Some intermediaries recommend to parents suspected violations and money-linked competitions Education industry professionals: Subject competition awards hardly affect admissions
The counterfeit Ye Shengtao Cup was blocked as an intermediary and still has competition resources
On February 15, the official website of the Ministry of Education issued a document stating that the "Ye Shengtao Cup" Chinese Youth Composition Competition (hereinafter referred to as the "Chinese Competition") and the "Ye Shengtao Cup" Chinese Literacy Competition, Mathematics Competition, English Competition, Programming Creativity Competition and other series of events are all For the illegal competition, the Ministry of Education is working with relevant parties for further processing.
A reporter from the Beijing Youth Daily found that there are some intermediaries in the society that provide registration and guidance services for some illegal competitions. The competitions they recommend need to pay a lot of registration fees. Some intermediaries claim that the competitions they recommend can win 100% of the awards.
After the "Ye Shengtao Cup" Chinese Youth Composition Competition was notified as an illegal competition, the competition agency said that it could recommend other composition competitions to parents to beautify students' resumes, saying that it would help them enter higher education.
However, the composition competition they recommend is not on the list of competitions recognized by the Ministry of Education.
A person in charge of a junior high school in Beijing who has participated in the recruitment work many times said that the school does not value the awards of subject competitions when recruiting students, and the performance of students in the school is more important.
refute rumors
The organizer of the "genuine" competition said
Non-profit competitions do not charge entry fees
The official website of the Ministry of Education reported on February 15th about the illegal hosting of the "Ye Shengtao Cup".
Since then, some netizens have posted that all the "Ye Shengtao Cup" series competitions are illegal competitions. This news aroused heated discussions among netizens.
However, a reporter from the Beiqing Daily noticed that the Ye Shengtao Cup National Middle School Students New Composition Competition (hereinafter referred to as the "New Composition" competition), hosted The unit is Chinese Contemporary Literature Research Association.
On February 16, Teacher Tang from the Campus Literature Committee of the Chinese Contemporary Literature Research Association told Beiqing Daily that the "New Composition" competition and the so-called "Chinese competition" were not sponsored by the same organization. The Ye Shengtao Cup organized by the Chinese Contemporary Literature Research Association The New Composition Contest for Middle School Students is a competition recognized by the Ministry of Education's competition list.
"We have previously issued a statement on the official website that it has nothing to do with the 'Chinese Competition', and we are only responsible for running our own competition."
According to the statement mentioned by Mr. Tang, the Organizing Committee of the 2021 Ye Shengtao Cup National Middle School Students New Composition Competition received a letter from relevant departments reporting that some social organizations faked the name of the competition to carry out fraud, claiming that "you can get the certificate of the Ye Shengtao Cup Competition by paying a certain fee." ".
The Organizing Committee of the "New Composition" Contest stated that the Ye Shengtao Cup National Middle School Students New Composition Competition is a public welfare event approved by the Ministry of Education and held for high school students from all over the country. It is illegal to collect the entry fee in the name; all acts of obtaining the award certificate of the competition through payment are illegal.
The Organizing Committee of the "New Composition" Contest stated on February 16 that there are several differences between the "Ye Shengtao Cup" competition recognized by the Ministry of Education and the so-called Ye Shengtao Cup Chinese Youth Composition Competition: First, the "New Composition" competition ranks among The "white list" that passed the review is well-documented; the second is that the "New Composition" competition is only open to high school students after the Ministry of Education's review, while the "Chinese Competition" is open to primary and junior high school students; the third is that the "New Composition" competition has passed The school's initial evaluation and the judges' selection have never cooperated with training institutions like the "Chinese Competition"; fourth, the "New Composition" competition is a public welfare event. According to the requirements of the Ministry of Education, students are not charged any fees.
investigation
The intermediary recommends the "Pay Your Money and Get a Prize" contest
Says it can "beautify" a child's resume
A reporter from Beiqing Daily noticed that although the Ministry of Education had issued a notice on illegal competitions on February 15, there were still some intermediaries in the society that provided competition services for primary and middle school students, and some even claimed that some competitions were illegal. The winning rate is 100%, but money must be paid.
A reporter from the Beiqing Daily contacted a competition intermediary staff who claimed to cooperate with various competitions as a parent of a student. He said that the reason why parents want to win competition awards for their children is to help their children go to school. Empty, there is no competition award.” The staff member said that some competitions have a 100% winning rate after participating in the competition. If the child cannot win the first prize, the parents of the child can pay a guidance fee of 1,000 yuan to the intermediary, but the actual Children do not need to attend classes, and the intermediary will transfer the money to the competition organizer to ensure that they will win the prize.
