Official sacked for holiday study 'lies'

The top official of a high-ranking government-sponsored education research center has resigned after being exposed for taking his wife on a government-paid junket, The Beijing News reported Tuesday.

Yuan Zhenguo, the head of National Institution of Educational Science has resigned after he was alleged to have spent an 11-day holiday in Brazil and Argentina disguised as a study tour.

Discipline inspection officials dispatched from the central government announced at a meeting on Monday that Yuan was no longer the head of NIES. They said relevant department hunted out evidence of Yuan's over reimbursement for travel expenses.

On July 15, a Chinese Internet user said he found a briefcase at a parking lot which contained flight tickets and an agenda later proved as Yuan's trip with his wife and five subordinate officials. The agenda shows that the 11-day foreign trip from Dec 3 to 12 in 2011 is nearly fully occupied by sightseeing, with only 10 hours scheduled for work.