With the rapid development of online education, disputes are frequent. There is an obvious correlation between the occurrence of online education disputes and the intervention of technical factors and market economy factors. The disputes reflect the lack of proper standardized guidance in the online education industry, the lack of a unified and authoritative social relief dispute resolution institution, and the shortcomings of the judicial remedy model in resolving online education disputes. In this regard, it is necessary to establish and improve the self-discipline and guidance of the industry, give full play to the function of administrative organs, especially the administrative departments of education, in the management of disputes and chaos, and improve the law to promote dispute resolution, so as to finally form a three-tier advanced dispute resolution and governance model for educational disputes of "industry guidance, administrative intervention, and legal protection".
introduction
Online education disputes refer to situations in which two or more parties involved in an online education activity are inconsistent on a specific issue or event. The formation of online education is based on the empowerment of the Internet for the education industry, the public's demand for diversified training modes and the huge demand for convenient training. Due to the impact of marketization and Internet intelligence, the subject of disputes in online education has been expanded compared with traditional education disputes, and at the same time, the online education industry no longer has the trend of administrative in the traditional education industry, and is becoming more and more market-oriented.
In the new era in which the fundamental task of education is to establish morality and cultivate people, the essence of education lies in educating people. In the face of the decline of public welfare and the strengthening of marketization of education, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Double Reduction Document" in July 2021, which made relevant rectifications and constraints on market-oriented subject education. Under the principle of public welfare in education, non-academic education should also be regulated. In view of this, this paper argues that it is necessary to clarify the types of disputes and existing dispute resolution mechanisms for the marketization of online education models, so as to better promote the standardization of the online education market.
I. Types and Characteristics of Online Education Disputes
The emergence and development of the online education model is positively correlated with the development and progress of science and technology, and a unique educational phenomenon has been formed in the form of running schools, with technology as the medium, the separation of learning and teaching, and the separation of teachers and students. Because the location of online education is no longer limited to schools, but is more flexible and open, it also lays the foundation for the market-oriented operation of the online education model. Therefore, in addition to the traditional education participants, the online education industry has absorbed new participants, and endowed the participants with multiple participation identities. In addition, new types of disputes have emerged from new types of disputes among the new participants in online education, which are quite different from the traditional types of disputes. With the support of technology and market-oriented operation, in the online education model, the provider of education often appears as an online educational institution. Because it can connect with other online educational institutions and other special individuals horizontally, and vertically with those receiving education, it has become the subject of a party to the dispute.
(1) Disputes between online educational institutions and those receiving education
In the traditional education model, disputes between education providers and the educated are an important part of education disputes. Among them, the education providers are schools with strong administrative colors, and the students are school-age children and teenagers who have met certain conditions. In the compulsory education stage, the mainland has adopted the method of "enrolling in schools nearby": school districts are set up in separate areas, and school-age children receive education in the nearest administrative planning school districts corresponding to their places of household registration and habitual residence. In addition, when the educational relationship is established, the corresponding situation of "a certain school - a certain student" is created, and the school and the student are fixed. The establishment of traditional teaching relationships and the development of educational activities are not based on the intervention of market-oriented factors. In accordance with the Education Law, the Compulsory Education Law, the Higher Education Law, the Vocational Education Law and other laws and regulations, the recipient of education enters the school, participates in educational activities, and enjoys the right to education as provided for in the Constitution. Classroom education is the most important teaching method of the traditional education model, and although the technical elements are reflected in the specific teaching activities, the technical elements only serve the traditional teaching and do not have a substantial impact on the establishment of teaching relationships.
