Recent two trading days have seen a significant downturn in the stock market, exposing newcomers to the risks of the market. China is about to enter an aging demographic phase, and birth rates are dismal, with the decline exceeding the estimates of relevant experts, hindering industries that obstruct declining birth rates; the Party will take decisive action.
Reducing Student Burden
Those of us born in the 1990s didn’t have as many interest classes or tutoring sessions; after school, we would run wild playing. This was first due to the limitations of our families’ conditions and second because tutoring centers hadn’t yet established a brand effect, convincing parents to trust them. Twenty years have passed in a flash, and since 2019, the capitalization of K12 education has seen the rise of online tutoring companies like猿辅导 (Yuancu Tu), bolstered by capital, which have created various high-end tutoring centers by concentrating excellent resources. Despite exorbitant fees, parental enthusiasm remains unstoppable.
In the process of urbanization, many parents see education as a path to escape the constraints of the peasantry and achieve a social class leap. As cogs in the machine themselves, they don’t have much time to care for their children, not only because they are highly competitive but also because they don’t want their children to fall behind their peers. “It’s difficult for nobles to become commoners,” and with ordinary education levels, it is hard for families in China to maintain their current social standing or make another class leap. If they enter vocational high schools, in today’s society, they believe this represents a downward slide in social status, which is something most parents cannot accept.
Reducing Student Burden
Let’s revisit the reasons behind extracurricular tutoring and why parents seek it out. Textbook knowledge and example problems are straightforward – many students can understand them easily. However, many subjects cover broad concepts superficially without delving deeply. The talent selection mechanism requires differentiation, leading to a contradiction: exam questions based solely on textbook knowledge cannot effectively filter candidates. This necessitates horizontal and vertical expansion of learning. These areas are aspects that teachers simply cannot cover in the classroom, creating the fertile ground for extracurricular tutoring.
The document contains numerous clauses and specifications, outlining multiple aspects and providing a summary of the guiding document’s outline:
- Completely reduce the total amount and duration of homework assignments to alleviate students’ excessive workload.
- Improve the level of after-school services offered by schools to meet diverse student needs.
- Strictly govern extracurricular training activities and comprehensively standardize their behavior.
- Significantly enhance teaching and learning quality to ensure that students master what they learn at school.
- Strengthen supporting governance and improve support capabilities.
- Carefully organize and implement it, aiming for tangible results.
Elite Education
There’s also a phenomenon in the education sector – the increasing prevalence of powerful private schools. Public schools are struggling to provide sufficient high-quality resources (leading to enclaves/gated communities). Various sized educational groups are attracting excellent teachers with high salaries, establishing quality learning environments, and gradually building their own brands, most notably: Hen Shuai Model. Old Home Corporation averages over 3000 RMB, powerful private primary schools charge between 9000 and 10000 RMB per year. Educational groups form a virtuous cycle – my tuition is expensive, but the teachers are excellent, students achieve good grades, I raise tuition fees, and parents will still send their children here. Public resources (teachers) are gradually being drawn to private schools, ultimately becoming synonymous with substandard education.
Algorithmic Optimization
There is data showing that Meituan’s contracted delivery riders have approached 4 million, with approximately 400,000 active riders. Many people rely on this job to support their families and livelihoods. The relentless algorithmic pressure to minimize delivery times reduces individuals into measurable units, feeding them into algorithms for constant calculation, continually exploring the boundaries of delivery rider collapse. Believing themselves clever, they violate human nature and serve capital. The market operates here, allowing everyone to play and enjoy sustainable play, rather than monopolizing, wielding privileges, the gameplay of capitalism, a reckless and brutal growth that will ultimately come to an end.
Stock Market Volatility
On July 24, 2021, education stocks represented by New Oriental performed a dramatic plunge, followed by Hao Pai Futures in the pre-market session. Stock prices plummeted by half.
China has gradually entered an aging population, and various social phenomena affecting family planning must be rectified; monopolistic and overtime internet companies were fined, and the capital-concentrated education industry was also scrutinized.
Stock Market Volatility
The education industry is not allowed to be capitalized on; a single vote directly negated related industries’ IPO financing, and there was wailing everywhere.
- New Oriental “Takes a Plunge”
- Meituan Crashes
References
Regulatory Intensive Efforts Cause Online Education to “Brake Suddenly” The State Council Office issued the “Opinions on Further Reducing the Homework Burden and Extracurricular Training Burden of Students in Compulsory Education Stages”