Training centers need strict supervision

At the beginning of a new semester, Xingkong, a well-known piano training institute, suddenly evaporated causing the students' parents huge loss in prepaid tuition fees. And its announcement that it will partly reopen its centers has not cleared people's worries. Similar cases were reported last year, as operators of private education and training institutes in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen downed their shutters and absconded with the prepaid tuition.

Although such cases comprise only a small percentage of the tens of thousands of training institutes nationwide, the amount of money involved in these cases add up to more than 1 billion yuan ($156 million). And among those that have absconded with prepaid fees are not only small community training centers, but also nationawide chains.

These cases have exposed the loopholes in training institutes' managements, as well as service seekers' over-expectations from and blind trust in these institutes. It's also likely that the closed institutes had financial disputes or lacked liquidity.