Recently, there has been a student protest at the Guangxi Vocational College of Performing Arts, as the school was found to have engaged in fraudulent practices during the enrollment process. This resulted in over a thousand students being unable to obtain official student status after a year of study, ultimately leading them to have no choice but to drop out.
The protest began on April 25th, with hundreds of students gathering in the campus playground and corridors. They even surrounded a vice principal in his office, chanting slogans demanding tuition refunds. As of the time of reporting, one student told a reporter that they had already received refunds for tuition and accommodation fees, with over a thousand students affected.
One student, Wu Di (pseudonym), mentioned that initially the school refused to refund the tuition fees. Even when the students reported the issue to the Education Bureau, no progress was made. The school claimed that students had to sign withdrawal applications to process refunds, but some students who signed were unsure when they would receive their refunds. It was only after collective protests by the students that the school agreed to refund tuition and accommodation fees. They had all studied for a year, with an average tuition fee of ten thousand yuan per person, while the fees for certain majors exceeded ten thousand yuan.
Wu Di explained that he entered the school through contact with a teacher from the college via WeChat, and the school also issued an acceptance letter. “At that time, the teacher said admission was guaranteed, just take the exam, it was a ‘1+3’ system.” Wu Di never thought that after a year of study, the school would not grant admission or official student status, leaving them with a wasted year.
The ‘1+3’ system allows students to participate in Guangxi’s “single recruitment” or “counterpart” admission exams after a year of training at the performing arts college. They were promised guaranteed admission, equivalent to directly entering a three-year undergraduate program at the college, but their graduation would be delayed by a year compared to normal three-year students. Many students were deceived into enrolling in this school because the admissions staff initially concealed the information that there would be no student status in the first year, and provided unrealistic admission guarantees.
Furthermore, what angered the students even more was that, after the issue was exposed, the school attempted to shift the blame onto the students by having them sign voluntary withdrawal applications, and attributing the reason for withdrawal to “personal reasons, no longer interested in studying.”
Another student, Zhang Yan (pseudonym), also told the reporter that she was deceived into enrolling in September last year, but she requested withdrawal directly due to other reasons. During her recruitment, the teacher went to her high school for promotion, and she believed that the high school teachers and principal must have received money to allow the recruitment teacher to promote within the school.
“Many students were deceived into enrolling the year before last, with no results, feeling cheated. Once you’ve paid the money after being deceived, they hardly pay any attention to you. When you want to withdraw, the school comes up with various excuses to avoid dealing with you.”
Zhang Yan, who just entered the college last year, was dissatisfied with the improper dormitory arrangement on her first day and wanted to withdraw. The school kept delaying, so she reported the situation to the Education Bureau. Eventually, the school processed her withdrawal, but she was penalized 950 yuan in tuition for missing one class.
It was discovered that a stern statement from the school was circulated online in May of the previous year. The statement mentioned that someone had used the college’s logo without authorization, pretending to be an admission officer from the school, spreading false information such as “1+3 system,” “preparatory system,” and “expansion of enrollment” on various social media platforms. The school clarified in the statement that they had never released such information, urging applicants and parents to be vigilant and discern online information related to school admissions, refusing to believe or spread rumors.
Reporters attempted to verify the situation by calling the school’s admission office and main office phone numbers but were unable to connect.
Wu Di stated that the over one thousand deceived students can now only choose to go home and review their studies, planning to participate in the single recruitment or counterpart college entrance exam next year.