With the approach of the "business-to-business reform" deadline, in order to ensure the non-profit nature of subject-based off-campus training, and to block the industry’s excessive profit-seeking and institutional runaway channels, many places have successively announced the “pre-charge” fund supervision rules for off-campus training institutions. The implementation path of price limit has gradually become clear.
Recently, as one of the “double reduction” pilot cities in Zhejiang Province, Jinhua issued the "Notice on the Relevant Situation of the Fees for Subject-based Off-campus Training in the Compulsory Education Stage (Draft for Solicitation of Comments)."
So far, Jinhua has also become the first city in Zhejiang Province and one of the few cities in the country that publicizes the government-guided price standards for non-profit academic off-campus training institutions.
Jinhua said that it will implement the supervision of pre-collected tuition fees, and urge the discipline-related off-campus training institutions to strictly implement the government-guided prices, and must not increase or disguise the training fee standards set by the government for any reason or in any way.
At the beginning of September, the Ministry of Education and other three departments announced the "Notice on Strengthening the Supervision of Off-campus Training Fees for Subjects in the Compulsory Education Stage" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), which clarified that all regions must introduce fees for off-campus training for subjects in the compulsory education stage by the end of 2021. (Hereinafter referred to as "out-of-school training fees") Government guidance price management policy.
Subsequently, Beijing, Hunan and many other provinces and cities clearly proposed that the fees for off-campus training of subjects in the compulsory education stage should be included in the government's guidance price management.
However, with the exception of a few areas such as Hunan that have made progress in landing government guidance prices, the government guidance prices in most regions are still in a gestation period, and their pricing standards have not yet been officially launched.
Liu Lin, president of the China Private Education Association, said in an interview with China Business News that in the process of implementing "double reductions" and rectifying off-campus training, the government-guided price is one of the most important measures.
Its implementation will have an impact on the overall ecology of the education and training industry, and will become an important reference factor for off-campus training institutions to decide whether to engage in or withdraw from the K9 business when the deadline for "business to non-business reform" is approaching.
"It is precisely because of this importance and the complexity of pricing that the pricing standards for government guidance prices in various regions have not been launched. At present, it will take time to complete the relevant pricing work in many places. It is expected that the government guidance prices in more regions will be It will be released in the second half of this month. The guide price may be only a temporary price, and there is still a trial period for exploration." Liu Lin said.
"Sky price" cram school will become history
With the implementation or approach of local government guidance prices, off-campus training fees will face a pricing "ceiling"; at the same time, due to the strict cost control of the competent authority, the guidance price is likely to be much lower than the market price. Previously, "one-to-one teaching" , "1000 yuan per hour" "expensive" cram school will also become history.
According to the government guidance price standards announced by Jinhua on November 26, off-campus training courses for offline subjects at the compulsory education stage are divided into three types: less than 10 students, 10 to 35 students, and more than 35 students.
The base price is RMB 50/person per class, RMB 40/person per class, and RMB 30/person per class.
The standard course is 45 minutes. If the actual duration is different, it can be converted on a pro rata basis.
Once the fee standard is determined, the increase shall not exceed 10%, and the decrease is unlimited.
This fee is a trial standard, and the trial period is 1 year.
After the price standard was announced, it caused widespread concern.
On the one hand, some parents in the parent group are happy and some are worried. The happy thing is that after the government guides the price, the family's budget for out-of-school training has been reduced. Education and training institutions are beginning to think about withdrawing or staying. If they stay, when the rent and labor costs are too high and the government guidance price is not enough to support their normal operations, how to change the development model?
Some analysts told China Business News that with the advance collection system and government guidance prices, it is expected that the threshold for the education and training industry may be further raised.
At the same time, from the perspective of horizontal comparison, due to the shrinkage of the “one-to-one” profit margin of offline institutions, the reduction of class capacity and the reduction of the number of stocks may be more pressured than online training institutions.
“The threshold for off-campus training institutions is indeed increasing because this is an industry that is restricted from development.” Yu Miao, an Internet education expert and founder of Sulu Consulting, told China Business News that off-campus training has become a non-profit industry due to subject-based training. , If the thinking of practitioners is still stuck in the development stage of the industry where profit was the fundamental purpose and the profit was relatively lucrative in the past, it would not have practical significance.
"It is undeniable that the introduction of government guidance prices will further squeeze teachers in the subject-based off-campus training industry, and encourage high-quality teachers to enter other employment channels. However, because some students do need personalized counseling, especially supplementary counseling, This policy also leaves a door for it, that is, so that most families can afford tuition." Yu Miao said.
In fact, the government's price restriction is an important part of "reducing the burden" of off-campus training.
As early as July, the "Double Reduction" document issued by the State Council clearly stated that "the supervision of training fees should be strengthened and the fees for off-campus training should be included in the management of government guidance prices."
The above-mentioned government-guided price and charging standards proposed by Jinhua are based on the "Notice" issued in early September.
According to the "Notice", the government-guided price refers to the price set by the government's price authority or other relevant departments, in accordance with the pricing power and scope of the benchmark price and its floating range, and guide the operators to set the price.
The "Notice" clarified that the fees for online and offline subject-based off-campus training in the compulsory education stage are collected by non-profit institutions, and government-guided price management is implemented in accordance with the law, and the benchmark fee standard and floating range are set by local governments.
Training institutions determine specific charging standards within the benchmark charging standards and floating ranges set by the government.