In the online education model, the disputes between online education institutions and the educated are deeply affected by Internet technology and market economy. Internet technology is the basic condition for the existence of the online education model, and the market economy is the opportunity for the development of the online education model. Most of the participants in online education activities are equal civil subjects, and the establishment of teaching relationships is not based on the provisions of the law, but on the negotiation between online educational institutions and the educated, and the recipients of online education are not limited to school-age children and adolescents stipulated by laws and regulations, and there is a large span in the age range; the development of online education no longer follows the principle of "a certain institution - a certain student" In this way, an educated person can often obtain knowledge through multiple online educational institutions, and the scope of activities of online educational institutions can also radiate to the whole country, and even "export" knowledge to other countries and regions. To sum up, the contradictions arising from the online education model will also be separated from the framework of laws and regulations such as the Education Law, get rid of administrative factors, and give more prominence to market regulation and autonomy.
(2) Disputes between online educational institutions and faculty and staff
Most of the education providers in the traditional education model are public institutions, and teachers enjoy the establishment of state institutions and are supported by the state finance. Although schools cannot directly determine teachers' salaries and vacation arrangements, they have a great deal of autonomy in day-to-day management, and there is "a special administrative relationship" between schools and teachers. Therefore, in the traditional education model, the disputes between the faculty and staff groups and the school caused by the school's self-management right are accompanied by obvious administrative characteristics. Article 39 of the Teachers Law gives teachers the right to appeal in the face of potential infringement of teachers' rights and interests by schools and educational administrative departments. Therefore, in the traditional education model, there are clear boundaries between disputes between teachers and schools, and there is a hierarchical dispute resolution mechanism of "appeal-litigation".
Online educational institutions are different from traditional schools. The establishment of online educational institutions is not a specific arrangement at the national level, but a private private organization that can be flexibly established according to the market situation. The relationship between online educational institutions and employees is not regulated by the Teacher Law, and is presented in the form of "labor - employer". And then in the dispute, it is manifested as a labor dispute. The composition of teachers working in online educational institutions is also peculiar. Although the service targets of online educational institutions may include primary and secondary school students, the educational services they provide do not fall within the scope of primary and secondary education as stipulated in the Teachers Law, and the teachers working for online educational institutions do not belong to the teachers under the "teaching resources system". The vigorous development of the online education industry, the lack of relevant teacher resources and the low threshold have prompted a large number of "unlicensed teachers" to take up jobs. Not only that, but teachers in the online education industry are also highly mobile. Different from the traditional education model, where "one establishment is one pit" and "preparation represents an iron rice bowl", there are a large number of "wait-and-see personnel" in the online education industry. Due to the low threshold and convenient working conditions, many unemployed and unemployed people will choose to make the transition to online educational institutions, especially college graduates, who choose to join online educational institutions "part-time" in the form of not paying social security and not signing labor contracts in order to retain their status as fresh graduates for "public examinations". Such a tacit agreement between online educational institutions and in-service teachers to "conspire" to maximize profits also lays hidden dangers for disputes between the two parties.
(3) Disputes between online educational institutions
Under the traditional education model, the conflict and dispute in the field of education often does not include the dispute mode between educational institutions in terms of statistics and cognition. In the "Report of the Ministry of Education on the 2017 Annual Work of the Construction of a Rule of Law Government", "improving the mechanism for resolving disputes in accordance with the law" refers to "a fair, efficient and convenient diversified contradiction and dispute resolution mechanism in the field of education, including administrative reconsideration, administrative mediation, and petitioning, with educational administrative litigation as the core". None of the "pluralistic conflict resolution mechanisms" proposed in this report address school-to-school conflicts. At the same time, under the traditional education model, education providers (schools) are all public institutions directly managed by higher-level government departments and funded by the state. Disputes between educational institutions are "fraternal units", and disputes can often be resolved within the dispute.
In the online education model, disputes between educational institutions are essentially disputes under the market economy. The contradictions between each online educational institution also have the characteristics of market economy activities, and the educational disputes involved are of the nature of obvious property disputes. The innovation of online education for traditional education comes from many aspects: using technical conditions to innovate learning content and activities, using network advantages to carry out virtual teaching and multi-point synchronous teaching, and expanding the replacement of excellent learning resources. In the final analysis, these innovations are supported by technology to expand the application and benefits of intellectual property. The profits of online educational institutions are generally divided into course fees, platform commissions, software fees, value-added services, advertising fees, etc., and courses are at the core of them, and high-quality courses usually have a large amount of traffic to bring in potential intellectual property monetization benefits.
