is to let you buy more class hours." Zhao Yingchen said.
A large number of lessons means that parents pay a large amount of prepayment.
Zhao Yingchen said that after failing to contact the person in charge of the organization, some parents organized everyone to work out the hours and prices that they had not finished attending, so as to prepare for rights protection.
Judging from the registration situation, in this institution alone, 272 parents have registered, of which 72 have the least purchased class hours.
The registered parents of the Angel Shuixie Bay Base, another training base of Yishuge, told reporters that as of November 10, a total of 293 parents of students had signed up for rights protection. More than 2.976 million yuan.
The training base suddenly suspended classes, which has become a "kaner" in the lives of Zhao Yingchen and other parents during this period: "It ranges from a few thousand yuan to tens of thousands of yuan, and some parents even apply for classes through loans to their children. Parents usually The purpose of saving money is to let the children learn more talents. As a result, the children haven't learned anything yet, and the money is still in it or they won't come back."
Li Zhao (pseudonym), who lives in Xicheng District, Beijing, once enrolled his daughter for a swimming training class in Caoqiao, Fengtai District. The courses are sold in packages, with 30 lessons for small lessons and 120 lessons for large lessons.
"When I consulted, the marketing staff always recommended the large class bag. Because the price of a single class after conversion is huge, most of the parents I know have bought the large class bag."
The swimming training institution Li Zhao chose began to suspend classes indefinitely in January this year, and the person in charge could not be contacted afterwards.
It wasn't until the swimming coach pulled Li Zhao and other parents into the group that they knew that the original boss had "run away with money" and that even the teacher's salary had been owed for several months.
The institution has been transferred and the legal person has been changed, and the changed legal person has no knowledge of the amount owed by the previous person in charge.
This is not the first training institution that Li Zhao has encountered.
She told reporters that the piano, dance, speech and other non-disciplinary off-campus training classes that she and some of the children of relatives had reported had all encountered "runaway" situations.
Li Zhao reluctantly said: "Our entire family of 4 children in extracurricular classes lost at least 100,000 yuan because they encountered'run away'."
Rights protection takes time and energy
Parents are struggling to talk about it
Li Zhao currently has more than 8,000 yuan of courses left in the swimming training institution.
When she first learned of the agency's "run away" in March of this year, she also tried to find various ways to defend her rights with other parents, and even planned to hire a lawyer together with money.
However, because too many families are involved, it takes a lot of time and energy to discuss rights protection methods in the rights protection group.
"If you really want to go through legal channels, it means more funds and energy investment, I think about it, let it go. Money can still be earned, it won't be consumed all the time." Li Zhao finally chose to give up his rights protection.
There are not a few parents who have made the same choice as Li Zhao. In their view, the result of subsequent rights protection is unknown and they have to give up.
Fan Ruo (pseudonym), a resident of Fengtai District, Beijing, is also one of the parents who was "paid" by this children's swimming training institution.
Since 2019, she has successively purchased a 120-session large class bag and 30-period small class bag for her 6-year-old son at this training institution.
The large class package costs 14,400 yuan, and the small class package costs 8,700 yuan. Until now, there are still more than 20 classes left unfinished.
Unlike Li Zhao, Fan Ruo chose to "protect his rights to the end."
To this end, she and several other parents first contacted the relevant government departments, but they failed to get an effective promotion.
So Fan Ruo chose to hire a lawyer and go through legal channels.
"For me now, whether I can get the remaining tuition fees back is not my primary goal. I just want to make the people who'make money run away' pay the price." Fan Ruo said.
Zhao Yingchen also decided to continue to defend his rights.
At the beginning of the suspension of classes, the person in charge of Yishuge also came up with a set of solutions through official announcements, suggesting that parents can use existing class hours to sign up for their children to participate in large outdoor training camps.
After the plan was rejected by the parents, the person in charge has no more news.
