China passes law to cut homework and tutoring ‘pressures’ on children | CNN (2024)

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China passes law to cut homework and tutoring ‘pressures’ on children | CNN? ›

The new law, which has not been published in full, makes local governments responsible for ensuring the twin pressures are reduced and asks parents to arrange their children's time to account for reasonable rest and exercise, thereby reducing pressure, said the agency, and avoiding overuse of the internet.

Beijing in 2021 imposed tough rules to clamp down on the booming $120 billion private tutoring industry, aiming both to ease pressure on children and boost the country's birth rate by lowering family costs.

In July 2021, the Chinese government introduced the Double Reduction Policy. This policy was formulated with the intention of easing the excessive burden of homework and after-school tutoring for young children.

Fast forward to July 2021, the Chinese government implemented a far-reaching crackdown on the private tutoring industry, effectively prohibiting tutors from conducting for-profit classes in core curriculum subjects.

China Crackdown on For-Profit Private Tutoring

In July 2021, China implemented a series of regulatory measures to curb excessive tutoring and alleviate the burden on students and parents. The crackdown was aimed at addressing concerns related to academic pressure, high costs, and inequality in education.

China banned after-school private tutoring two years ago with the aim to lessen the academic burden and encourage social equality.

In July 2021, the government launched a sweeping clampdown on its private tutoring sector, banning them from providing for-profit classes on school curriculum subjects.

How many parents are bracing themselves for nightly battles to get their kids to finish their homework every year with the beginning of a school year? Thousands and thousands of them. Though not in Finland. The truth is that there is nearly no homework in the country with one of the top education systems in the world.

In contrast to Finnish students, Chinese students spend nearly 14 hours per week on just homework (Chepkemoi). This intense workload is geared towards preparing students for the Gaokao, the extremely difficult national exam that almost all Chinese students take at the end of their high school years (Ma).

Wang Guoqing, a spokesman for the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the mainland's top advisory body, said in March last year that Chinese primary and middle school pupils spent an average of 2.82 hours per day doing homework, about three times the global average.

Why did VIPKid shut down? ›

The restrictions on private tutoring led VIPKid, one of the biggest online education companies, to halt private courses offered in China while other companies shut down completely. VIPKid, once valued at $3 billion, had been backed by a hefty lineup, including Tencent, Sequoia Capital and Jack Ma's Yunfeng Capital.

There are two types of visa that will permit you to teach English in China, known as the Z visa and X visa. The Z visa is the visa most English teachers in China will be on. This is the only visa that allows you to teach English full-time.

Rules and Requirements for Homeschooling in China

In fact, it's considered illegal–though there are some stipulations. Once all children reach age 6, they are required to enroll in school and receive compulsory education in China for a period of nine years.

Rural students are not getting equal access to education compared to their urban counterparts, which could leave the country's future generation without the necessary skills to contribute to the economy, according to a section of the report focusing on potential risks to China's future economic competitiveness.

Primary and Secondary Schools

That is mostly because the curriculum in Chinese schools differs from the typical Western standards. Strict rules, the emphasis of discipline, endless homework and tests, and constant pressure from peers and teachers – that seems to be the daily life of a Chinese student.

The PRC bans certain content regarding independence movements in Tibet and Taiwan, the religious movement Falun Gong, democracy, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Maoism, corruption, police brutality, anarchism, gossip, disparity of wealth, and food safety scandals.

The new rules mean that after-school tutoring service providers could face fines of up to 100,000 yuan and warnings if they try to disguise their services or avoid the scrutiny of authorities, such charging fees through online platforms, offering live-streaming courses, organising tutoring sessions in cafes, hotels, ...

The restrictions on private tutoring led VIPKid, one of the biggest online education companies, to halt private courses offered in China while other companies shut down completely. VIPKid, once valued at $3 billion, had been backed by a hefty lineup, including Tencent, Sequoia Capital and Jack Ma's Yunfeng Capital.

China's government already has a 9 pm curfew for online classes. This has affected the schedule and salary of ESL teachers who have lost students. Additionally, online teaching for pre-school children has been banned outright.