Pedestrians walk past a street stall for Wall Street English in Shanghai. File photo: IC

Chinese market supervision department imposed a top penalty of 36.5 million yuan（$5.7million） in total on 15 off campus training institutions amid tightened regulation on the country's online education sector. 

15 off-campus training institutions including New Oriental Education & Technology Group, Xueersi Online School and Wall Street English were found to have problems in false publicity and price fraud, according to an investigation carried out by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR)  in May. 

Prominent issues include unverified teaching qualifications, overpromising students and families, fabricated user rating and faked "full price" rates. 

The investigation uncovered  that some education institutions were claiming to offer huge discounts to clients by cutting original price from hundreds and thousands yuan to only dozens yuan to lure parents into their system. However, none of such courses have been traded as original price.

Another 19 off campus training institutions in Beijing were also caught through a probe from Friday to Sunday. The problems include carrying out off line teaching activities without schooling licenses and covering offline teaching without permission. 

Wall Street English has pledged to carry out comprehensive internal review of price fraud and untruthful marketing.

Global Times