ZHOU Juechen, 13, is not happy these days because he will not able to enjoy a relaxing summer holiday. He is a freshman at a relatively good middle school, ranking above average in his class. Nevertheless, his parents have decided it’s time to spur him on.

For the coming summer holiday, still two and a half months away, Zhou has been signed up for a training class to improve his English and math. He will need to spend four hours a day, weekends excepted, with teachers for expensive one-on-one lectures.

“I don’t think I need extra classes at all,” says Zhou. “I can keep up with my class and I’m still two years away from high school entrance examinations.”

Zhou’s parents, however, have different opinions.

“My son’s grades are not stable,” says Zhou Yin, the father. “We find holes in his knowledge points, so we want to have a teacher consolidate for him. We think now is the best time, and it would be too late next year as he may have more holes.”

The family represents many others in the city, as parents pursue the after-school training markets in Shanghai. Many are competing over the summer holiday opportunities.

An institution called Dongnan Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry says it has started recruiting students for the summer holiday, and every day they receive parents’ consultation requests.

“We are usually cautious with the students,” says an official surnamed Zhu with the institute. “We will give students a test before recommending courses, so we can design lectures according to their levels.”

Zhu maintains that all the teachers with the institute are “experienced” from well-known schools but she would not reveal more details about them.

“We have signed a confidential agreement with the teachers that we cannot disclose their information to anyone except the pupils and their parents,” Zhu insists.

An insider who spent four years in the training industry says many such summer schools misrepresent the qualifications of their teaching staff. She says such training schools are full of fake or exaggerated ads to lure customers, most of whom are parents with high expectations that their children’s grades will soar after the training.

The insider, who identified herself only as Wang, says the training school she worked for taught “Olympic Math” and English and claimed that all the teachers were experienced and from well-known schools. Parents scrambled to sign up for their children for the lessons that cost more than 100 yuan (US$16) an hour.

“But in fact many of the teachers were hired from job-hunting websites, or were freshly graduated college students,” says Wang. “If parents complained that the lectures were not high quality or their children failed in the contests or exams, the school would tell them that their children were not good enough to catch up with the classes. They would recommend that parents sign their children up for one-on-one lectures, which are far more expensive than the common classes.”

Consumers hold the short end of the stick because there is no guarantee of student success.

But sometimes it gets worse. During the past few years, there have been cases where training schools shut down suddenly, with the head of the school vanishing and consumers left with the loss of tuition fees.

The most well-known case is the Kai En English Training Center, a 13-year-old Sino-Irish-English training school that in 2009 went out of business without warning. But the school was still recruiting students the day before shutting down, charging them 7,000 to 10,000 yuan of tuition. Teachers with the center also complained that the center had not paid their salaries for two months. The creator of the center, Brain McCloskey, was nowhere to be found.

A similar case hit late last year, when Yisi Training, an institute providing after-class lectures for primary and high school students, closed out of the blue. Some parents claimed they had paid tuition fees totaling more than 100,000 yuan.

Although the director of the school was still there, he said he couldn’t afford the huge debt as the school’s financial condition had problems years before the breakdown.

The Shanghai Education Commission says it has ordered all licensed training centers to pay deposits to avoid such conditions, but most training schools are not licensed.

“On their business license, the business range is actually culture and education consultation,” says He Peng, an official with the education commission. “The companies are not qualified to open training classes, but we don’t have the authority to shut them down.”

He says the commission’s website has posted a list that includes all the legal training schools in Shanghai, and the Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau is the department that should be responsible to manage all such companies.

The bureau, however, explains the difficulties on the issue. An official with the bureau who wished to remain anonymous, says the bureau cannot just shut down illegal schools.

“If we just close the schools, they definitely don’t have enough money to give refunds to students,” says the official. “So we usually help them pass the education commission’s inspection to gain the school-running license. For those that are really unable to gain the license, we help them withdraw from the market gradually to avoid financial disputes with consumers.”

Qiu Zhengzheng, an experienced lecturer at the New Oriental English Training School, a veteran of the industry for nearly two decades, says the training market now is flimsy due to a lack of detailed regulations.

“With English training, for instance, people’s craze for studying abroad or immigration provide business opportunities that everyone wants to grasp,” he says. “So it’s pivotal to choose a legal institute with a good reputation.”

Qiu also says parents should also take their children’s abilities into consideration.

“The government calls for reducing children’s burden, but academic development is necessary,” he says. “A well-designed course won’t give children pressures, but will make them happy during study.”

Zhou Yin, who believes his son needs to “taste the bitter on the road to success,” admits he didn’t know about the legal-training school list recommended by the government.

“We usually select an institute through word of mouth,” he says. “Relatives, friends and colleagues will tell me about the classes their children take, so that we can have a try, too.

“I think we won’t be that unlucky that the school we pick will shut before my son finishes his session,” he says.