(4) Disputes between online educational institutions and other social entities
In such disputes, both the online education model and the traditional education model have disputes between the education provider and other social entities, but the disputes between online education institutions and other social entities are more extensive than those between traditional schools. The Education Law of 1995 clearly stipulates that schools with a traditional education model have legal personality and can independently interact with other individuals and organizations in their own name. Online educational institutions are essentially commercial entities, and online educational institutions are also not immune to the disputes that traditional schools may encounter in the process of social interaction.
However, with the blessing of Internet technology, there are particularities in the disputes between institutions in the online education model and the traditional education model between schools and other social subjects. Under the traditional education model, educational activities are mainly in schools and have the characteristics of being closed, while under the online education model, online educational activities appear in a non-contact form, and the teaching form is electronic live lectures and recorded lectures, which gives rise to issues such as intellectual property rights in live broadcast images and portrait rights in educational videos. Technology has helped the development of online education, but it has also increased the convenience of infringing on the derivative rights of online education activities. Since Internet technology can be used by online educational institutions, it can also be used by infringers, and only electronic equipment is required, and electronic materials for live broadcast and recorded broadcasts can be downloaded, stored, and sold, and the cost of infringement is greatly reduced. The openness of online education technology has increasingly become an important reason for disputes between online educational institutions and other social entities.
2. Resolving the dilemma of online education disputes
The problems behind the frequent online education disputes and the relative chaos of the online education market reflect the disorder of the online education market, the neglect of education public welfare, and the lack of effective dispute resolution mechanisms. In order for the online education industry to play its due role and achieve full development, it is necessary to analyze the dilemma of dispute resolution in online education.
(1) The online education industry lacks proper standardized guidance
For online education, the education administrative department believes that it is part of the market, and the market supervision department only considers it to be an ordinary market behavior and does not intervene much. In fact, such practices are biased and ignore the public welfare of educational products. Online education has the complex characteristics of both the market and education, and it is possible to choose a multi-departmental and multi-pronged approach to regulate chaos, and then prevent the occurrence of online education disputes.
The deep-seated qualitative issues in the online education industry have not been discussed and characterized. Article 12 of the Law on the Promotion of Private Education actually divides the fields of online education into two types, the first is "vocational qualification training and vocational skills training focusing on vocational skills", and the second is other private education, which is provided in the form of "other cultural education". However, it is such a vague and unclear situation that makes it challenging how to regulate online education and how government departments can deal with dispute resolution in a concrete manner, and then make the administrative organs, the most capable of standardizing and guiding the industry, useless.
1. The existing administrative punishment mechanism has a limited effect
There is a vicious circle of supervision of the online education industry by the administrative department. Therefore, the main body of punishment for the online education industry is usually the Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, and the means of punishment are fines, and the basis for punishment is the Price Law, the Advertising Law, and the Anti-Unfair Competition Law. In the face of frequent chaos and disputes in the online education industry, such control measures are obviously not strong.
2. The content of existing administrative supervision measures is limited
Professional regulators have the knowledge and information advantage of industry management, and can adapt to the reality of increasingly complex and rapidly changing modern social and economic activities. In addition to the management of online educational institutions by the Administration for Market Regulation, the measures taken by the education department to regulate the chaos of online education and resolve disputes are mainly based on the rectification needs of extracurricular education. In July 2019, the Ministry of Education said that it would conduct a record review of online education and training in the subject category of online education, and in September of the same year, the national off-campus online training management service platform was launched. The education administrative department has not yet extended this filing system to non-subject education, and has not introduced other ways to supervise the chaos of online education.
