Audit finds systemic lapses in oversight of continuing education enrollment quotas

A follow-up review report released Friday by the Commission of Audit (CA) found that, under the Continuing Education Development Plan, the Education and Youth Development Bureau’s (DSEDJ) failure to perform consistent on-site inspections allowed enrollment quota violations to go undetected, with no corresponding investigations or penalties carried out.

The audit commission report revealed that the Continuing Education Development Plan – already flagged for multiple past deficiencies – continued to experience anomalies during its fifth phase, including instances where numerous students enrolled in similar courses across institutions but recorded no attendance.

According to the report, more than 65% of students across nine institutions failed to qualify for deposit refunds due to insufficient attendance, with 634 students representing 1,264 enrollments showing no attendance whatsoever.

Among these, 302 students enrolled in two or more courses at the same institution with no attendance, 42 enrolled in five or more, and one student enrolled in 10 courses – all without any attendance, involving total subsidies of over MOP1.358 million. The audit also found that one instructor taught 29 similar courses across nine institutions – four of them sharing the same licensee company – and was the sole instructor for all courses at seven institutions, involving over MOP179,000 in subsidies.

Separately, the audit found that as of July 31 last year, 44 cases involved actual enrollment exceeding approved quotas, yet the DSEDJ only initiated administrative investigations or penalties for three of them – and even for those three, no action was taken per internal guidelines – while the remaining 38 cases went undetected by the bureau’s existing review mechanism.

Notably, the Continuing Education Development Plan has been in operation since its launch in 2011 and has now entered its sixth phase.

The CA criticized the education bureau for lacking sufficient risk prevention awareness and failing to make effective use of available data to detect irregularities early, despite having introduced multiple electronic measures.

In response, the DSEDJ explained that its internal guidelines had not consistently aligned the term “number of on-site students” with “total enrollment numbers,” leading to a misunderstanding of what constitutes enrollment quota violations – hence no follow-up actions were taken.

The bureau added that it has since revised its guidelines and is following up on all overcapacity cases. Under the upcoming sixth phase of the plan, it is deploying big data analytics and developing AI monitoring tools to prevent new violations. Cases with clear signs of misconduct have been referred to judicial authorities.