Parents demand $29,000 refund from English center over subpar education quality

Over 30 parents have filed the complaint about the Apax English – Apax Leaders center, Mai Tan Linh, deputy director of the Da Nang Department of Education and Training, said Friday. The department would verify information from both sides, he added.

“If there are signs of legal violations, we will deal with that,” Linh said.

Parents said they have filed the complaints to both the municipal People’s Committee and the People’s Council since October 11. The center had organized online classes from May 2021 to April 2022 due to impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, but it frequently called off classes at short notice, parents added.

Reasons for calling off classes include teachers going for vaccination, teachers getting Covid-19 and Internet connections getting disrupted. Despite the fact that the center announced that operations would resume to normal starting April 12, classes were still getting called off frequently.

“For the entire year of 2022, students only got to study for two months in total. There were some who only got to study 5-6 lessons,” the complaint read. Parents said the education quality also dropped, and now they demanded the center to refund them.

Parents said they would not accept refunds in the form of tuition for future courses or as scholarships.

They said they have been trying to contact the representative of the center from October 13 to October 18, but received no response.

Linh said if the center fails to keep its promises on education schedule and quality, it would have to refund, and if it refuses to do so, parents can take the matter to court.