(2) Lack of a unified and authoritative social relief dispute resolution body
There is no shortage of actual social assistance agencies on the market to intervene in education disputes and resolve online education disputes, but at present, these dispute resolution has not achieved great results. This mainly focuses on two problems: first, the current social assistance organizations are relatively single-oriented to the audience, which cannot meet the online education market situation with the participation of multiple subjects; second, the actual effectiveness of social assistance organizations is limited and cannot be brought into play to a certain extent.
1. The audience of social assistance organizations does not match the market characteristics of multiple subjects
As mentioned above, the participants of online education are diversified under the role of marketization. Although the current social assistance organizations have established a position to address social market issues, most of them are natural derivatives of consumer protection organizations in the field of online education. Therefore, it is natural that the existing social assistance organizations focus only on the settlement of disputes between the "educated and the providers of educational services". At the same time, because these organizations still have the core of consumer protection associations, when the existing organizations intervene in the contradiction between "the educated and the providers of educational services", their basic protection stance is only to protect the rights of the educated, and the rights and interests of other subjects in online education disputes, especially online education service providers, are not well protected and help resolve the disputes.
2. Specialized social assistance organizations have limited actual functions
Social relief methods are more characterized by autonomy of will, flexibility and speed, and equal dialogue, and have less negative impact, so they play an important role in the context of promoting the modernization of national governance. However, in terms of online education disputes, the audience of social assistance organizations themselves is limited to the matter of "infringement of the rights and interests of the educated", and the effect of resolving such disputes is not obvious. First, social assistance organizations are essentially specialized non-governmental organizations and do not have the social appeal to properly resolve disputes. Second, social assistance organizations themselves are commercial in nature, and their means and effectiveness in resolving online education disputes are limited. At present, the operation mode of mainstream social assistance organizations is mainly divided into "complaint exposure" and "dialogue platform".
"Complaint exposure" social assistance organizations mainly rely on the information expansion effect of the Internet to receive users' complaint information on an open platform, and classify and organize such complaint information according to the complaint subject, forming a red and black list. The "dialogue platform" social assistance organization addresses the lack of a dialogue platform between online education and training subjects and the educated. The operating logic of such platforms is (1) individuals give feedback to the platform, (2) the platform reviews the content, and (3) the platform helps the complainant contact the merchant and help with the docking. The courses of online education are exported in the form of commodities, so the normal "sales-service-after-sales" model should be established. However, by visiting the webpages of some online educational institutions, the author found that although online educational institutions do not hide or do not provide after-sales related matters, after-sales related problems will only be in very small fonts, or slightly prompted to the educated on the side of the web page, and after-sales matters are generally not taken seriously. However, the role of "dialogue platform" social assistance organizations is only to provide a platform for dialogue among the educated, and there is no binding force on the refusal of online educational institutions to communicate further or mediate. In addition, there are also some non-specialized relief organizations, such as newspapers, personal public accounts, etc. However, these remedies have not yet formed a system, and there is only a chance to promote the resolution of a very small number of disputes, and there is no ability to resolve most of the disputes.
(3) There are inherent drawbacks in judicial remedies
Judicial remedies are usually the last mode of remedy in disputes, and the scope of disputes that can be resolved by judicial means is relatively wide. However, the judicial remedy model cannot cure all diseases, and the judicial remedy channel itself has inherent weaknesses. Since 2017, the author has collected a total of 66 judgments on online education in the Internet courts of Beijing, Hangzhou, and Guangzhou.
On the one hand, the cost of obtaining relief for rights under judicial remedies is often relatively high. In only 4.5% of the above-mentioned online education dispute cases, the final judgment requires the defendant to compensate the plaintiff more than 100,000 yuan, and in the disputes between online education institutions and the educated, the amount of compensation is limited to a few thousand yuan. Compared with the amount of compensation claimed by the plaintiff, the economic compensation that the court actually requires the defendant to bear is relatively low, accounting for only one-eighth to one-tenth of the amount claimed by the plaintiff, and it cannot even cover the expenses required by the plaintiff to apply for notarization and preservation of evidence in the process of asserting rights. At the same time, the use of judicial means will go through multiple links such as case filing, court litigation, waiting for judgment, enforcement, etc., even though there are Internet courts, mobile micro courts and other Internet methods to help litigation participants hold online court sessions to improve litigation efficiency and reduce litigation time costs, compared with the relatively small amount, the time cost paid by the judicial relief model obviously cannot match it.
