Authorities are investigating a for-profit vocational school in Southwest China over allegations of false advertising, China Central Television (CCTV) reported.
The Career Technical College Guiyang in Guizhou Province promised to provide students with professional skills, internship opportunities and even job placement after graduation.
However, students were shocked to learn their core classes focused on how to open online stores on the Alibaba’s online marketplace Tmall and other platforms, and the school’s idea of job placement was holding a job fair on campus.
The school charged 3,500 yuan (US$492) in tuition plus an additional 6,200 yuan (US$871) in “professional skill fees.”
Students filed a report with an online supervisory platform run by the State Council, China’s Cabinet.
According to an initial investigation opened September 4, Guiyang education authorities did not respond quickly enough to complaints and did not supervise the cooperation between the school and its local business partner, Guizhou Weixue Education Technology Co., Ltd.
This case exemplifies the recent complaints of fraud against for-profit schools that cooperate with local businesses, wrote Ren Ran, a commentator for The Beijing News.
For example, there are many cases of school-enterprise cooperation turning into school-enterprise collusion that uses students as a source of cheap labor. Such violations not only harm the specific rights and interests of students but also tarnish the vocational education industry.
There is nothing wrong with the cooperation between schools and enterprises to increase students’ skills and competitiveness on the job market, which is a key reason the government promotes school-enterprise cooperation.
However, the focus of school-enterprise cooperation should be to help students rather than profit from them, Ren added.
Old Version
