Recently, a teacher from an off-campus non-academic training institution beat a student, causing him to faint unconscious, and he was sent to the hospital for rescue and died, which caused widespread concern in the society.
With the increasing attention of parents to quality education and physical education, off-campus non-academic training institutions have sprung up, many of which are sports, and safety accidents such as sprains and even "lower back paralysis" (paralysis caused by lower back) caused by improper training have occurred from time to time, and corporal punishment and beating of students by teachers in training institutions have also been reported from time to time.
What are the reasons for the frequent occurrence of safety problems in the teaching process of off-campus non-academic training institutions? Are there any problems with the qualifications, teachers, and venues of the institutions in practice? How can I ensure the safety of minors when attending interest classes? With these questions, the reporter of "Rule of Law Daily" launched an investigation and interview.
The skill certificate has a large moisture
The choice of training venue is arbitrary
Not long ago, a parent in Dongying, Shandong Province, reported that his five-and-a-half-year-old son was beaten by a roller skating coach in a kindergarten extended class, and after returning home, there were obvious bruises on his buttocks, and an examination of his hip and head showed multiple injuries. Surveillance video shows that the child fell while roller skating, and the coach stepped forward to grab the child and take off his pants and spank him; After the child fell to the ground and got up, the coach kicked his roller skates again and hit him on the head.
It is understood that the roller skating coach is not a teacher in the park, but an employee of a local roller skating club, and the kindergarten has signed a contract with the roller skating club, and the club will send someone to teach the children roller skating. At present, the police have intervened in the investigation.
In recent years, the media has reported a number of disputes over "low back paralysis" caused by children practicing dance at training institutions. According to a data released by Union Hospital Affiliated to Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, from 2005 to 2022, there were more than 1,000 children with "lower back paralysis" in mainland China. According to relevant experts, the onset age of "low back paralysis" is mainly concentrated in 3 to 10 years old, 70% of cases are complete injuries, and there is no effective treatment at present.
In January 2022, Xiaoyu, a 5-year-old girl from Guang'an, Sichuan Province, was diagnosed with "flaccid paraplegia" in the hospital after suffering severe leg pain and unable to walk while attending a dance class. According to the judicial appraisal, Xiaoyu's disability level was assessed as a first-class disability, and her "spinal cord injury" was a physical injury, and there was a causal relationship between her dance learning behavior, and it was a complete causal relationship. After the incident, the court ruled that the training institution should compensate Xiaoyu for medical expenses, follow-up treatment expenses, and disability compensation totaling more than 2.1 million yuan.
During the interview, many parents pointed out that there are problems with the qualifications of some off-campus non-academic training institutions and their teachers, such as teachers who do not have relevant qualifications, do not have safety knowledge reserves, and the configuration of institutional venues and equipment is not compliant.
Ms. Qiao, an 8-year-old daughter from Chaoyang District, Beijing, enrolled in a dance class near her home last year. Because the child had no basic training before, the physical condition was relatively average, and she had previously learned about the news of the child's injury caused by improper training in some dance classes, Ms. Qiao specially told the teacher when she signed up and paid the fee that the main purpose of registering for the class was to let the child exercise, not to overly pursue softness and difficult movements, "we don't lower the waist".
I didn't admit it, after less than two months of class, the child came back one day with a swollen bag on the back of his head, saying that the teacher asked the class to lower down but did not have personal guidance, and the child couldn't hold the back of his head and hit the ground. It turned out that without Ms. Qiao's knowledge, the teacher had asked the child to do the lower back movement for two weeks.
"On the one hand, I made it clear that my children don't practice lower back; On the other hand, my child is a beginner, his own strength and skills are poor, in the same class, some students have been exposed to dance training since childhood, and teach them together, without considering individual differences, I think this is very unreasonable, the teacher is very unprofessional, and the safety of training is difficult to guarantee. Ms. Qiao said.
The reporter searched for recruitment information such as "children's dance coach", "children's martial arts coach" and "children's roller skating coach" on a recruitment website, and consulted relevant recruiters and found that most off-campus non-academic training institutions are not strict in their qualifications when recruiting coaches. For example, a sports training institution in Xicheng, Beijing, recruits roller skating coaches, and those with a high school degree or above with a sports and normal college education background can apply. When the reporter asked if he could apply for the job without relevant qualifications, the other party replied that "the main thing is to be able to sell and sell courses".