On the other hand, judicial remedies cannot ensure that rights are fully protected, and disputes cannot be completely resolved. The judgment of the court only has a conclusion on the dispute, and the final resolution of the dispute requires the implementation of the judicial decision. In 27% of the 66 cases, the defendants could not be accurately located, and the plaintiffs' indictments were served by public notice, and none of these parties attended the online hearing. Therefore, if these parties are expected to take the initiative to enforce the court's judgment in place, it is basically equivalent to a fantasy, and it is very likely to form a situation of "winning the case, but not getting the money back"; Therefore, disputes over online education cannot be completely resolved through judicial channels.
3. Construct a multi-level online education dispute resolution path
In order to promote the resolution of online education disputes, compared with the relatively closed offline education governance, "single government governance and manual governance can no longer meet the healthy and stable development of the huge and complex online education market", and it is urgent to form a situation where "the implementation of governance policies is more diversified and complex". A three-tier advanced model of "industry guidance, administrative intervention, and legal guarantee" has been formed to trace the root causes of online education disputes and resolve them layer by layer.
(1) Improve the industry guidance model
As a special market participant, online educational institutions have their own profit-seeking nature, but their public welfare as an educational subject should not be ignored. Therefore, it is necessary to establish an industry self-regulatory organization based on the "public welfare of education" to realize the public welfare guidance of the online education industry, and establish a relevant industry adjustment mechanism to establish the first barrier for dispute resolution, so as to finally realize the "self-restraint and self-control guarantee system" of the online education industry, and form a sustainable development trend of self-management, self-development and self-restraint.
On the one hand, it is necessary to improve the operation mode of industry self-regulatory organizations and disclose the operating rules of industry self-regulatory organizations. On March 16, 2021, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and the China Federation of Network Society Organizations (CAS) established the Online Education Professional Committee. As a subordinate committee of the China Federation of Network Society Organizations, this professional committee has a semi-official nature, and also absorbs some online educational institutions as member units to participate in the industry's self-discipline actions. In the author's opinion, as a semi-official self-regulatory organization, the Online Education Professional Committee should formulate relevant norms such as basic professional ethics and basic codes of conduct for the online education industry, and give full play to its normative functions; In this way, we can better regulate the chaos in the industry and reduce the frequent occurrence of industry disputes from the root.
On the other hand, relying on industry self-regulatory organizations, establish industry dispute mediation institutions with a wide audience. The construction of a neutral dispute resolution mechanism can attract legal experts, experts in professional fields, industry representatives, user representatives and other parties to participate in conflict resolution. As mentioned above, there is a lack of coercive force and a lack of a wide audience in traditional dispute resolution mechanisms. One of the conditions for the construction of industry self-regulatory organizations is the existence of sufficient and representative member units, which directly provides a dialogue platform and way for resolving disputes between online educational institutions, and can provide stronger guarantees in promoting the dispute resolution between educational institutions. A certain degree of authority, and the educated also have a greater sense of trust when trying to resolve conflicts with online educational institutions.
(2) Improve the mode of administrative intervention
Although industry self-regulatory organizations have certain advantages in the resolution of online education disputes, they have inherent limitations such as "lack of legal protection" and "ambiguity of intermediary status". In the pattern of pluralistic governance, the role of state public power is often indispensable and plays a pivotal role. Therefore, it is necessary to intervene in the online education industry with the help of the authority and execution of the administrative organs. The administrative authorities need to deal with disputes arising from market disorder and chaos by improving administrative supervision measures, and also need to reactivate the administrative mediation system to promote the resolution of disputes arising from normal market operations.
