Chinese authorities have closed down controversial “women’s virtue” courses in the country’s Liaoning province. The female students were reportedly taught the “traditional” value of being submissive to their husbands.

The school in question, run by the Fushun Traditional Values Association in Liaoning province in the north-east of China, was shut down on Sunday, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The school’s courses offered some unusual training for its female students, teaching them “women’s virtue.” The training reportedly entailed waking up at 4.30 every morning and spending eight hours doing household chores under the supervision of the tutors, according to local media.

The authorities ordered the closure of the illegal school and dismissed all the students citing a social morality violation. The order was issued several days after a video emerged online, purportedly showing the controversial education process. The footage appeared to show a woman kneeling while apologizing for “wrongful deeds.”

It also captured some of the classes with women cleaning the floor and cooking.

The school’s lecturer reportedly said that women are inferior to men and should do whatever their husbands wanted. While the students were advised to “talk less and work more,” they were also taught to abstain from wearing make-up or having career ambitions.

“I didn’t expect it would be like this – that I would be treated even worse than a prisoner,” a 47-year-old student revealed as cited by the South China Morning Post.

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“What I find worse is that they instil the idea that men are superior to women and our teachers keep repeating that the most important task for a woman is to reproduce, that she cannot say ‘no’ to her husband and divorce is unacceptable,” the woman added.

The school was set up by the Fushun Traditional Values Association in 2011 and offered classes for women in several cities across China. The founder of the school, Kang Jinsheng, reportedly has a criminal record for offences including stabbing his school teacher, and killing a member of a gang which he had joined.