Stress Tests
As a new crackdown on cram schools and off-campus tutoring aims to liberate over-burdened schoolchildren from mounting workloads, the market is finding new ways to survive and thrive
Like many teenagers in Beijing, 13-year-old Liu Yi gave up a summer filled with camp or hanging out with friends for a high school prep program. According to his mother surnamed Zhu, the two-week course aimed to give him a leg up. “My son's had tutors since third grade.
They've helped him score better in Chinese, English and math,” she said. “High school is more competitive, so he has to keep taking these classes.”
For the past two decades, increasing demand from anxious parents and children has driven the market for after-school classes and cram
schools for their exam-focused curriculums and late hours, particularly in China's biggest cities.
Most are designed to supplement the existing curriculum with accelerated content. But beyond scholastics, many working parents simply enroll their children as a substitute for daycare.
According to statistics released by the Ministry of Education (MOE), by the end of 2018, the number of off-campus training centers exceeded 400,000. According to a 2019 industry report, China's after-school tutoring market reached 475.1 billion yuan (US$73.25B) and will grow to 1.3 trillion yuan (US$200.4B) in 2022.
China's central government has vowed to tighten control over cram schools to reduce stress on students. “The overheated market for extracurricular classes will cool quickly,” Li Xing, who runs an after-school training center in Beijing's Chaoyang District, told Newschina in late July.
‘Dual Reduction’
On May 21, the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform adopted the “dual reduction” initiative, which aims to reduce homework loads and off-campus training for students in grades 1-9, which forms the compulsory education system.
Strict measures followed. On June 1, the State Administration for Market Regulation imposed fines totaling 36.5 million yuan (US$5.6M) on 15 after-school training institutions, including national chains such as New Oriental and Xueersi. Cited violations included misleading pricing, false advertising and unqualified teachers. On June 9, the MOE set up a department to supervise both online and offline programs. In 2015, the government banned public school teachers from teaching after-school classes. However, the measures failed to curb the booming market as standardized exams are the main way students can access better higher education.
The MOE'S recent move is harsher, demonstrating its determination to rein in the industry.
The “dual reduction” policy document was released on July 24. Measures include a moratorium on approvals for any new extra-curricular training institutions. Existing ones must register as non-profit, and no off-campus centers offering accelerated courses for school subjects, such as physics and math, can go public. Companies like New Oriental, which is already traded on the New York Stock Exchange, face being forced to delist.
In addition, off-campus training schools are prohibited from operating on weekends, national holidays and winter and summer breaks. In the document, authorities vowed to “effectively reduce the homework load for students and the burden of after-school training, reduce expenses for families and resulting burdens on parents” within one year and “make remarkable achievements within three years.”
The ongoing clampdown on the tutoring industry saw share prices plummet in Hong Kong and on Wall Street. New Oriental shares plunged to below US$3 from a high of over US$18 in February.
Enforcement and Response
Xiong Bingqi, president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, told Newschina that the unprecedented regulation means that listed education and training institutions must either delist if they only conduct curriculum training or give up their current models. Banning curriculum training during holidays, weekends and winter and summer vacations will make it difficult for most training institutions to operate normally.
After the launch of the “dual reduction” document, the China Association of Private Education contacted over 120 major off-campus training institutions to kick off the policy's enforcement.
Education bureaus in Shanxi, Henan, Anhui and Yunnan provinces took action immediately. On July 8, authorities in the city of Shuozhou, Shanxi Province suspended offline training at off-campus centers.
According to regulations, off-campus centers require both school and business licenses. Teachers of subjects such as Chinese, English, math, physics and chemistry should be credentialed. However, many schools operated without licenses and employed underqualified teachers. In 2018, an official inspection revealed that over 60 percent of the nearly 130,000 off-campus schools did not have the required certifications and many smaller cram schools were operating illegally.
To alleviate the burden on working parents, the MOE urged public schools to provide daycare programs for primary school students. According to Chen Li, whose daughter, 11, attends school in Beijing's Shunyi District, the school now provides affordable daycare for students over the summer holiday. “It costs 30 yuan (US$4.6) a day, which is way lower than the cost of cram schools,” Chen told Newschina. “Of course, it's purpose isn't to provide extra teaching or tutoring, simply daycare.”
Similar programs kicked off earlier this year. According to an official from a district education bureau in Beijing, area primary schools were urged since March to offer extracurricular programs. “This is an effort to provide alternatives for parents that aims to reduce stress and schoolwork for primary school students,” the official told Newschina in late June.
News reports across the country have focused on the wave of layoffs at training companies. In Beijing, the regulations have shaken the market, and off-campus training institutions are scrambling to recover. Top schools including New Oriental and Xueersi, which focus on K-12 classes, have adjusted their curriculums to meet the new regulations. A source from New Oriental told the reporter that in addition to revamping course design, the company is recruiting arts teachers rather than focusing on official school subjects. Other leading companies including Gaotu Group, Yuanfudao and TAL Education Group have also launched art programs.
Another employee from New Oriental surnamed Hao told the reporter its core curriculum program will not be eliminated, and the company will move weekend classes to weekdays. Newschina learned from a source with a popular English-language teaching service in
Beijing that the company will continue their weekday classes and launch more programs targeting adults on weekends. The anonymous New Oriental employee confirmed that its intensive prep courses for subjects like the Math Olympiad will continue.
Demand and Dilemma
The new policies do little to quell the long-existing anxiety of students and parents in a highly competitive, exam-focused education system. Li Deyu, 14, who attends the Affiliated High School of Peking University, one of the top middle schools in Beijing, told the reporter that he chose to spend a month of his summer vacation taking extra classes. “If I just relax and enjoy the whole holiday and don't study, I won't be able to keep up since everyone else is taking classes over the summer,” Li said.
Sources told Newschina that this year's junior high school entrance exam was harder than previous years. “Many questions were beyond the curriculum of middle school students, which puts more pressure on me and my son, who is taking the exam next year,” said Sheng Quan, Li Deyu's mother, in early July. According to Sheng, the only way her son can get in a top high school is to maintain his academic performance.
“I agree with the urgent need to supervise off-campus tutoring, since many private institutions are not registered or qualified to provide training programs. Some of the others, though qualified, are purely profit-driven and exploit the competitiveness of parents,” Xing Xing, an English teacher at a tutoring school in Beijing, told Newschina. He said he is not certified to work as a teacher.
“As someone in the industry, I see the new policy as a well-intentioned way to alleviate the pressure on children. But banning students from taking tutoring classes is a great challenge,” Xing said. “In the information era, if you don't force children to study more, they won't survive the fierce competition to get a better education.”
“If the policy is effective in, say, banning commercial online courses and in-classroom lessons, then only children from well-to-do families will have access to private tutoring, leaving everyone else behind.” Xing added
Despite the changes, the market is continuing to grow. Likele, a tutoring school in Shunyi District, opened a new branch to meet demand. According to a teacher surnamed Zhang with Likele, the first summer vacation course for primary school graduates filled up immediately after registration opened in mid-july. The second course, scheduled in early August, will continue as planned.
“If they're forced to cancel [my son's] class, I'll find him a private tutor even though it will definitely cost more money. No parent would dare risk their child's future,” Zhu, Liu Yi's mother, told Newschina.