1. Establish and improve administrative supervision measures
In the traditional education model, the education administrative department has always been a relatively strong regulatory department. The launch of the national off-campus online training management service platform is actually the beginning of the education administrative department to consciously take action towards the online education industry. Education issues are prioritized due to their different natures, which is why the scope of the managed services platform is limited. However, the difference in priority does not mean that there can be no regulatory inaction. Non-administrative punishment supervision is also sufficient to deter online educational institutions, and at the same time, it can also reflect the governance attitude of the regulatory authorities in the prudent exercise of public power. The author believes that the management service platform should be fully utilized to establish hierarchical and differentiated supervision. First, online education in academic categories will be given the highest priority, and secondly, the remaining online educational institutions will also be included in the scope of supervision, but the priority can be slightly lowered.
At the same time, the administrative law enforcement of online education should be included in the administrative law enforcement of "comprehensive integration". Online education disputes are caused by both market disorder and the shortcomings of the education industry itself, and the individual law enforcement of a single department has the situation that the boundaries of responsibilities are not clear, the coordination and linkage are not smooth, and the multi-head law enforcement is not efficient. At present, Zhejiang Province is piloting the implementation of the reform of the "large comprehensive integration" administrative law enforcement, and promoting daily law enforcement in the form of groups. Bringing the administrative law enforcement of online education into the "comprehensive integration" administrative law enforcement, and allowing the departments in charge of the market and education to carry out comprehensive law enforcement of the problems existing in online education institutions in the form of groups, can properly solve and solve the regulatory loopholes that have been formed in the online education industry for a long time.
2. Flexible use of administrative mediation
"Although administrative mediation is a traditional way of dispute resolution, for a long time, due to the scattered legal provisions, inaccurate legal positioning, and lack of operability, its function has been limited." However, under the complex situation of social development, "the simple state administration can no longer meet the needs of this development", and "the development trend of administration is from public power to public service". In addition to the macro requirements of administrative development, the administrative organs themselves have relatively professional knowledge backgrounds, the efficiency of the implementation of affairs, and the good social reputation and social authority, all of which require the administrative organs to directly intervene in the resolution of online education disputes.
In this way, the administrative mediation system can be constructed from two aspects: the administrative mediation system itself and the particularity of online education. In the administrative mediation system itself, although the legal provisions of administrative mediation are relatively scattered, many provinces and cities have corresponding administrative mediation systems. In addition, some provinces and cities have administrative mediation documents for specific industries such as health, housing, and transportation. Therefore, the author believes that the provincial-level administrative division should be used as the basic unit, and the provinces that have existing special administrative mediation system legislation should be directly borrowed from the existing institutional framework, and the education administrative department should introduce relevant supporting service measures; In addition, when promoting the resolution of disputes in the online education industry, more attention should be paid to its public welfare, emphasizing the statutory responsibilities and main position of the education administrative departments in mediating online education disputes. At the same time, it is also necessary to "clearly stipulate the procedures and responsibilities for exercising this power and performing this duty", such as stipulating that the administrative department of education should accept "the time limit for mediation, the procedure for mediation, and the legal responsibility for refusing to accept the application for mediation".
(3) Improve the model of legal safeguards
As mentioned above, online education is a product of the comprehensive influence of education and the market, and the legal provisions for it are also scattered in many laws such as the Education Law and the Law on the Promotion of Private Education. Therefore, it is necessary to reasonably interpret and identify the application of some blank and ambiguous laws in order to better resolve online education disputes.
