Last month, we reported about Shanghai’s crackdown on unlicensed training centers. Now that a month has passed, did these unlicensed training centers stop recruiting students and withdraw their advertisements as requested by the authorities?
Surprisingly, there are still many unlicensed training centers out there in operation, and over the summer holiday, many parents are still signing their kids up for summer classes at these places.
Recently, a training center called Brain Cube caught our attention. With more than 120 training centers throughout China and more than 20,000 students, their advertisement claims that they can help kids unlock the full potential of brain. Any kid can become a poet after seven-day training and those who continue their training may even be able to memorize all the digits of pi or identify different colors while blindfolded.
Read More: Shanghai Cracks Down On Unlicensed Training Centers
Fantastic as it may sound, Brain Cube is nothing but another unlicensed training organization. In order to find out why they’re still open after the crackdown, we pretended to be a potential investor and made contact with one of the ‘teachers.’
During our conversation, we ask the teacher directly: “Now that Shanghai is gradually closing down training organizations that are failing to meet standards, does your organization have necessary qualifications?” The teacher replies, “Of course not, however, our company has registered in the local Administration for Industry and Commerce, which means we are still able to provide educational training services.”
Then we asked if investing training centers still makes money under current circumstances. “Sure thing,” says the so-called teacher. “Many parents love sending their kids to all sorts of remedial classes. Right now we have about 200 students at this training center, and we can make a profit of over RMB20, 000 per year. It’s the most stable industry to throw your money in.”
READ MORE: Is Investing in Children The New Luxury in China?
