Focus
'Military' students out in the cold
By Meng Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-24 07:58
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Bogus school closed after key officials arrested for fraud
A bugle call rings out at Zhonglian Judicial College at 1:30 pm, two weeks after the head of the privately funded school was arrested.
It should be a call for students to gather on the training field after the lunch break, but none of the students heed it.
Anxious students and worried parents insist on staying in the school, located in Fangshan district, after the institute was announced illegal by the Fangshan commission of education on May 10.
Many went to the school because it had a "judicial and police department" and the school website claimed graduates were guaranteed jobs in the court system, police stations, the army or procuratorates.
Most of the about 60 students have each paid 60,000 yuan for their four-year tuition. However, getting a refund is the least of their concerns. Studying in a bogus college means they have wasted their time.
Tian Li (not her real name), a senior student, said her life has been changed overnight. The 22-year-old was due to graduate in June, but she is now facing what she called "a hopeless future."
Right after the institute was announced "unlicensed," all the students were offered two options by the district education commission.
The first was to transfer to another privately funded college starting as a freshman, the other is to go home and wait for a refund.
Neither of the two options satisfies the students and parents, and they are querying how a seemingly functional education institute with about five years operating history can be suddenly closed.
"I have no idea what to do now. It is so difficult to find a job without a college degree. And there is no way for me to start all over again as a freshman. By the time I graduate, I would be 26," Tian told METRO.
She hasn't informed her parents about the closure because she has no idea where to start.
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A father surnamed Xue from Hebei province said it is hard to believe because "everything seemed so real in the school."
He heard about the school from a neighbor and enrolled his daughter without much hesitation.
"All the students here dressed in police uniforms with their individual numbers on them. All the cars driving in and out are police cars.
"When I enrolled my daughter, they even asked for a certificate from our local police station, guaranteeing none of our families had committed a crime before," Xue said, adding no fake school can have such strict recruitment standards.
Parents said that after paying the school tuition, they all received contracts with the school, saying their children are guaranteed to get a job after graduation.
"We also checked the school's degree certificates which are from the continuing education college of Chinese People's Public Security University. So we thought there was nothing to worry about," Xue said.
According to some students who enrolled in 2006 there were about 400 students at the time. But many students withdrew from the school when there were rumors that it didn't have appropriate certification. However, many trusted the school and stayed on.
"Some officials from the district education commission visited us during school activities. And we also worked as part of the security for the 2008 Olympic Games," Ma Chao, a senior student, said.
"If the school was illegal, why did the Fangshan district education commission not say something when the rumor first started? Why did they let the school perform for so many years?" He said that no authorities had said anything about the school earlier.
Many hope the government will give the school verification so that they can at least get a degree certificate rather than ending up with nothing. But, Zhang Kai, a sophomore who was forced to attend the school by his parents, is an exception.
When Zhang entered the school, he concluded immediately it was not a real school. The so-called 386-hectare campus is built on mountains. Zhang pointed to hundreds of trees, said: "See over there, we grew them. That's all we've learnt here."
Zhang said though the school claimed to offer many different majors, all the students learned the same courses.
"Most of our teachers are previous students from the school. We did have some relatively professional teachers but they all left when they found the school couldn't afford their already low salaries," he said.
Wang Pengrui, president of Zhonglian Judicial College, and other key school officials have been arrested and face possible fraud charges, according to an officer from the Fangshan commission of education.
The case is under investigation. And the students were asked to leave the school by 6 pm on May 12.
However, most of them stay on. They are afraid that once they leave, the time, the money, their hope for a bright future will all be gone.