The influx of capital into online education, "famous teachers hit the face" and other chaos frequently appeared

Online education institutions need to return to the education standard

  □ Our reporter Zhao Chenxi

  "I have been a math teacher in elementary school all my life."

  "I have been an English teacher for 40 years."

  It is hard to imagine that these two sentences actually came from the same "teacher".

  Recently, the advertisements of four leading online education companies such as Yuanjiao, Homework Assistant, Gaotu Classroom, and Qingbei Online School were screened for "face-hit", and they all invited the aforementioned "teacher".

  Soon, another identity of this "all-round teacher" was picked out. She was an "net celebrity" with more than 2 million fans on a video website.

  Affected by the epidemic, online education has been promoted to the "C position". Data shows that the number of online education users in my country has increased from 104 million in 2016 to 423 million in 2020; the market size has expanded from 221.8 billion in 2016 to 2020. It is estimated that 500 billion yuan; the online education industry's annual financing amount exceeds the sum of the last ten years, reaching 50 billion yuan.

But behind the "prosperity and development", there are many chaos in the online education industry, such as false propaganda, false teacher qualifications, and difficulty in refunding fees.

False advertising educational institutions are responsible

  Online education advertisements have "rolled over" one after another.

  Just before the four online education institutions "hit their faces" at the same time, the same young man appeared in two online education advertisements at the same time. One was a middle school teacher with 6 years of teaching experience; the other became a The father of a junior high school student who is late from get off work and has no time and ability to help his child with his homework.

  More intuitive is a set of data-the "November 2020 Advertising Monitoring Report" released by the Beijing Municipal Market Supervision Administration on December 11, 2020 shows that among the various commodity service categories monitored in November 2020, the fourth It is in the education and training service category. The amount of suspected illegal advertisements is 228 times. Its main illegal performance is that it makes guaranteeing commitments to the effects of education and training; uses the images of professionals and beneficiaries to make recommendations and proofs.

  The Advertising Law clearly stipulates that education and training advertisements must not use the name or image of scientific research units, academic institutions, educational institutions, industry associations, professionals, or beneficiaries for recommendation or certification.

  In this regard, Liu Junhai, vice president of the China Consumers Association and director of the Institute of Commercial Law of Renmin University of China, pointed out in an interview with a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily that in education and training advertisements, whether the true identity of the "teacher" is an actor or a teacher In the advertisement, her image is shown as a teacher, and she recommends consumers with this image, which is suspected of violating the Advertising Law.

  According to industry insiders, the reason for the "face-hit" is because these four online education institutions have found the same information exchange advertising supplier.

  Liu Junhai pointed out that Article 56 of the Advertising Law stipulates that if the publication of false advertisements deceives or misleads consumers and damages the legitimate rights and interests of consumers who purchase goods or receive services, advertisers shall bear civil liability in accordance with the law.

Therefore, even if online education institutions give advertisements to a third party to produce and promote, as advertisers, they still have to bear the responsibility for false advertisements and should strengthen the review of advertisement content.

  The cost of acquiring customers increased sharply

  In fact, before the "face collision" advertisement was exposed, many people had already "disgusted" with the overwhelming advertising of online educational institutions.

  The electronic advertising screens in the elevators repeatedly broadcast slogans such as "Difficulties, help with famous teachers"; the billboards of the bus stations also have eye-catching online education organization LOGO; even watching variety shows and TV series, there will be hosts always reminding Your online education is "ubiquitous"...

  "In order to acquire customers, some online training institutions don't spend money on improving the quality of services, but advertise in all major media to create an atmosphere where all children need to participate in training, and increase parents' anxiety." The relevant person in charge of the Department of Basic Education of the Ministry of Education said in an interview recently on the website of the State Supervision Commission of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

  Traffic is the most important means for online education to acquire customers, and advertising investment has therefore become the main focus of online education institutions' "burning money".

  On the one hand, it is a huge advertising investment, on the other hand, it is to promote and recruit students, constantly launching courses like "the original price of 600 yuan / 6 sessions, now you can enjoy only 60 yuan" ultra-low price preferential courses and even free trial listening class.

  The direct impact of such investment is that the cost of acquiring customers for training institutions has risen sharply.