According to the relevant provisions, personnel engaged in training work employed by non-academic extracurricular training institutions must have the corresponding types of vocational (professional) abilities such as sports, culture and arts, science and technology, etc. (the specific details shall be specified by the competent departments at or above the provincial level) or have the corresponding category of teacher qualification certificates, and must not employ in-service teachers in primary and secondary schools. In practice, most of the relevant practitioners have the professional skills certificate of the former.
The reporter's investigation found that some cultural and sports professional skills certificate exams are very "watery". Taking dance training as an example, there is no national examination version of the qualification certificate for dance training, but some dance schools and industry organizations set their own examination rules and issue certificates.
The reporter saw on social platforms that some people engaged in dance training or relevant certificates issued by examination institutions include the ×× Promotion Association Dance Trainer Professional Certification Certificate, the ×× Association Dance Examination Teacher Qualification Certificate, and the ×× College Dance Examination Teacher Qualification Certificate. After the reporter's consultation, it was found that it was not difficult to obtain the above-mentioned certificates, and some research institutions even promised to "give money to get the certificate".
Some agency staff told reporters that the content of the examination includes written tests and videos, and the written test is to answer the dance theory knowledge, and then upload a dance video of oneself, pay the registration fee ranging from 1,500 yuan to 2,500 yuan, and basically get the certificate after 30 days.
In addition to teacher qualifications, the compliance problems of some off-campus training institutions have also been criticized by many parents: some institutions can find a random piece of land in a park or even a community and use it as a training venue. Ms. Liu, a Beijing resident, was walking in a park near her home more than once when she saw the coach of the training institution leading several children to exercise in the open field. "It's just an ordinary concrete floor, and the children run and jump without hurting their knees?"
According to the relevant regulations, non-academic offline training institutions must obtain administrative licenses from the relevant competent departments at the county level. In recent years, various localities have also made detailed provisions on the qualifications of non-academic off-campus training institutions. From the perspective of relevant regulations, compliant off-campus training institutions must have complete licenses and within the validity period and pass the annual inspection every year, "certificate" refers to the school license, and "license" refers to the business license or the "private non-enterprise unit registration certificate".
However, the reporter's investigation found that some non-academic off-campus training institutions did not have complete licenses. On the social platform, the reporter searched for "non-academic off-campus training institution school running certificate" and found that some relevant institutions posted their own school running certificates, but many people in the comment area said "unnecessary", "there will be a lot of troubles after doing it", "law enforcement officers urged me to do it, but I didn't do it, and there was no punishment later". Another person posted that "if you put your business license in a prominent position, you can basically respond to inspections."
Poor regulation of security risks
The quality of training varies
Why do off-campus non-academic training institutions frequently have safety problems?
Zhou Xiang, an associate professor at the School of Education of the Chinese People's University, told reporters that many off-campus training institutions do not pay enough attention to safety. Ensuring the safety of trainees requires more investment, leading some training institutions to be reluctant to increase their investment or personnel in the prevention of accidental injuries. At the same time, the venues of off-campus training institutions are generally in large shopping malls, and their site attributes also lead to certain differences in safety standards, making it difficult to provide conditions for timely treatment of accidental injuries. In addition, a small number of teachers and trainers do not comply with business norms, and incorrect operation is also an important cause of safety accidents.
Yao Jinju, a professor at the Law School of Beijing University of Foreign Chinese, believes that the frequent safety problems of off-campus non-academic training institutions are mainly related to the lack of standardized guidelines for practitioners' qualification review and teaching methods, the imperfect emergency management system, and the lack of supervision of safety risks in non-academic off-campus training institutions.
She pointed out that the supervision of off-campus non-academic training institutions in various provinces and cities has different models such as the supervision of education administrative departments and industry authorities, and there is a lack of clear implementation standards for the management and review of employees' professional qualifications and work experience. In addition, some off-campus training and teaching personnel are not scientific enough in terms of teaching methods and training content, and fail to take different measures according to the personal physical condition of the students, and even commit illegal and criminal acts such as intentional injury. The training institutions' own risk prevention awareness and prevention mechanisms are not perfect or even established, neither fully reviewing the qualifications of practitioners, nor training them in education and teaching methods and risk response, and failing to timely and fully remind parents of risks according to the characteristics of the training.
