The central government invested in the construction of a teaching building and abandoned it for 3 years.
Cheng'an
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Hebei: Unlicensed schools squeezed out legal schools?
The primary school complex built with a investment of more than 1 million yuan from the central government was abandoned after 3 years.
A reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily discovered this strange phenomenon during an interview in Cheng'an County, Handan City, Hebei Province.
On Tuesday, December 14, the reporter saw at Dongbaozhuang Elementary School in Shangcheng Township, Cheng'an County, that the school’s gate was rusty, the school was locked, and the school was empty.
The wall on the east side of the school was damaged, with gaps in it for people to come and go.
There is a new two-story building on the campus. Every classroom is equipped with air-conditioning, but the corridors and classrooms are piled with debris, and the campus is also full of corn.
The comprehensive building of Dongbaozhuang Elementary School belongs to the project of "Comprehensively Improve the Basic Conditions of Compulsory Education in Poor Areas". The building area is 800 square meters. It is funded by the central government and invested 1.14 million yuan. The completion time is May 2018.
This project is implemented by the State Council in order to coordinate the balanced allocation of urban and rural compulsory education resources and accelerate the reduction of regional and urban-rural education gaps.
A villager in Dongbaozhuang Village told reporters that after the comprehensive building of Dongbaozhuang Primary School was repaired, it was abandoned after 3 years.
In 2021, the only remaining students will go to Xibaozhuang Primary School.
However, Dongbaozhuang Village is a village with a population of more than 3,000 and many school-age children.
The villager said that the children were lost to private schools near the village.
There are 5 primary schools within one kilometer of Dongbaozhuang Village, except for Dongbaozhuang Primary School, all of which are private schools.
A local educator told reporters that many of the private primary schools in Shangcheng Town did not have school permits.
The reporter saw in the Future Bilingual School and Hanlin School, two unlicensed private elementary schools, that the school's teaching buildings and dormitory buildings are quite magnificent.
There are also two "big nose" school buses parked at the entrance of a school, and a banner "Welcome leaders to inspect and guide work" is hung on the wall.
According to reports, one of them currently has more than 600 students, and the other has 400 students.
On December 15, the relevant person in charge of the Central School of Shangcheng Town told the China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily that the two private primary schools of the future bilingual school and Hanlin school have been completed and put into use for three or four years. Because the fire protection standards are not up to the standard, they are undergoing rectification. At this stage, the school license has not been obtained.
There are currently 5 unlicensed primary schools in Shangcheng Town. In addition to the future bilingual and Hanlin schools, there are Xinghai, Zhongshan, and Red Apple primary schools.
In this regard, some local educators questioned: Do students in undocumented private primary schools have school status?
Where is the student status?
More than 30 unlicensed kindergartens are enrolling students
In Cheng'an County, the problem of illegally running schools still appears in the field of preschool education.
Just entering December, the kindergarten enrollment battle has entered a white-hot stage after the Spring Festival in the coming year.
In order to recruit students, the rural kindergartens in Cheng'an County are not only "fighting bayonet" on the charging price; air purifiers, hand-held garment irons, cervical massagers, VR glasses and even air fryer have all entered to attract parents to sign up. A list of gifts for the kindergarten; even a marketing company has launched a paid admissions service for kindergartens, promising that for every 30 children recruited by the kindergarten, they will receive 19,800 yuan...
"Educators don't care about teaching and research, they have begun to study marketing!" Some private kindergarten directors summed up the strange local phenomenon to the China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily reporters.
The seventh census data shows that the permanent population of Cheng'an County is 61,198, of which 27.10% are aged 0-14.
In Shangcheng Town alone, there are more than 30 private kindergartens that have been counted by local educators to reporters. However, only 9 of them are on the “White List of Private Kindergartens in Cheng’an County” announced by the Handan Education Bureau in 2021.
Also on the website of Handan Education Bureau, a material titled "Report on the progress of key work in 2018 by Cheng'an County Education and Sports Bureau" shows that as early as 2018, Cheng'an County Education and Sports Bureau "banned illegal undocumented There are 26 kindergartens, 3 private schools, and 11 unlicensed training institutions.”
However, a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily visited Shangcheng Town and learned that more than 30 unlicensed kindergartens are still enrolling students, but 3 of the 9 on the whitelist have stopped running schools.
Vicious competition makes certified kindergartens a headache
How does a private kindergarten obtain a school permit?
The principal of a private kindergarten in Zhanghedian Town, Cheng'an County told reporters the process of applying for the permit.
"The requirements for obtaining a permit are very strict!" He emphasized.
First of all, the relevant practitioners of private kindergartens must obtain the kindergarten teacher's education certificate, qualification certificate, childcare worker certificate, health certificate and other certificates, and the kindergarten must provide fire protection certificate, house appraisal certificate, and land ownership certificate.