  Chen Xiangdong, the founder of the online education organization "Go to Learn", posted an account. He took the organization's 50-yuan "entry class" as an example, and said that through such activities to acquire new users, the organization's customer acquisition cost is about 500 Yuan to 600 yuan, and the industry average conversion rate is 25%, that is, only a quarter of the experience users can finally be converted into regular-priced courses. Therefore, online education institutions really get a formal student, and the customer acquisition cost is 2,000 yuan To 3,000 yuan.

 Frequent chaos in online education and training

  The high cost of acquiring customers has forced online education institutions to "raise their brains" in other areas.

  On January 14, in the "Top Ten Consumer Rights Protection Public Opinion Hotspots in 2020" sorted out by the China Consumers Association, online training services frequently appeared chaotically.

Among them, issues such as false propaganda, difficulty in refunding fees, and fraudulent teacher qualifications are at the forefront of complaints.

  In order to solve the problem of the difficulty of refunding fees for training institutions, as early as August 2018, the "Opinions on Regulating the Development of Off-campus Training Institutions" issued by the General Office of the State Council required that off-campus training institutions not charge a one-time fee that spans more than 3 months. .

In June 2020, the "Out-of-school Training Service Contract for Primary and Secondary School Students (Model Text)" jointly issued by the Ministry of Education and the State Administration of Market Supervision also reiterated and clarified that online training institutions charge by class hours, and each subject must not charge more than 60 class hours at a time. cost.

  But in reality, in order to maintain cash flow considerations, training institutions will use all means to encourage consumers to "hoard lessons."

In addition to various preferential activities such as preferential prices for purchases of courses and the introduction of recharge rebates, some institutions also induce consumers to purchase a large number of courses through loans.

  However, once a training institution has operational difficulties due to a broken capital chain, consumers will be the most affected.

  Recently, the online education institution Xuebajun "exploded". Some parents reported that the course was stopped and the refund was not processed. The installment loan applied for when purchasing the class was still repaid monthly.

  The qualifications of teachers in some online education institutions are also worrying.

  Recently, a survey in the "No. 4 Qiyang Road" column of Phoenix Net Finance found that the status of the teacher qualification certificates of many teachers in the Yuantuo App showed "registered status".

  In response to this, the staff at Yuan Guidance explained that some teachers have passed the exam, but the teacher qualification certificates have not been re-examined and issued due to the epidemic.

  In July 2019, the "Implementation Opinions on Regulating Online Training Outside Schools" jointly issued by the Ministry of Education and other six departments clearly required that personnel engaged in training in subjects such as language, mathematics, and English should have the corresponding teacher qualifications prescribed by the state, and Information such as the names, photos, and teacher qualification certificates of the trainers should be publicized in a prominent position on the training platform.

  Is it necessary to formulate special legislation

  According to Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, an important reason for the frequent chaos in online education institutions is that they are pulled too quickly by capital investment.

  “Over-financed online education institutions have to prioritize the preservation and appreciation of funds, and the profitability in the operation process. The content and quality of education and training often have problems.” Chu Zhaohui told a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily.

  Education scholar Xiong Bingqi also believes that online education institutions should return to education as soon as possible from capital competition.

"No matter how strong the power of capital is, it cannot violate the laws of education." Xiong Bingqi pointed out in an interview with a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily that if you rely solely on financing to survive, if you can’t control quality and cost, you will fall into business difficulties. Online education will ultimately remain We must return to the essence of education-teaching quality.

  Zhu Wei, deputy director of the Communication Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, told a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily that relevant departments have issued a number of policies for online education in recent years, but some of the existing policy regulations are relatively scattered and different in standardization. Insufficient coercive force, and the lack of special regulations for this emerging industry in the current laws and regulations has resulted in low entry barriers for the online education industry, and eventually a situation of uneven development has formed.

  Zhu Wei suggested that online education should be specifically legislated at the national level, or regulations should be formulated first to make targeted provisions on the problems of online education institutions in terms of entry threshold, teacher management, and teaching quality.

  "The formulation of special legislation is to a large extent only a comprehensive summary of existing regulations, and how to implement it is still the key." Chu Zhaohui believes that compared with legislation, it is more important to change the current education evaluation mechanism.

  "The most effective treatment against chaos is to reduce the demand at the source, so that if online training institutions want to survive, they must improve their own quality and return to the essence of education." Chu Zhaohui said that the current education law is being revised and it is recommended to establish scientific education. The content of the evaluation system is further enriched to fundamentally solve the problem of education evaluation baton.