"In addition, there is a lack of industry supervision of non-academic training institutions. In practice, there are behaviors such as the professional qualifications of teaching staff in training institutions that do not match the courses taught, the forgery of professional qualification certificates, or the false publicity of academic qualifications and certificates. Some training institutions carry out invisible training in the form of parent training, program arrangement services and other forms to evade supervision, and the quality of training is uneven, and they only pursue profit and ignore the public welfare attribute of education. Yao Jinju said.
The reporter noticed that the relevant departments in various places will release a batch of "white lists" and "blacklists" of off-campus non-academic training institutions from time to time, and publicize the institutions that meet or do not meet the local school-running standards. However, in the opinion of the interviewed experts, there is a certain lag between this kind of publicity and the actual operation of the institution, that is, some non-compliant institutions often have to operate for a period of time or even after security problems before they are included in the "blacklist" and punished accordingly, during which a large number of students may have been affected.
Zhou Shen believes that the coexistence of the lag of supervision and the flexibility of off-campus training institutions reflects that the supervision of off-campus training is not a pure government management behavior, which requires the participation of the whole society. At present, the government's supervision of non-academic training mainly adopts the mode of prevention and post-event supervision, and popularizes the whole society's awareness of non-academic training itself by abiding by the bottom line and continuous advocacy, so as to improve the efficiency of supervision. At the same time as the government's active action, parents should take the initiative to conduct on-site inspections of the teachers, safety, and environment of the training institutions, and if they meet the regulations, they can choose independently, and if there are doubts or obvious problems, they can provide clues to the regulatory authorities through complaints and reports, so as to form a good situation of joint supervision by the whole society.
Yao Jinju said that the Ministry of Education has launched a comprehensive platform for the supervision and service of national extracurricular education and training for parents to inquire and choose. The application of the platform should be further strengthened, and all approved institutions should be included in the management of the platform; Strengthen the annual review work, and order institutions that are not included in the platform to include them within a time limit; Institutions that refuse to be included or evade supervision need to be severely dealt with in accordance with laws and regulations.
"In the national comprehensive platform for the supervision and service of off-campus education and training, the verification of illegal and criminal records of the entry of employees to be hired, and the review of fire safety access to the site play an important role in strictly reviewing the qualification level of teaching personnel and the safety and security level of institutions. At present, there are still many training institutions that are not included in the unified management of the platform, and the regulatory authorities must further strictly control the access and review of the qualifications of employees of training institutions, so as to prevent security incidents caused by inconsistent qualifications of employees from the source. Yao Jinju said that in addition, credit supervision mechanisms such as credit risk classification and classification management of off-campus training institutions also need to be improved.
"The regulatory powers and responsibilities of off-campus non-academic training institutions are unclear and the law enforcement force is insufficient. In practice, the distinction between academic and non-academic training is not clear, and the lack of professionalism of the law enforcement team restricts the effectiveness of the governance of off-campus training institutions, and the phenomenon of duplicate law enforcement and multiple law enforcement still exists. Yao Jinju said.
Clarify market access criteria
Improve the safety responsibility system
The interviewed experts pointed out that the current regulations on off-campus non-academic training institutions are mainly found in the "Opinions on Regulating Non-academic Off-campus Training for Primary and Secondary School Students" issued by 13 departments including the Ministry of Education in 2022. Relevant documents also include the "Notice on Strengthening the Standardized Management of Art Examination Training in Deepening the Governance of Non-academic Extracurricular Training" jointly issued by the Ministry of Education, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, and the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the "Warm Reminder on Preventing Safety Issues in Extracurricular Training" jointly issued by the Department of Extracurricular Education and Training Supervision of the Ministry of Education. In addition, in practice, the laws that can be referred to and applied to off-campus non-academic training institutions include the Law on the Promotion of Private Education, the Regulations for the Implementation of the Law on the Promotion of Private Education, and the Interim Measures for Administrative Punishment of Off-campus Training.
