The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security recently issued a circular saying that training and evaluation institutions that violate relevant rules and regulations will be blacklisted.

In November, the ministry issued a national vocational qualification catalogue removing the earlier list of 73 qualifications. Vocational skill grade certificates are now issued by employing units and social training evaluation organizations.

The implementation of the vocational skill rating system is necessary to promote the talent classification and evaluation system. But, despite such efforts, malpractices by training institutions remain a problem. They continue to make tempting claims such as "training by famous teachers", "obtain certificates in 10 days", "senior certificate of carbon emission management", "part-time income of more than 10,000 yuan ($1,572) a month".

However, once people pay for such courses, they often lose contact with the customer service representative and often cannot get refunds or encounter other problems. Even if they get a certificate, they fail to learn any real skills that can help them find a relevant job.

The ministry decided to crack down on such exaggerated publicity, illegal training and inflated charges. This will effectively standardize the vocational skills identification, and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the masses.

To effectively crack down on "copycat vocational skills certificates", the relevant authorities should formulate relevant skills standards in advance for new vocations so as to eliminate the "standards vacuum" for some illegal training institutions to make use of.

Relevant departments should also further establish and improve the punishment mechanism for the violation of the training and evaluation institutions. Where serious violations occur, the training and evaluation qualification of such agencies should be canceled, and employing units that issue certificates in violation of relevant regulations should be blacklisted.