"According to the plan he proposed, a training camp starts 24 hours a day, that is, 24 class hours. In fact, it consumes our class hours in disguise. Our current demand is that if we can't attend classes, we will refund the remaining class hours to us. "Zhao Yingchen said.
In late October, she and many other parents filed a complaint with Nanchang County and City Supervision Bureau for a refund.
The relevant staff of the Nanchang County "Double Reduction" special class (County Education and Sports Bureau, County Public Security Bureau, County and City Supervision Bureau) received them and stated that all complaint materials have been transferred to the County Education and Sports Bureau for processing. The class will make statistics on the personnel and amount of refunds involved in the suspension of schooling by the institution, and the public security department will investigate the parties and urge them to come up with a refund plan as soon as possible.
At present, Zhao Yingchen and his parents are waiting for the official handling result while planning to sue the court.
"Some parents in the rights protection group suggested that they still need to hire a lawyer and go through legal channels. If they organize, I will definitely participate. Although doing so may mean spending time and money, we want to be fair."
There are different reasons for institutions to run away
Can't let it continue to grow savagely
Sun Na, a lawyer at Beijing Jingxing Law Firm, represented Fan Ruo and others.
She still remembers the scene when she first saw Fan Ruo.
"Parents were angry and anxious. After they consulted me for solutions, they brought in more parents. Everyone's demands are the same: to get their money back and the person in charge of the agency to be punished."
According to Sun Na, the case of Fan Ruo and others has just ended mediation and has entered the enforcement process. Parents are still waiting for the results of the enforcement. It is inconvenient to disclose too much of the specific circumstances.
Sun Na has represented a number of cases where non-disciplinary off-campus training institutions encountered business problems, and even the piano tutoring class her daughter attended was difficult to refund.
After handling more related cases, Sun Na found that non-disciplinary off-campus training institutions had "run off" in different situations.
“Some are forced to be helpless. For example, the operators and managers of training institutions lack professional competence in the industry or market research, which leads to poor management of the training institutions. Some training institutions operate directly out of malice, and once they find that the profit is not special If it is high, I want to stop it as soon as possible, which may result in the training fee pre-stored by the parents and some remaining class hours cannot be refunded and consumed.” Sun Na said.
In Sun Na's view, whether parents can claim back their tuition fees through subsequent rights protection measures is closely related to whether the above-mentioned institution "runs off" subjectively or not.
“If the business’s own mismanagement only leads to the suspension of classes and closing, it needs to see whether the business can continue to revitalize and re-enter the market. If not, parents may need to enter the bankruptcy liquidation process as a creditor. If the institution is malicious, it is purely for the sake of If you “run away” by circumventing money, you may not find the person responsible for follow-up contact and execution. It is necessary to evaluate whether a criminal issue is involved according to the specific cause."
Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, believes that non-disciplinary education and training institutions will still have a period of instability.
"There may be differences in the judgments of various subjects related to training on the future development of training, and there are also differences in governance measures in various places, so some unstable conditions may be caused."
Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the Consumer Protection Law Research Association of the Chinese Law Society, believes that the difficulty of training institutions to "run" rights protection is ultimately the problem of prepayment. To solve these problems in the development of the prepayment model, the key is to ensure Security of prepaid funds.
“At present, most training institutions use the prepaid expenses of consumers for production and operation in advance, which is equivalent to transferring their own business risks to consumers. Some even deliberately absorb the prepaid expenses by means of low-cost preferential means, but fail to fulfill the training service promises. , This is not fair to consumers." Chen Yinjiang said.
In an interview with reporters, Liu Junhai, a professor at the School of Law of Renmin University of China, said that with the introduction of the "double reduction" policy, the living space of subject-based off-campus training institutions has plummeted.
Instead, more and more parents choose to enroll their children in non-disciplinary off-campus training institutions.
Non-disciplinary off-campus training institutions can no longer grow wildly, they must be brought into the track of legal governance and transparency, and supervision must be followed up in time.