Yao Jinju believes that the existing relevant legislation has a low level of effectiveness and lacks detailed standards. The Law on the Promotion of Private Education and its implementing regulations and other laws and regulations have made clear provisions on the establishment and operation of private educational institutions, but they stipulate that the main objects of application are private schools, and private extracurricular training institutions can only refer to the relevant provisions for implementation. The "Interim Measures for Administrative Punishment of Off-campus Training" clearly stipulates the methods of law enforcement, and provides a basis for regulating the administrative punishment of off-campus training, but the special legal norms related to the standardized management of off-campus non-academic training institutions are still mainly administrative normative documents and departmental working documents, and there are problems such as the low level of legal norms, the lack of sound relevant laws, and the lack of detailed standards.
"The existing legal norms lack unified and clear norms for the examination and approval subjects, school-running behaviors, training materials, teaching content and other aspects of non-academic off-campus training institutions, and there are differences in the approval subjects, qualification conditions and training content of off-campus training institutions in the normative documents issued by local government functional departments, resulting in confusion and uneven qualifications of off-campus training institutions." Yao Jinju said that the governance of off-campus training institutions needs more targeted legal norms. The existing norms are at a low level, and there is a lack of a clearer and more effective legal basis for administrative law enforcement. In the process of compiling the Education Code, due consideration may be given to regulating issues such as the establishment and access standards, personnel qualifications, and security guarantees of off-campus non-academic training institutions, so as to provide a legal basis for the high-quality development of off-campus training institutions.
Zhang Hongwei, a professor at the Juvenile and Family Law Research Center of Jinan University, believes that although the low level of laws and the lack of specific regulations are one of the reasons for the frequent occurrence of some security problems, and there is indeed room for continuous improvement, the top priority is to implement the existing legal provisions to the letter. The Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, the Law on the Protection of Minors and other relevant laws have successively provided for systems such as employment prohibitions, employment inquiries, and mandatory reporting, and if these legal provisions can be fully implemented, it will play an important role in ensuring that minors participate in off-campus non-academic training.
Yao Jinju suggested that the market access standards for training institutions should be clarified and the qualification standards for practitioners should be established and improved. In the process of formulating the norms for off-campus non-academic training institutions, consideration should be given to further clarifying the qualification standards for training institutions and practitioners, and accurately setting them by classification and classification, so as to resolve the situation of different access standards for various types of training institutions in different regions in practice; Improve the internal management system of training institutions and establish a safety responsibility system.
Yao Jinju also mentioned that the relationship between the rights and responsibilities of all parties should be straightened out and the accountability mechanism should be improved. At present, the punishment provisions for off-campus training institutions are scattered in various normative documents, and there is a lack of special legislation on the market access, qualifications, training process and other comprehensive norms of the whole process of off-campus training institutions, and the opportunity of the compilation of the education code should be taken to comprehensively straighten out the rights and responsibilities of all parties, and at the same time increase the intensity of supervision and law enforcement, punish training institutions and personnel for violations of laws and regulations in accordance with law, deal with safety problems in accordance with laws and regulations, implement the accountability system for training institutions and practitioners, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of students.
"Student safety is no small matter." It is recommended that it is necessary to raise the awareness of ensuring the safety of minors from the perspective of institutional operation, and actively take action to prevent the occurrence of accidental injuries from the aspects of equipment, facilities, and decoration; Training institutions and management personnel should increase their awareness of accident prevention and improve their skills in safety and first aid, to prevent teachers' misconduct from causing harm to students, and larger institutions should be fully equipped with medical and first aid personnel, prepare emergency response plans, and improve emergency response capabilities; It is also necessary to enhance parents' safety concept and actively purchase accident insurance to fully protect the safety of students outside school.
"The law is not enough on its own. No effort should be spared to advance education and publicity on the rule of law for parents or other guardians, minors, and so forth. In particular, for employees of off-campus non-academic training institutions, the legal red line shall be clarified, and a strong line of defense shall be jointly built. Zhang Hongwei told reporters.
Source: Rule of Law Daily-Rule of Law Network
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