Studying abroad, in addition to traditional summer camps and other projects, going abroad to study and go to the local summer school to experience campus life has become a new choice for parents and children. What is the effect of the actual experience? After many investigations by reporters, it was found that some foreign study institutions lacked qualifications, and the study tour projects had problems such as incorrect goods, high prices, and difficulty in securing security.
Spend tens of thousands of dollars, “the effect is not good”
In the past 40 days, Xiao Liu, a junior student at Nanjing Xianlin Middle School, was a transfer student at a school in Melbourne, Australia, and lived in a local host family. His parents hope that the learning and living environment in English will bring an immersive experience to Xiao Liu, and invested nearly 60,000 yuan for this purpose.
Xiao Lin, a fifth-grade student of Nanjing Zhiyuan Foreign Language Primary School, took a one-month short class at an international school in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Teachers from European and American countries gave lectures in English, English reading and grammar in the morning, sports and music in the afternoon. art. My mother went with her, and the tuition fee plus the cost of renting a room and a ticket for two people totaled more than 20,000 yuan.
Xiaohu, a middle school in Changzhou, experienced a four-week “micro-learning” in Singapore. The course is only in English and mathematics, and it is taught in English. There is no play project. The fee is 4,000 Singapore dollars (about 20,000 yuan). .
According to the “2018 China International Tourism Industry Development Report” released by New Oriental and iResearch, the number of people participating in international study tour in 2017 reached 860,000, about 1.05 million in 2018, and 1.7 million in 2020; China in 2018 The international study market has reached 26.8 billion yuan. In 2020, this data will exceed 40 billion yuan.
Luo Sen, general manager of Jiangsu Jinling Business, who has long-term research and operation of the study tour program, told reporters that in the past two years, the foreign study tour program has been extended from the traditional “play + learn” type of summer camp to the transfer study, summer school, and micro study abroad.
How can the effect be spent on studying abroad for tens of thousands of yuan? Xiao Wang’s mother said frankly, “The original intention is to let him experience the real foreign teaching mode and improve the level of English listening and speaking. However, many children do not understand the course and do not like to communicate with others. The effect is not good.”
Kobayashi really likes to study and live in Chiang Mai this month. “It was difficult to start an English class at first, but the afternoon courses were very interesting. I also became good friends with Korean and Japanese classmates.” But Kobayashi also has Regrettably, “The original report was to transfer to the class. Because there were too many applicants, the school had to open a short-term class alone, and more and more students were in the late stage, and the teachers were almost insufficient.”
Information asymmetry, the project “goods are not right”
According to an industry insider in Nanjing, a famous tourist institution in Jiangsu Province has a revenue of 420 million yuan for a summer vacation. However, the white papers of New Oriental and iResearch pointed out that the current study industry is still in the “immature stage of development”, and professional study institutions account for only 3% of the entire study market. The reporter’s recent investigation also found that because of the poor professionalism, some unqualified institutions subcontracted operations, resulting in some foreign study tour projects have problems such as wrong goods, high prices, and security is difficult to guarantee.
“It is said that it can be performed in the Golden Hall of Vienna. The actual situation is that the institution rented a certain time period of the Golden Hall. The children took a small piano on the stage, and in the empty concert hall, the audience was only the students and parents of the same company…” After the event, Ms. Wu took the episode with her daughter to study in Austria as a joke to her friends.
This situation is not uncommon. Many interviewed parents said that the training institutions organized study tours in the name of performances and competitions abroad. When they arrived abroad, they found that almost all Chinese students who participated in the performances participated in the study tour.
Some study tours are free to change camps. “I said that I went to Harvard with my children. The result was Harvard’s evening school and business school because the cost was low. But the parents didn’t follow, the children didn’t know the ‘Flowerhead’ and they were very happy.”
“The problem lies in information asymmetry.” A person in charge of a professional study tour told reporters that when they were working on projects in Australia, they surveyed more than 50 local schools and found that most of them were already accompanied by China before the holiday. They are “contracted”. “The schools where the camps are located are rented, the teachers are rented, and even the students who interact with each other are rented. The courses are set by the institutions themselves, not the curriculum of the school itself. The actual situation is ridiculous. The parents are completely kept in the dark.”
The so-called “shifting study” also needs to be well screened. “The semester of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada is the same as that of China. During the summer vacation, people are also on holiday. How can we transfer the class? Our project in Canada has only started in September.” The person in charge of the professional study tour said .
“Gray area”, the market is difficult to supervise
“The study tour market is a typical gray cross zone. Education, tourism, entry and exit, etc. are all involved, and it is difficult to supervise.” Zhu Kai, legal counsel of the Nanjing Cultural and Tourism Bureau, said that the relevant documents that were issued before were also multi-sectoral. Jointly formulated, but it is more difficult to implement.
At present, more and more educational and training institutions, consulting service companies and even individuals are conducting overseas study tours. However, because they do not have the qualifications for entry and exit business, they often operate through the docking of some overseas resources or outsourcing to third parties such as travel agencies. In foreign countries, many of them are not standardized. Some are local Chinese or foreign students, and the safety is almost impossible. Because of the subcontracting, the cost difference of the project is also very large.
Xiao Xu, a student of Baoying Middle School, participated in a British study tour program of an educational institution last year. The fee for the 12-day period was 20,000 yuan. This year, her classmates wanted to sign up and found that the similar project journey increased to 14 days, but the cost has exceeded 30,000 yuan.
Industry insiders told reporters that market demand is climbing, many projects are crowned with the word “you study”, the price is “squatting”, and the general education institutions hand over to travel agencies to do study tours, the difference between the middle earned more than 50%, there are Even reaching 100%.
The parents should clearly specify the purpose of sending their children to study abroad if they are serious about assessing their own economic ability. If they only want to play, they can travel freely or with group tours; if they want to increase their knowledge and learn for the income, you can choose the study tour group recommended by the school; if you are preparing for future study abroad, it is recommended to find a more professional study tour agency to customize the program. At the same time, parents are advised to effectively examine the security measures of selected institutions.