After school, Hattie’s son (she only gives his English name), 9, takes lessons in Chinese, mathematics, English, drawing and ping-pong, two hours a week for each subject. Ditto for his older brother, aged 16, except basketball instead of ping-pong. Nothing exceptional for these two young Shanghainese: in the ultra-competitive Chinese school system, most parents who can afford it pay for tutoring for their children.
But every now and then, Hattie gets a message from the two tutoring companies she sends her kids to: no classes this week. “We are told there is a problem, so we assume it is because of an inspection”, she testifies. An education department inspection: because, for two years, these tutoring courses have been banned in China.
As demand has not disappeared, the after-school sector has transformed into a vast black market more or less tolerated by the authorities. In July 2021, the Ministry of Education announced a radical reform: thousands of companies, some of which were listed on the Wall Street stock exchange, were asked to become entities ” non-profit “, or close shop. Overnight, an industry estimated at $300 billion (281 billion euros) was reduced to almost nothing.
At the start of 2022, New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc, the number one in the sector, announced that it had cut 60,000 positions. Anxious parents have turned to alternative offers: private lessons, teachers based abroad, or even clandestine lessons given in secret locations.
Don’t attract attention
At the time, the government highlighted the financial burden weighing on parents to justify this measure. The reform, officially called “double reduction”, aimed to reduce both the amount of homework given to students, and the provision of support available. At the same time, the ministry asked public schools to strengthen supervised study within establishments, after school hours. The objective was clear: a month earlier, China had just expanded the limit of two children per family to three children (limit finally abandoned at the start of 2023). After nearly forty years of a one-child policy, China realized that it was facing a demographic crisis, and that the cost of education was a major obstacle for young couples wishing to have more children. . A year after the measure was put in place, however, the ministry acknowledged that around 3,000 companies were offering illegal courses.
You have 61.8% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.