Former Deputy Minister of Education in China Arrested for Illegally Profiting from Education Resources

On March 20, 2025, according to the official news from the Chinese Communist Party’s Supreme Procuratorate website, Du Yubo, former Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Deputy Minister of Education of the Chinese Communist Party, was arrested on suspicion of bribery.

Du Yubo, 70, has served as the Executive Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Beijing Institute of Technology and Secretary of the Party Committee of Beihang University. He was promoted to the level of Deputy Minister in 2002 and later transferred to the position of Deputy Minister and Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of the Ministry of Education eight years later. He retired in 2016.

On September 18 last year, the first working day after the Mid-Autumn Festival, Du Yubo was investigated, becoming the only former Deputy Minister-level official of the Ministry of Education to fall from grace since the 19th Party Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Du Yubo has been accused of accepting banquets that may influence the fair execution of official duties; seeking benefits for others and accepting money in job recruitment; accepting gifts; abusing his position by using education resources for personal gain, engaging in power and money transactions, and unlawfully receiving huge sums of money, even after the 18th Party Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Du Yubo was expelled from the Party on March 2 this year, and his alleged criminal issues have been transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution.

Over the past decade of anti-corruption efforts in the Chinese Communist Party, corruption in the field of education has also become rampant.

Before Du Yubo’s downfall, his subordinates Zhang Guang during his tenure at Beihang University and Wang Dengfeng during his tenure at the Ministry of Education were both investigated.

Zhang Guang, then a member of the Party Committee and Vice President of Beihang University, was investigated in August 2023 and expelled from the Party in January 2024. On January 10 this year, Zhang Guang was sentenced to 12 years in prison for bribery and fined 2 million yuan. He was found to have accepted bribes of over 21.2 million yuan.

In August 2022, Wang Dengfeng, then Director of the Sports, Health, and Arts Education Division of the Ministry of Education, was investigated. In March 2023, Wang Dengfeng was expelled from the Party. On March 18, 2024, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for corruption and bribery and fined 5 million yuan. He was found to have illegally obtained over 46.7 million yuan in public funds, with 1.8 million yuan remaining unsuccessful, and accepted bribes of 9.66469 million yuan.

Recently, other high-ranking officials who have been investigated include Xie Jianming, former Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Vice President of Nanjing Art Institute; Liao Xiaoping, former Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and President of Central South University of Forestry and Technology; Wang Hanqing, former Secretary of the Party Committee of Central South University of Forestry and Technology; Yu Changzhi, former Secretary of the Party Committee of Anhui Ma’anshan Teachers College; Wang Haolin, former President of Inner Mongolia Institute of Sports Profession, and Zheng Xianming, former Secretary of the Party Committee of Xinyang College in Henan Province.

In the previous report, it was mentioned that Du Yubo, former Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Education of the Chinese Communist Party, had fallen from grace and had previously been in charge of military academies.