Case Studies Of Government Regulations On Overseas Education Agencies In Sichuan Province

In the background of rapid development of China’s economy and people’s increasing demand for education, agencies for self-paying oversea studies have been developing rapidly in China. Although the Chinese government has formulated principles and policies in many aspects of self-paying oversea studies, a large number of civil dispute cases concerning education agents occur every year, such as false advertising information, arbitrary charges, contract traps, etc, due to the special nature of the intermediary services and information asymmetry between consumers and intermediaries, leading to serious loss of economic and spiritual interests of the consumers. On the regulatory side, in addition to the supervision from the media and society, the government departments play important roles in the development of laws and regulations, qualification assessment and regulatory operations. As one of China’s most populous province, the number of abroad-studying students in Sichuan Province is the third biggest following after Beijing and Shanghai. In this thesis, the author focused on the study of the government’s regulatory problems associated to self-paying oversea study agencies and made in-depth analysis of the causes. Through specific case studies, countermeasures and suggestions were put forward. Due to several reasons, such as imperfect regulatory systems, insufficient regulatory works and poor communication and coordination between various government departments, a serious shortage is found in the government’s qualification, supervision and punishment processes to illegal oversea study agencies, which makes the self-paying oversea study market increasingly chaotic. Based on the case studies, the author makes the following recommendations. First, the government departments should give full play to their initiative and strengthen operational supervision to the intermediary services with strict following of the established laws in each step. Secondly, a credit rating system for the oversea studying agencies should be established, and the development of intermediary associations must be encouraged, in order to strengthen social supervision and self-regulation. Finally, government departments should further improve the laws and regulations in the qualification and operational supervision of oversea studying agencies to fundamentally make up existing deficiencies and to ensure long-term healthy development of the self-paying oversea study market in Sichuan.