China moves to ‘discipline of crazy tutoring’ discipline | Educational News

Shanghai, China – China is stepping up growing measures in the country’s private tutoring industry to reduce academic pressure on students and help them cope with the severe demographic crisis.

The industry has come under pressure since March this year when President Xi Jinping called extracurricular education a “social problem” and the Ministry of Education put in place plans to alleviate the burden on children and adolescents, urging parents not to send their children to private. to prevent tutoring and teachers from giving students homework.

For many parents, the movements are soothing.

“We are glad to see that the government is finally starting to pay attention to this crazy tutoring scene,” said Wu Xiaomei, a parent of two children in Shanghai. “We gave a lot of classes outside for our kids, especially when they saw other parents doing the same thing.

“We don’t want our children to be left behind, but it’s a lot of pressure not only for us, it’s a lot of pressure for them as well; so hopefully these regulations will make it easier for us, at least financially, to grow up.”

Extracurricular education began to gain popularity in the late 1990s as more Chinese students sought to improve their English skills in order to gain places in foreign universities; however, the industry has progressed over the past 10 years in fierce competition for places in the best schools and universities and the perception among parents that what was taught on a typical school day was not enough to help children achieve empowerment.

But rising costs and the greenhouse environment have led many young couples to start a family.

The new measures – expected to be announced immediately – will be decided by China to allow each couple to come and go immediately three children, compared to the previous two borders between Beijing’s concerns population aging about the economy.

The Ministry of Education set up an agency to oversee external education and training on June 15, which will oversee the tutoring industry including teachers and curricula. Although there are few details about the plans, the new regulations are expected to be extensive and a ban on online and offline tutoring is also expected over the weekend, the Reuters news agency reported last week. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, these classes provide more than a third of private tuition in China.

The tightening of regulations has been a disaster for the country’s multi-million dollar tutoring companies, after years of many parents as well as tutors calling themselves “wild growth morbid”.

Shares of three major mentoring companies, New Oriental, Gaotu and TAL, have failed this year and several tutoring companies, both offline and online, have started massive layoffs.

Employees of several organizations confirmed to Al Jazeera that people were starting to lose their jobs.

It’s not uncommon to have to pay hundreds of yuan for a single private tutoring session – that’s almost a tenth of what I earn per month. How can I pay?

Zhao Jiang, Chengdu’s parents

The peak of the private tutoring season is in the summer, when students use three-month school holidays to prepare for competitive courses for another term, but a source from major tutoring companies told Al Jazeera that more than 100,000 jobs could be at risk then.

Companies that have promised new jobs to candidates have begun to withdraw offers.

“I had already signed a rental contract and I was ready to go to Shanghai to get my new job, but all of a sudden, I don’t have any more work,” said Du Lei, a graduate of Wuhan University. Xueersi intended to join a major private tutoring company. He was informed earlier in the month that he had turned down his job offer.

“This is totally horrible, and I don’t know what to do now.”

He is not alone; Among the more than half a dozen employees of mentoring students in primary and secondary schools, a number told Al Jazeera that they were disappointed. Weibon, in a search on the social media platform in China, showed thousands of messages, with staff from major tutoring institutes, both incoming and current, discussing ongoing unemployment.

Gaps in education

The government has said it wants to alleviate the academic burden on children and adolescents and prevent smoking, but despite repeated attempts over the years, the pressure has never diminished.

There is a huge gap in educational resources among Chinese cities, suburbs and rural areas, as well as between rich and poor.

Shanghai, for example, offers some of the best schools in China with a wide range of student opportunities and a higher proportion of higher education. Its schools are regularly ranked among the top global rankings – known as the International Student Assessment Program (PISA) – which track the performance of 15-year-olds in math, science and reading.

In places like Guizhou, however, a less prosperous province in southwest China, where most people live in rural areas, well-qualified teachers are rare and lack basic infrastructure. Many children have to travel miles a day to get to school.

There are big differences in Chinese schools that Shanghai institutions excel in global PISA assessments of 15-year-olds, but rural areas lag far behind [File: Tingshu Wang/Reuters]

From the humble beginnings, mentoring companies have gained increasing financial support – often from deep-pocketed capitalist venture – to make mass recruitment units for teachers and advertise their products on multiple platforms.

But parents said as the industry grew, the cost of tutoring reached a “reasonable” level and only the wealthiest, who were probably already able to get a place in their children’s best schools, are now able to. provide private tutoring, increasing the gap between those at the top of society and those at the bottom.

“I thought about sending my baby to math tutoring because it’s not very good,” said Zhao Jiang, a parent in Chengdun, the southwestern capital of Sichuan province. “But it’s not uncommon to have to pay hundreds of yuan for a single private tutoring session – that’s almost a tenth of what I earn per month. How can I pay?”

Although education is intended to make it cheaper for the people, many are skeptical about what the new measures will actually prove, and some are concerned that reforms could exacerbate inequalities.

“Once the extensive regulation is completed, it is likely that only the most prominent companies will get the necessary government permission to continue with the operations,” a professional who has worked in the industry for many years told Al Jazeera, asking for anonymity. “And the price they offer isn’t necessarily going to be the nicest for the wealthiest family. It can reinforce class inequality.”

The government is concerned that students are under too much pressure from schooling and enrollment and have too little time to do anything else. [File: Aly Song/Reuters]

Without looking down at the growing pressure of students and the willingness to have children among the younger generation in China, some policy experts say tutoring regulations will be the only aid to education provision and the demographic crisis.

“I don’t think the problem lies solely in the tutoring industry,” said Han Dongyan, an education policy researcher in Beijing.

“Academic pressure will be maintained with strict regulations for tutoring, with no structural change in the inequality in the quality of education, because education will almost always be an industry, and people don’t necessarily think it would be cheaper or easier to raise children.”