A scandal recently broke out at a vocational school in Zhengzhou, Henan, China, where a school leader was exposed for requesting, under the guise of an “important task,” that students in a class WeChat group vote for his son who was participating in a university singing competition. The incident sparked public outcry, following which the school authorities launched a prompt investigation and issued a statement in the early morning of the 10th, announcing that the leader in question had been dismissed and publicly apologizing to the community.
According to Chinese media reports, a student from Zhengzhou Electric Power Vocational School uploaded a video that included screenshots of their class group chat, exposing how a notification was circulated to rally votes for a student from a university in Zhejiang participating in the “Top Ten Campus Singers” contest.
The screenshots showed that a photo of the singing competition’s stage was posted in the group, along with the following message: “This is an important task assigned by the leader. Please organize the students in this class to vote for his family member, Zhou XX. Anyone with an account on the platform should post.” The sender further stated, “Whenever you see the name Zhou XX, just vote for it.”
Later, the blogger posted further about the homeroom teacher asking him to delete the video, with an added note saying, “The school leader is forcibly requesting video deletion.” However, he refused to delete it.
In response to the situation, Zhengzhou Electric Power Vocational School issued a statement through their official WeChat account at around 2 a.m. on December 10, stating that the school’s board paid great attention to the online feedback and immediately set up a special investigation team. Upon verification, it was found that on December 7, a member of the school’s management, Zhou XX, had arranged for some students to vote in order to get more votes for his son, who was participating in his university’s singing competition.
According to relevant provisions of the “Implementation Regulations of the Law for Promoting Private Education,” the school decided to dismiss Zhou from his post and ordered him to apologize to the students and teachers involved. The announcement frankly admitted that the incident revealed deficiencies in the school’s development of professional ethics and campus management. The school sincerely apologized to the public, stated it would take this as a lesson and strengthen professionalism and ethics, prevent similar incidents from happening again, and welcomed public oversight.