Whistleblower reignites debate, stirs anger

A self-proclaimed "defender of justice" has raised the ire of thousands of students and parents in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, by blowing the whistle on a training institute that breached education guidelines by charging fees.

The massive online following he gained from the case, which he used to sell products, has also raised suspicions among many netizens about his true motives.

Earlier this month, the man who calls himself "Ironhead who punishes evil and promotes good", released several videos on his Tik-Tok account, which has more than 3.32 million followers, relating to the breaches. He was later identified as a 32-year-old man named Dong.

He said an English-language training institution, New Oriental, was charging fees for summer vacation courses for middle school students.

The institution's behavior violated a Ministry of Education directive that all existing private tutorial and training institutions must convert to "nonprofit" organizations, he said.

After the reports were widely viewed, the classes were suspended, teachers dismissed, and students told to go home, a New Oriental customer service officer said on Aug 11.

On Monday, the Hangzhou Education Bureau reiterated the need for the policy, adding that all off-campus training agencies, except four in Binjiang district, had no qualifications to offer such classes.

Dong's videos made off-campus tutoring a hot trending topic on Chinese social media again.

Some parents agreed with his view, saying that off-campus tutoring is unfair, while others said his actions deprived students from ordinary families much-needed extra classes.

On Monday, Dong used his newfound popularity to livestream sales of agricultural products from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

However, many netizens left unflattering messages in the comments section such as, "I bought two products, one will be returned, and the other will be sent for inspection."

Many netizens questioned his real motives for exposing the institute, claiming that he was aiming for quick fame and popularity to benefit from his livestreaming sales.

Several companies who cooperated with the livestreamer later terminated their connection with him, and some even posted apologies online to netizens who bought agricultural products during his livestream.

Dong said on a recent livestream that his next target was a high school in Hebei province, which he described as "the head of every evil".

In July 2021, the Ministry of Education introduced a set of policies to ban irregular off-campus tutoring activities featuring curriculum subjects and warned against excessive homework for young students during vacations.

Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, told China News Service that off-campus curriculum classes for high school students should be considered a violation of the policy.

However, Xiong Bingqi, dean of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, said that there is currently no definite regulation that high school should be supervised strictly in accordance with the policy.

Fang Xiaoying in Hangzhou contributed to this story.