Heads of 2 vocational schools held for fraud

Students told that the institutes could not offer nursing diplomas as promised

The heads of two technical and vocational schools were detained by police in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, on Wednesday for fraud, according to the Nanjing government.

The two, Wang Zhongping, chairman of Oriental Arts and Science school, and Zhang Jing, president of Nanjing School of Applied Technology, also were involved in serious violations of enrollment policies, the government said.

In late April, nursing students from Nanjing School of Applied Technology complained on social media that the school could not award them the level of diploma it had promised. The school proposed that the students, who had spent three years at the school, take an exam to get admitted into Yingtian College, another vocational school.

It told the students that they could get junior college diplomas - which require a senior high school certificate for enrollment - at Yingtian College. If the students refused to take the exam, they would only get secondary school diplomas - a lower level diploma that only requires a junior high school certificate for admission.

More than 400 students were affected.

Wang Fang, a student at the school, said she and her classmates have studied nursing for three years, but just found out from a Ministry of Education website that they had been admitted into the school's domestic services major.

"When we graduated from junior high school, the teachers had told us that they have popular majors such as nursing, finance and software. They also promised that we would get junior college diplomas in five years and get jobs on their recommendation."

The school said in its promotional brochure that it cooperates with several local military hospitals and would recommend students work there. But the hospitals denied such cooperation and said that they never had any interns from the school.

Local police also found that another vocational school, Oriental Arts and Science, admitted the 446 students in the name of Nanjing School of Applied Technology.

The school signed a cooperation agreement with Nanjing School of Applied Technology in 2015 without the local educational department's approval and started to admit students through false advertising.

Wang Zhongping from Oriental Arts and Science, used to be Party chief of Yingtian College.

Zhao Xiaojin, vice-president of Nanjing School of Applied Technology, said that several solutions have been provided to the students, including transferring to other majors at Yingtian College and taking exams to get junior college diplomas .

"Some teachers had bad manners when they negotiated with the students, but we'll change our attitude and make sure that every student will be satisfied with the result."

For those who want to quit school, the school will give compensation in cash, she said.

The government of Nanjing and Jiangning district, together with the Jiangsu Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and the Jiangsu Bureau of Education have formed a team to work with the vocational schools to solve the problem.