1. Article 25 of the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests shall be reasonably applied
Article 25 of the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests is the most frequently mentioned in the legal provisions of online education disputes. Article 25 provides the public with the right to regret the purchase without reason within 7 days, but it also stipulates that "digital goods such as audio-visual products and computer software downloaded online or unsealed by consumers" do not apply to 7-day refunds without reason. In the author's opinion, there is room for discussion in the application of this law in the field of online education disputes. The basic logic of this article is to restrict the application of "digital goods such as audio-visual products and computer software downloaded online or unpacked by consumers", "because once such goods are downloaded or unpacked, they may be copied indefinitely, which will cause damage to the rights and legitimate interests of operators", and the core is to balance the rapidity of digital communication and the normal business needs of digital goods and service providers. However, the educational services provided by online education often have their own particularities. The purchase of online education services can basically be equated with the purchase of class qualifications, and online education is often an operation mode of unlocking courses in stages, and in rare cases, all courses will be directly updated and transmitted at one time. Therefore, it would be arbitrary to directly determine that the online education services purchased by the educated party fall under this clause and then do not enjoy the right to a refund without reason within 7 days.
2. Clarify the meaning of vague terms in Article 12 of the Law on the Promotion of Private Education
The mainland is in the process of building a government under the rule of law, and the principle of the government's functions and powers and statutory provisions must be strictly observed in all kinds of rule of law practices. It is expected that the national public power will solve the industry problems of online education and directly attack the root causes of the problems, and it is necessary to clarify the powers, scope and responsibilities of the public authorities at the most macro legal level. In fact, as early as 2002, the mainland promulgated the Law on the Promotion of Private Education, and the online education industry, as a type of private education, should be regulated and managed by the Law on the Promotion of Private Education. However, Article 12 of the Law on the Promotion of Private Education contains a vague concept of "other cultural education", and it is unclear whether the cultivation of physical education, dance, music, painting, mental arithmetic, etc., in the actual scope of education, is "other cultural education". "Once the administrative power is formed, it has the impulse to expand itself in the process of its operation", and the vague term "other cultural education" may lead to the inaction and inaction of the administrative power, which is likely to bring uncertainty to the approval of online education. At the same time, some scholars have found that there are great differences in the practice of Article 12 and the analysis of the connotation of "other cultural education" in various places.
As for the ambiguity of Article 12, the author believes that this provision should be interpreted in light of the current industry issues of online education. In the current Article 12, only the administrative department of education and the administrative department of human resources and social security have the authority to examine and approve the implementation of online education; At the same time, the law only makes clear provisions on this part of the online education content that needs to be approved by the administrative department of human resources and social security. Therefore, under the current law on the promotion of private education, the authority of the education administrative department for the examination and approval of online education should be more thorough and comprehensive, and the examination and approval of the administrative department of human resources and social security is more similar to the separation of some fixed approval authority to help the education administrative department reduce the burden. Logically, the legislation will not classify private education into "private schools focusing on vocational qualification training and vocational skills training" and "private schools for academic education, pre-school education, and self-study examination-aided education", deliberately leaving vacancies in private education such as physical education, dance, music, painting, and mental arithmetic, forming an ambiguous zone; although Article 12 juxtaposes "academic education, pre-school education, and self-study examination assistance" with "other cultural education", it is appropriate to put "other cultural education" It is regarded as a kind of blanket description of all private education. This is also more in line with the provisions of the administrative department of human resources and social security for the examination and approval of only a very small number of matters involving private education.
epilogue
Education looks forward to technological change, and technology promotes the development of education. The empowerment of Internet technology in the field of education can provide a boost to the construction goal of the mainland. However, online education-related technologies subvert traditional educational thinking, educational technology and educational components, and cannot subvert the essence of education "educating people". In resolving various disputes over online education, it is still necessary to return to the starting point of education public welfare, and reverse the situation of the prevalence of market profit and the decline of education public welfare. From the perspective of multiple solutions to online education disputes, it is necessary to respect the market factors existing in the online education industry, pay more attention to the educational attributes of education, give full play to the role of industry self-regulatory organizations and education administrative departments in dispute resolution and public welfare publicity, and form a three-tier dispute resolution path of "industry guidance, administrative intervention, and legal protection".