Higher costs due to a shortage of teachers and concerns about the quality of classes have resulted from the ban. - AFP
CHONGQING: Finance executive Zoe Pan used to spend 300 yuan (US$43) for each hour of her only son’s tuition classes, but she now shells out 150 yuan more, following a government ban on tutoring in 2021 that was meant to ease the cost of raising a child.
The ban outlawed after-school tuition on school subjects, but parents told The Straits Times that it instead drove the private tutoring industry underground, as demand for the service has remained.
Higher costs due to a shortage of teachers, concerns about the quality of classes, and fear of being discovered by the authorities have also resulted from the ban, they added.
Pan, 43, who lives in Beijing, said: “Before the ban, we could rely on group classes by big tutoring brands or have access to a wider selection of tutors.
“But we can now rely only on word-of-mouth communication – mainly from other parents – to find out about tutors, or sign up for tuition classes that have been repackaged to avoid the authorities’ detection.”
Parents also told ST that the demand for one-on-one tutoring, which exists in a legally grey area, has gone up, resulting in a further shortage of teachers.
“Many undergraduates or postgraduates in Beijing, at least, have come out to give one-on-one tuition, which is almost impossible for the authorities to detect,” said Pan.
In July 2021, Beijing announced a surprise ban on private tuition in a move to ease parents’ child-rearing concerns and to reduce students’ workload.
The move upended the US$120 billion industry, which officials said was causing parents anxiety about making sure their child was not lagging behind their classmates.
Stellar educational qualifications are seen as a way for children to stand out in China’s ultra-competitive job market, with the slowing economy raising further concerns among parents about the prospects of their child – often the only one they would have in their lifetime.
Soon after the ban, local governments – including those in south-eastern Fujian, central Hunan and south-western Yunnan province – released their one-year aim to “effectively reduce”, and three-year goal to produce “significant results”, though they did not provide specifics on their goals.
In 2022, the State Council – China’s Cabinet – announced that the number of offline tuition centres had plunged 96 per cent to 4,932, down from 124,000 a year before.
But three years on, parents said they have been forced to turn to the black market tuition industry to help their child get ahead.
The ineffectiveness of the government’s ban came under the spotlight recently, when parents mistook guidelines issued by the State Council on Aug 3 to promote domestic consumption to mean that private tuition was going to be legal again.
Among the 20 key tasks that the authorities highlighted, one was to develop training institutions as a way to boost flagging consumption, which parents took to mean that tuition centres were coming back.
State news agency China News Service subsequently clarified in a report, headlined Are Tuition Agencies Coming Back?, on Aug 28 that the guidelines were referring to raising the standards of centres offering professional and adult education and enrichment classes, and did not include those for school subjects.
The report also noted that parents’ chatter following the release of the State Council’s guidelines underscored demand for tuition classes.
Other media reports noted that tuition classes were currently being conducted illegally in nondescript buildings, with the authorities in Guangzhou city, the capital of southern Guangdong province, releasing on Aug 23 examples of how tuition classes were still taking place illegally, as well as the punishments meted out to offenders. They warned offenders not to contravene the ban.
It is the third reminder that the Guangzhou authorities have issued in 2024.
Offenders were made to refund parents the fees paid, and fined between 12,038 yuan and 110,820 yuan, the Guangzhou authorities said.
Sometimes, students themselves blow the whistle on illegal tutoring.
In January 2024, a junior high school student in central Hubei province went to the local police to report on the illegal tuition classes he was attending. He complained that his workload was too heavy.
Parents said that the changes right after the ban were the hardest to adjust to, given the surprise announcement, but the underground tuition industry has since stabilised.
A Beijing parent, who gave her name only as Cheng, recalled how tuition classes had to be conducted on the fly – right after the ban kicked in – to avoid being detected by the police or neighbours.
Cheng, who is in her 40s, said that her daughter, who is in junior high now, had to attend classes at secret venues that were announced only on the day of the class.
“Sometimes classes would be held in a classmate’s home, or a commercial space,” she said. “Once, we had to travel out to the suburbs to attend a two-hour mathematics class and come back to the city where we live.
“It was so late when we got back, and my daughter still had school the next day,” she added.
But things stabilised in 2023 after China lifted its Covid-19 restrictions, and Cheng’s daughter now attends weekly classes at a fixed venue, with cases of raids less heard of among parents.
“The authorities seem to be paying less attention to this issue compared to when the ban was first introduced, so parents see it as a form of ‘loosening’, as long as the tuition agencies don’t make it too obvious,” Cheng told ST.
She forks out about 500 yuan an hour for her daughter to attend English and maths lessons, in a class of about 10 students. Before the ban, she was paying about 350 yuan an hour.
Official statistics showed that the average disposable income per capita of a Beijing resident was 81,752 yuan in 2023.
The rising cost of living could be a factor, but the spike in fees is sharp because of the shortage of teachers, given that current school teachers, unlike in the past, are even more unwilling to moonlight as private tutors for fear of being caught.
Parents also have to contend with the uncertainty of teachers’ quality in the black market.
“It’s definitely more expensive now, and I have more concerns about the quality of teaching and tutors compared to before the ban,” said Cheng.
Pan, whose son is in Primary 6, said: “In the past, we could go to the big brands such as New Oriental, which we could count on for quality and reliability.”
She added that parents are often not allowed to ask for tutors’ personal information, and can only trust what they hear on the grapevine.
Still, competition is stiff for spots in these classes.
A parent in Shanghai, who wanted to be known only as Hu, said that she would give tutors “extra pocket money” to make sure her Primary 5 son could land a spot at a tuition centre that had repackaged classes as enrichment programmes.
Mathematics classes are now known as logical thinking programmes, and English classes are referred to as drama and hosting courses at the centre.
““The spots for summer school programmes are so hot that I have to start reaching out to the teachers at least a month in advance to book one,” she said. - The Straits Times/ANN