The supervision of prepaid funds is imminent
Establish and improve an independent depository system
The "Notice" issued by the Ministry of Education and other six departments clearly requires that non-disciplinary off-campus training institutions advance fees or include the full amount in the scope of supervision.
Departments such as education, development and reform, the People's Bank of China, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, taxation, and market supervision should strengthen the coordinated supervision of the pre-charging of off-campus training institutions in accordance with the division of responsibilities.
Establish a working mechanism for regularly sharing information related to pre-charging supervision of off-campus training institutions, and strengthen risk early warning.
The "Notice" emphasizes that all localities should include the supervision of pre-paid fees in the scope of daily supervision, special inspection, annual review, and education supervision of off-campus training institutions.
Organize and complete the centralized investigation and rectification of the pre-charge supervision of off-campus training institutions in the province (region, city) as soon as possible, and whether there are problems such as "difficulty in refunding fees" and "rolling money out of the way".
For non-disciplinary off-campus training institutions' fees and management issues, some places have also issued relevant regulations.
For example, Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province’s "double reduction" pilot, officially issued the first batch of national standards for non-disciplinary training institutions in four categories, including art, sports, science and technology, and nursery education. The scope of application, organizers, and institutions for non-disciplinary off-campus training institutions The name, training venue, constitution, training teachers, training content, start-up funds and other aspects were clarified.
The interviewed experts put forward suggestions from different angles on the financial supervision of non-disciplinary off-campus training institutions.
Liu Junhai believes that an independent depository system or custody system for a third-party bank should be clearly established. “The tuition fees paid by parents should not be directly controlled by training institutions. You can consider temporary deposit banks. The password of the bank is shared by consumers and merchants. It is usually kept by the bank to share the risks of the parents. The ownership of the funds belongs to the consumers; at the same time, it must be clarified that in the case of bankruptcy of the training institution in the future, the tuition fees collected in advance will not be included in the bankruptcy property. Give priority to getting back your own funds, and prevent funds from'running away' from the system."
For training institutions that implement pre-paid bank custody, Chen Yinjiang suggested that the pre-paid funds should be managed separately from their own funds.
The pre-charged funds should be allocated to the training institution’s account in batches based on the actual progress of the training services provided. If the training institution closes due to poor management or cannot continue to provide services, the custodian bank should return the remaining funds to consumers.
At the same time, he specifically mentioned that training institutions that set up pre-charged risk deposits should sign an agreement with qualified banks and report to education or other competent authorities for the record, open a special risk deposit account, and deposit a certain amount of deposit as their performance training. The financial guarantee for service commitments and refunds. The deposit must not be used as a financing guarantee or other purposes. If problems are encountered, they should be used to repay consumers.
However, Chu Zhaohui pointed out that at present, the pros and cons of bank capital supervision coexist, because capital supervision itself has costs, which will raise the threshold for training institutions and may lead to the emergence of a large number of underground training institutions.
"The supervision of funds is related to the amount of funds. If the amount of funds of this institution is not very large, and a large cost is spent on supervision, then this mechanism will bring a certain degree of work pressure to the relevant institutions, and will also increase the operating cost of the training institution. This produces some negative effects."
The interviewed experts also put forward some suggestions on how to protect the rights of parents in the case of “run away” in the organization.
Chen Yinjiang said that the regulatory authorities and judicial departments should further explore the accountability of legal persons, shareholders, responsible persons and related beneficiaries. Included in the "credit blacklist" and announced to the public, placing training institutions' violations of laws and regulations under the effective supervision of the entire society.
Liu Junhai suggested that consumers should consume rationally and protect their rights in accordance with the law.
"I am optimistic about the money bag, do not pay large tuition fees in advance, read the advertisements plainly, sign the contract seriously, calmly and calmly save the evidence, and defend rights in accordance with the law and rationally."
Comics/Li Xiaojun