Kindergartens that provide meals for children need to obtain a food business permit.
The principal said that certified kindergartens are inspected by the education department every year.
The inspection content includes personnel qualifications, whether teachers have problems with teachers’ ethics and style, whether campus safety has implemented relevant management systems, whether the land occupation per student and the building area per student are up to standard, whether there is a large class size, and whether there is “primary schooling” "tendency.
Licensed kindergartens need to register once a year and pay a risk protection fund of 10,000 yuan each year until the cumulative amount is 100,000 yuan.
Another private kindergarten principal told reporters that because unlicensed kindergartens do not have these thresholds, they do not have to undergo annual inspections.
In 2020, when classes are resumed after the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the education department of Cheng'an County requires that the staff and children returning to the campus be uniformly tested for nucleic acid.
At that time, there was a charge for nucleic acid testing, which caused dissatisfaction among many parents.
"Unlicensed kindergartens are not so troublesome!" Some parents made such "protests" in person.
"Before August this year, our township was ranked according to the number of students. None of the top 4 kindergartens had a school permit." An educator in Dadongpu Township, Cheng'an County told a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily that in August, Only two of these four kindergartens obtained the school permit.
According to him, in recent years, in Daodongpu Township and even Cheng'an County, the development of unlicensed kindergartens has been better than that of licensed kindergartens.
"Because unlicensed kindergartens do not need to pass the annual inspection, their operating costs are often lower than those of certified ones." He analyzed that unlicensed kindergartens therefore have room to reduce fees and are more competitive in enrollment.
"For example, I charge 220 yuan a month, and the unlicensed kindergarten charges 200, which is always tens of yuan less than mine." He said.
"Such vicious competition makes licensed kindergartens a headache." He said that now it has become the norm for the licensed kindergartens in Cheng'an County to lose out in the "price war" with unlicensed kindergartens.
Are government departments aware of illegal school-running behaviors?
Does the education department of Cheng'an County know the situation for the long-term enrollment and operation of unlicensed elementary schools and kindergartens of this size?
Regarding this issue, an educator in Shangcheng town told the China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily that the town’s education management department has established two working WeChat groups: one group member is a certified private elementary school and kindergarten person in charge, the other It was established for undocumented private elementary schools and kindergartens.
The reporter noted that a large number of unlicensed kindergartens were also included in the 2021 registration form for new crown pneumonia vaccination students collected by relevant departments in Cheng'an County.
In order to promote the healthy development of private kindergartens, the Handan Municipal Education Bureau issued the “Implementation Plan on Concentrating Forces to Carry out the Special Action to Clean Up and Rectify Illegal Kindergartens” in September 2017. In September 2018, it forwarded the Hebei Provincial Department of Education on the cleanup and rectification of unlicensed private kindergartens. Notice.
These documents require county-level education administrative departments to complete the task of cleaning up and rectifying unlicensed private kindergartens within their jurisdiction.
In August 2019, the Handan Municipal Education Bureau issued an implementation plan for the special action to clean up and rectify unlicensed private kindergartens, requiring that all county-level education administrative departments follow the territorial management and the principles of "who is in charge, who is responsible" and "who approves and who is responsible". Re-examine and re-examine the qualifications of all private kindergartens in the jurisdiction.
In particular, check whether the private kindergarten in the jurisdiction has obtained a school permit, and whether it has gone to the local civil affairs or industry and commerce department for legal person registration.
The unlicensed private kindergartens to be investigated shall be registered one by one.
"For those who run private kindergartens without authorization but fail to meet the standards for running kindergartens after rectification, they shall be banned and the fees charged shall be refunded in accordance with the law."
The reporter learned that the director of an unlicensed kindergarten had repeatedly reported to the County Education and Sports Bureau about the illegal operation of unlicensed kindergartens.
"The relevant person in charge replied that unlicensed kindergartens are market behaviors and cannot be managed by the Education and Sports Bureau." The county market supervision bureau staff replied that the bureau only supervises kindergartens canteens.
Schools and kindergarten canteens must first have a school permit if they want to apply for a “catering service permit”.
According to reports, unlicensed kindergartens have "detoured" one after another because they have no school permits and have applied for "small catering business permits."
Several persons in charge of licensed kindergartens told reporters that in Cheng'an County, the "fee" for the "small catering business license" has risen from 200 yuan a few years ago to 500 yuan, and it is now 2,000 yuan.
"Relevant staff said it was a fine, and the money was paid instead, and the'small restaurant business permit' was soon down."
China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily reporters will continue to pay attention to this matter.
Cheng'an, Hebei, December 15th, by wire
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Fan Jiangtao Zhu Hongyuan Source: China Youth Daily