The Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) has initiated procedures to fine a local education center for advertising their services despite the revocation of their license.
The defendant is the Douglas International Education Center.
According to the education authority, the department recently noticed that “an organization, [calling itself] the Douglas International Education Center” had been advertising a remote education program.
However, the DSEJ had revoked the company’s license to operate a continuing education business in March 2019. Since their license was revoked, the center is forbidden from providing any type of teaching. All advertisements and publicity regarding its teaching services are also banned.
In the last three years or so, the education authority has opened investigations into 45 continuing education service providers. 41 of these cases involved severe irregularities.
Local residents do not pay to enroll in a continuing education course. The DSEJ pays the fees directly to the organizations on local residents’ behalf. Each student is entitled to a maximum tuition sponsorship of 6,000 patacas.
In April, the Commission Against Corruption revealed fraud relating to an education center. The center had gathered the personal information of 192 local residents, gaining a total of over 1 million patacas from the government and deceiving the DSEJ. The majority of these students never attended a course.
In July 2011, the SAR government launched a continuing education development program encouraging local residents above the age of 15 to pursue further studies. Since then, the government has invested 1.78 billion patacas into the program. JZ
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