This article comes from the WeChat public account: Economic Observer (ID: eeo-com-cn) , of: Li Jing, from the head of FIG: pixabay
“Parents have always communicated with the school through tuition reimbursement through letters or emails, or postponed tuition during normal outbreaks during the epidemic situation to the next semester, but the school has always refused to communicate and made compromises in terms of tuition. “Concessions”, Zhang Nan (pseudonym) told Economic Observation Network on April 30th by phone.
Zhang Nan is a student parent of ECC (hereinafter referred to as “Lecheng Kindergarten”) . Affected by the epidemic at the beginning of this year, Lecheng International Kindergarten was forced to postpone the new semester course that was supposed to start on February 3.
During the epidemic, the school unilaterally informed that it would provide online courses for children aged 3 to 6 years in the kindergarten without communicating with parents. But this approach was opposed by the vast majority of kindergarten parents.
Zhang Nan told the Economic Observation Network. First of all, the school had already collected tuition fees for the whole year in May last year, which also included pre-collected fees that were not actually taught during the semester during the epidemic. Secondly, the school adopts the form of online courses as an alternative teaching method without regard to the objective situation of children in the age group of 3 to 6 years without reaching agreement with parents.
From March to the present, 100 parents, including Zhang Nan, have tried to communicate with Lecheng School about refunds many times, but have not received any reply from the school. However, what is even more unexpected is that emails calling for tuition fees for the next academic year are unexpected.
Zhang Nan ’s problems are not alone. During the epidemic, in addition to Lecheng Kindergarten, Beijing Chaoyang Kevin School, Jiade Montessori Bilingual Kindergarten and many other international schools had disputes over fee refunds.
Focus on this time periodThe current status of school fees appears. On April 10, the Office of the Ministry of Education ’s Office for Governance and Charging of Disasters issued an early warning clearly stating that tuition fees (teaching fees) Advance receipts across school years or semesters. All localities should follow the unified deployment of the local people’s government on epidemic prevention and control to start classes and resume classes. Students who do not start or do not start classes shall not be charged tuition fees in advance (conservation fees) .
Zhang Nan told reporters that parents including him hope that the school can stop online classes, refund the previous semester fees received in advance, or postpone the tuition fees to the next semester.
On May 6, the Economic Observation Network called Lecheng Kindergarten many times, but as of press time, there was no connection.
Change to online class
Public information shows that Beijing Lecheng International School, established in 2005, is one of the largest and best-equipped international schools in Beijing. The school has 13 grades from pre-school to high school, enrolling students from 2 to 18 years old. There are currently two campuses in Beijing, namely the main campus including the elementary and secondary schools and the kindergarten in Shuangjing, Chaoyang District.
According to Zhang Nan, Lecheng Kindergarten was originally scheduled to start on February 3, and from February 3, the school began to use the form of recording and broadcasting courses-sending several small videos to students every day-for school age Former children provide teaching content.
In April 2020, Lecheng Kindergarten changed the short recording course to a “live course”. School teachers provide 30-minute live teaching services in the morning and afternoon of each day.
Zhang Nan said that although the online course changed from recording to broadcasting, it can be seen that the school has made efforts for this, but the average time of a 30-minute course is only a few minutes for each child in the class to communicate with the teacher In addition, due to the time difference, the foreign teachers in the morning class were forced to switch to middle school teachers, and the course experience was still unsatisfactory.
“Kindergarten children are young, and it ’s not good for the eyes to spend a long time online; “, Zhang Nan said.
According to him, The tuition fee for Lecheng Kindergarten ’s large class is 240,000 yuan a year. The number of classes in the year is 180 ~ 183 days, which is equivalent to 1311 yuan per day.