The school is gone, where can we go to study?
He Xiaomei
Parents display the receipts of school fees.
● A unlicensed school in Humen was shut down and the boss ran away with students' tuition fees
● The police have intervened in the investigation. The education department said it would arrange schools for students to attend classes as soon as possible.
Text/Photos by reporter Liu Manyuan
"After the start of the semester, the students only attended two days of class. On the third day, the school was tightly closed, without a single person left, and it was finally confirmed that the school's boss had fled. Where can our children go to school? Who can we ask for the tuition fees and meal fees we just paid for our children?" Yesterday morning, many parents gathered together in Shudian Community in Humen, worried about their children's schooling.
A unlicensed school in Shudian Community in Humen, despite being shut down multiple times by the local education department, continued to recruit students for the autumn semester this year. On September 2, the school was complained about by the public and was sealed again by the Humen Education Office. Unexpectedly, the school's boss Xu (from Xinyi, Guangdong) fled with nearly 300 students' tuition fees and meal fees amounting to hundreds of thousands of yuan.
Currently, the police have issued an arrest warrant and will bring the suspected fraudulent "school" boss Xu to justice as soon as possible.
Incident: School boss flees after only two days of class
The school where the boss fled is located at No. 5, Shudian New Dong Second Alley, Humen Town, without a name. At around 10 a.m. yesterday, I arrived at the office building of Shudian Community in Humen, where more than a hundred student parents had gathered. Most of them were carrying children who were ready to go to school with backpacks.
Several student parents told me that at 7 a.m., they sent their children to school as usual, but when they arrived at the school, they found all the doors closed and locked, and there was no one inside the school. "There were not only no students, but also no teachers! The children had only been studying for two days before the school closed and left. Where will the children go to school in the future?"
A student parent surnamed Liang said that on the afternoon of September 2, when he came to pick up his child from school, he felt something was wrong with the school. Because the staff of the Humen Education Office and the security officers came to this school and took the school's boss away. Around 9 p.m. that night, he suddenly received a call from his child's teacher. The teacher said in the phone call, "There will be a typhoon tomorrow, so the children don't need to go to school! Come back next Monday..." He didn't pay attention at the time, but didn't expect the school's boss to flee.
Another student parent, Mr. Lin, confirmed to me that this school had been operating in Shudian Community in Humen for more than two years. Last year, the school admitted more than 10 classes, from kindergarten to the third grade of elementary school, with over 300 students. During this period, due to fire safety issues, it was sealed once by the Humen Education Department.
Why send children to a school that has been shut down? Parents said that most of them are new residents working or doing business in factories or businesses in Shudian and surrounding areas in Humen. The school is close to where they work and live, making it convenient to pick up and drop off their children; on the other hand, the school charges relatively less. Moreover, before the start of the semester, many parents contacted several public schools in Humen, but either there were no available spots or they did not accept new residents who had not accumulated points.
● What kind of school is this?
The school doesn't even have a name
Under the guidance of Mr. Lin, I arrived at the so-called school: it was just a few residential buildings, one of which was relatively new but had no main gate, only a few roller doors. The other two buildings were simple bungalows. The entire school had no place for students to engage in activities. If the student parents hadn't brought us here, I wouldn't have known that this was a school for more than 300 students.
Multiple student parents showed me the receipts they had paid to the school. In addition to noting tuition fees and meal fees, the receipts also bore a seal named "Yasheng Tutoring School, Humen Town, Dongguan City."
The school was complained about and sealed
According to Ms. Chen, a staff member of the Humen Education Office who came to handle the matter, on September 2, the second day of the semester, they received reports from the public that there was a unlicensed school in Shudian, Humen, admitting hundreds of students. After receiving the report, relevant departments investigated and sealed the school, while requiring the community security committee to control the school's boss Xu and demanding that Xu refund all the collected tuition fees to the student parents as soon as possible.
"However, unexpectedly, Xu took advantage of the landlord's absence on September 4 and fled with the money!"
The boss hasn't fled and is raising funds?
At noon yesterday, I called a female teacher at the school. She claimed that actually, the school's boss hadn't fled, but was actively raising funds and would refund the collected tuition fees to the student parents within a few days.
"The boss is a 'responsible' person, he won't take the tuition fees of nearly 300 students and run away. That would damage his reputation. It's just that he is too busy right now and cannot deal with the matter publicly."
However, when I requested to contact the school's boss, the female teacher informed me that she didn't have the boss's contact number and then hung up.
Government: Arrange schools for students to attend classes as soon as possible
In the morning yesterday, relevant officials from the Humen Publicity Office informed the media about the incident. The school whose boss fled in Shudian, Humen, was an unlicensed black school that had been shut down multiple times by the education department, but the school's principal still illegally operated the school.
Regarding the current situation where the school's boss has fled with the money, the Humen education authorities admit to some fault in supervision and will bear certain responsibilities.
Currently, the police have issued an arrest warrant and will bring the suspected fraudulent "school" boss Xu to justice as soon as possible; secondly, the landlord and the community renting out the premises for the school have been required to prepay the tens of thousands of yuan in tuition fees taken by the fleeing boss and return all the tuition fees to the parents; additionally, the Humen education department is studying how to accommodate these students who have no school to attend and strives to resolve the issue of students attending school as soon as possible.
By the time the article was published, 157 student parents had registered, requiring a refund of 207,350 yuan. The refund process began in the afternoon.
He Xiaomei: The school is closed, the teachers are gone, and I have nowhere to study.
During the interview, I met a little girl with a small backpack, her mouth pouted, and her two eyes looked like she had cried. The little girl told me that her name is He Xiaomei, and she is a second-grade student at the school. Early in the morning, she went to school with her backpack, but when she arrived, she found that the teachers were gone and the school gates were closed.
"I really want to go to school! But now, the school is closed, the teachers are all gone, and I have nowhere to go to school! I don't even know if my parents can find another school for me to continue studying... " At this point, He Xiaomei couldn't help but burst into tears.