However, the agency admitted frankly that they would be willing to recommend the well-known Ye Shengtao Cup "Chinese Competition" to parents before, but they cannot register for the time being. The cup match has also been blocked recently, so I can't participate for the time being."
The intermediary said that in order to avoid attracting reports, they will not publish some events in the company's parent group, but will only send them to parents privately.
But the intermediary claims that although some competitions are suspected of violating the rules, parents are still strongly encouraged to sign up for their children for the sake of their children's resumes looking good.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily contacted another competition intermediary staff member. The staff member said that the "Ye Shengtao Cup" Chinese competition originally scheduled for March this year has been cancelled, so it is recommended that the reporter sign up for another composition competition for the child, and Said that the fee for this composition competition was "the cheapest" among the language competitions, and said that after winning the competition, students would also get a portfolio in addition to the certificate.
He introduced that almost all these competitions need to pay registration fees ranging from several hundred yuan to thousands of yuan.
As an intermediary, every time an applicant is arranged for these competition organizing committees, they will get dozens of yuan returned by the organizing committee.
The competition intermediary admitted frankly that many of the competitions he recommended were not on the list of competitions approved by the Ministry of Education.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily retrieved the above-mentioned multiple composition competitions and mathematics competitions recommended by two competition intermediaries. None of these competitions appeared in the "List of National Competition Activities for Primary and Secondary School Students in the 2022-2025 School Year" published by the Ministry of Education.
experience
Being fooled into participating in the copycat competition
Paying the registration fee multiple times arouses suspicion
A parent told a reporter from Beiqing Daily that he had signed up his child for the Ye Shengtao Cup "Chinese Competition" provincial competition in 2021. Some parents around me signed up their children, fearing that their children would lose in the competition for higher education, and felt that the registration fee of more than 200 yuan was acceptable, so they signed up their children.”
The parent said that his son won the second prize in the competition that year, and the child also submitted this competition award when he entered school last year. And there are children around me who did not participate in the competition and my child was admitted to the same junior high school."
Fu Ya (pseudonym), another student who participated in the Ye Shengtao Cup "Chinese Competition" in 2022, recalled that the school teacher had introduced the "Ye Shengtao Cup" competition before. "After thinking about it, the teacher introduced it should be recognized by the Ministry of Education. 'Ye Shengtao Cup New Composition Contest'. But when I searched online, I found this 'Chinese Contest' website. At that time, I read the website's introduction to the competition and felt that the official website was complete. I contacted the person in charge of the competition. Only a few hundred yuan registration fee was charged to participate.”
Fu Ya said that at that time, the preliminary competition did not even set a composition topic, and only one composition was required.
Then she participated in the provincial competition and was asked to pay the registration fee.
After the provincial competition, the contestant notified her that she had won the prize, and introduced that she could participate in the next level of competition.
"But when I saw that I needed to pay another registration fee of more than 1,000 yuan to continue participating in the competition, I felt very suspicious. I also asked the contestant whether they had a certificate for winning the provincial competition. The other party said that there was a certificate, so I did not participate in the next level of competition."
Industry opinion
The selection of students is mainly based on their daily performance in school
Can these competition certificates really become a stepping stone for children to enter higher education?
A retired person in charge of a junior high school in Beijing who has participated in school admissions for many times told Beiqing Daily that in the recruitment activities she participated in, the subject competition awards had almost no impact on admissions.
"When selecting students, our main concern is the students' daily performance in school. Generally speaking, people don't pay much attention to the results of students' subject competitions, especially those competitions that are not recognized by the Ministry of Education. Although some students have won They won awards in such competitions, but they did not show a particularly large advantage in the corresponding subjects after enrollment, so it is meaningless for students to participate in these competitions without gold content. In contrast, we will care about some students’ hobbies , For example, specialties in sports and literature and art, some schools have sports teams and art troupes, and recruit some students for these groups every year, so if students have specialties in this area, they will have a better chance of being admitted by the school.”
The Ministry of Education also reminded parents of students in a circular issued on February 15: To participate in national competitions for primary and middle school students, be sure to look for the "List of National Competitions for Primary and Secondary School Students in the 2022-2025 School Year" published on the website of the Ministry of Education. , Do not participate in illegal competitions, beware of being deceived and suffering losses.
The Ministry of Education stated that at present, there are serious problems in illegal competitions in society, such as high fees, chaotic management, low quality, peddling awards, and profiteering, which not only increase the burden on students, destroy the educational ecology, but also hide the risk of fraud and infringe on the interests of the masses. .
The Ministry of Education will continue to work with the public security, market supervision and other departments to resolutely crack down on all kinds of illegal competition activities.
The whole society is welcome to participate in supervision and jointly safeguard the interests of students and parents.
This group article/Reporter Qu Chang
Coordinator by intern Hou Xiangyu/Jiang Shuo