According to the territorial principle, the pricing authority is stipulated.
Specifically, the benchmark fees and floating ranges for off-campus training for offline disciplines are formulated by the provincial development and reform department in conjunction with the education department, or by the people’s government at the prefectural level and above with the authorization of the provincial people’s government; off-campus for online disciplines The benchmark fee standard and floating range for training shall be formulated by the provincial development and reform department in conjunction with the education department where the training institution's school permit is approved.
In addition to Jinhua, Hunan and other places have also begun to gradually implement government guidance prices.
In late September, Hunan issued the "Implementation Plan for Strengthening the Supervision of Disciplinary Off-campus Training Fees", clarifying that the Provincial Development and Reform Commission is responsible for formulating the province’s off-campus training fees and government guidance price management policies, and the Municipal and Prefectural Development and Reform Commissions conduct surveys on the cost of off-campus training fees and formulate off-campus training. Benchmark fee standard and fluctuation range.
According to the Semi-Monthly Report on Special Supervision of the "Double Reduction" Work issued by the Hunan Department of Education on November 15th, in terms of the "Supervision of Pre-charges for Off-campus Training", the number of "off-campus training institutions for subjects in compulsory education that implement government-guided prices" reached 575. Accounted for 19.77%.
On November 16, Beijing and Hunan released the implementation rules for the fees for off-campus training during the compulsory education stage on the same day.
According to incomplete statistics, up to now, Beijing, Zhengzhou, Hunan, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shaanxi, Hainan, Anhui, Jiangxi and other provinces and cities have clearly stated that they will implement government-guided price management for off-campus training in subjects at the compulsory education stage. .
Hunan, Hainan and other places also stated that the management of fees for off-campus training at the high school stage is also implemented in accordance with the regulations of the compulsory education stage.
The specific pricing standard will be released
It is worth noting that the specific pricing standards have not yet been released for the regions where the above-mentioned government-guided prices will be clearly implemented.
The "government guidance price" was first proposed in the July "double reduction" document. Up to now, more than four months have passed. Why are local governments still slow in implementing relevant work?
What are the difficulties in landing behind this?
Liu Lin believes that there are at least three difficulties.
One is the uncertainty of pricing basis.
Under normal circumstances, when pricing a certain type of goods or services, a relatively long settling period in the market is required to obtain relatively stable reference data.
However, since the implementation of the "double reduction", the education and training industry is undergoing a period of transformation and tremendous changes. The venue rents, wages of employees, and training duration of relevant training institutions have all undergone major changes, and they have not yet achieved stability.
Second, it is difficult to adjust the average cost of society.
According to the "Notice", the benchmark fee standard and floating range of government-guided prices are set by local governments.
But even so, in the same city, due to different land prices, there will be differences in site rents between institutions; differences in teacher salaries due to different teachers' teaching levels or different parents' expectations.
The third is the pricing problem caused by the different operating methods of online and offline training institutions.
For example, for online institutions, according to the "Notice", their price standards should be formulated at the provincial level.
However, because online students may be distributed across the country, the economic development level of different regions and the affordability of student families are different, which brings difficulties to cost verification and fee research.
In view of the scattered distribution of online students and difficulty in finding the charging benchmark, Yu Miao believes that there are two solutions: one is to charge the corresponding tuition according to the standard of the student’s location, which is not difficult to achieve technically; Low is not high, that is, the price is set in accordance with the provinces with low economic development and the families with weaker family capacity to ensure "public welfare."
CBN noted that in areas where government-guided prices are clearly issued, special attention is paid to "adhering to the public welfare attributes of off-campus training for disciplines".
For example, Fujian Province proposed that the implementation of government-guided price management must take full account of its characteristics related to major people's livelihoods, and effectively reduce the burden of student family education expenditures.
Resolutely curb the excessive profit-seeking behavior of training institutions, and effectively reduce the financial burden of students' parents.
The benchmark fee standards set by various localities should be significantly lower than the average fee level actually charged by training institutions before the implementation of government-guided price management.
However, Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, said that if the government wants to limit price effectively, it must not be too far away from the real price level of the current education and training market. The tuition price has returned to the pre-government level.
"The specific pricing standards of government guidance prices need to be based on reality, and they should not be too subjective, nor should the prices be kept low in order to reduce (off-campus) training. Such government guidance prices will be greatly reduced and they are also unsustainable." Chu Zhaohui told CBN.
Liu Lin told China Business News that at present, the China Private Education Association has aggregated the demands of various off-campus training institutions, practitioners, and students’ parents, such as large, medium and small, online and offline, on government-guided pricing standards, and provided feedback to relevant parties. Department.
It is expected that local pricing standards will be released intensively in the middle and late of this month.
According to incomplete statistics, since mid-to-late November, Beijing, Shaanxi, Hainan and other places have successively proposed the pricing standards of government-guided prices to be announced in the near future.
On November 30, Zhengzhou made it clear that the local government guidance price will be implemented early next year.
"Given the current market is still in a state of instability, the government guidance prices issued by various localities are experimental and transitional. We suggest that by the end of this year, the country’s off-campus training for disciplines will be completely transformed from business to non-business and next year After entering a relatively stable stage, the government will again compare the pricing standards of the published guidance prices with the operating conditions of relevant institutions, listen to the opinions of all parties in a timely manner, and make corresponding adjustments." Liu Lin said.
Author: Wu Simin