Recently, Beijing issued the "Measures to Further Reduce the Burden of Students' Homework and Off-campus Training in Compulsory Education", and the Beijing version of the "double reduction" policy was officially implemented.
A month ago, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Further Reducing the Work Burden of Students in Compulsory Education and the Burden of Off-campus Training", which is what people call the "double reduction" policy.
The opinion identified 9 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Zhengzhou, Changzhi, Weihai, and Nantong as national pilots.
The author combed and found that in addition to Beijing, in early August, Shenyang's education, market supervision, public security, civil affairs, human resources and social security, emergency and other departments jointly organized special management of off-campus training institutions, focusing on four types of key issues for all off-campus training in the jurisdiction Institutions conducted a full-coverage investigation; the Guangzhou Education Bureau also issued a notice not long ago on reducing the burden of off-campus training for students in compulsory education. Japanese, Korean) class off-campus training institutions have conducted a comprehensive investigation; Chengdu has launched a special rectification action for off-campus training institutions, focusing on seven items including "whether the training content is ahead of the outline" and "whether the hired instructor is compliant"...
"Double reduction" has entered the "practical" stage.
The so-called "double reduction", the first is to reduce the burden of homework for primary and secondary school students, and the second is to reduce the burden of off-campus training for primary and secondary school students.
However, this is only the surface of the policy. The essence of the policy is to eradicate the “stubborn diseases” in the compulsory education stage. Increasing social anxiety, educational unfairness caused by over-training, and abnormal compulsory education ecology caused by these.
The country's determination to eradicate the stubborn problems of education is not insignificant.
However, I want to say that while curing these "stubborn illnesses", we must also face up to the "inertia" behind these "stubborn illnesses."
One of the inertia is the strong desire of parents to look forward to their children becoming talents.
Some people say that Chinese parents are very contradictory. While they complain about the burden of all kinds of extracurricular tutoring on their children, they cannot do without tutoring psychologically.
"Burden reduction" is nothing new.
"Ten Measures for Burden Reduction" and "Thirty Measures for Burden Reduction"... In recent years, the education department has issued a number of "burden reduction" documents for primary and secondary school students, but the schoolwork burden of primary and secondary school students has not improved significantly.
This is not unrelated to parents' "cannot stop" for off-campus training.
And behind this is actually the strong desire that Chinese people have since ancient times for their children to become talents.
When the school's normal curriculum makes children "not full", parents hope that someone can "extra meals" for their children; when the school curriculum makes their children "cannot keep up", parents also hope that someone can help their children.
Off-campus training can just meet the individual needs of parents.
However, under the influence of capital, some off-campus training institutions put their interests in a higher priority position. Parents’ anxiety has become a profit-making tool for these institutions. Parents’ anxiety has been continuously expanded and repeatedly sold while being satisfied.
Many parents who are trapped are not aware of it, and they will be involved with the organization, creating greater anxiety.
In this case, parents’ normal distorted needs have turned into stubbornness, and the "chicken baby" tricks are almost crazy.
The "double reduction" policy is to cut off the benefit chain formed by the use of parents and "kidnapping" children by off-campus training institutions, and "rescue" children and parents.
However, recently, such a phenomenon has appeared in some places: parents will "crowd-funding personal education" if the training courses of the institution cannot be opened, "large classes" will start "one-on-one", and the classroom will be transferred to residents if they cannot attend classes. Lou, some institutions have also begun to take advantage of the loopholes, and even started K12 courses in senior colleges...
Such parents are not special. They are colleagues or friends who live beside you and me. Because of the large number of parents, this kind of "inertia" cannot be ignored.
However, facing up is not blind satisfaction, but to help parents re-examine their needs, "peel the silk and draw cocoons," remove those distorted and exaggerated elements, find the most reasonable needs, and provide scientific and rational channels.
At the same time, we must face up to the fact that parents’ anxiety is not simply a problem of education, but a concentrated reflection of current social anxiety.
Therefore, we must be fully psychologically prepared. To truly alleviate the anxiety of parents is a complicated systematic project, it is difficult to achieve immediate results with a single dose, and we must work together in a multi-pronged manner.
The second inertia is the survival of off-campus training institutions.
The "double reduction" policy continues to be implemented, and many institutions that originally focused on subject training for primary and secondary school students have begun to transform.
The author sorted out that some organizations have turned to quality training. For example, an organization that started with English training has added training programs such as art, sports, and technology; some have turned to adult education, such as a well-known online spoken English training organization. Developed a course specifically for adult oral English, which is already in the final testing stage; some have turned to hosting services. For example, a well-known training institution that started with Mathematical Olympiad has launched its hosting service brand, mainly for elementary school students. , The main courses include transportation after school and homework guidance.
With the "blessing" of capital, training institutions have formed a running model of "quickly looking for business opportunities + pressure marketing". I have seen that some institutions are continuing this inertia during the hasty transformation process.
For example, some training institutions have just begun to transform themselves into quality education in primary and secondary schools, and they have quickly established quality education growth centers, and have art creation colleges, humanities development colleges, language business literacy colleges, and so on.
Some organizations saw that the relevant national policies and laws in recent years have actively encouraged and supported social forces to participate in vocational education and hold vocational training, and they immediately prepared to enter vocational education.
It should be said that, whether it is quality education or vocational education, each course has its own special curriculum standards and training goals. What's more, quality education and vocational education are both self-contained and complex systems. It is by no means a few courses plus a few courses. A student, plus an exam, can make a successful transition.
The original intention of the "double reduction" policy is to return training to the essence of education. Education can no longer be made into business. It is absolutely necessary to simply copy and paste the past model. Facts have proved that the past model can only bring short-term wealth. Make the industry sustainable and orderly development.
In addition, the education authority must face up to the survival and development needs of training institutions, help the industry to clarify the direction, and at the same time pay attention to the various difficulties that training institutions will encounter in the process of transformation, and provide substantive assistance.
After all, all parties in the education system can have good development in order to provide children with a healthy environment for physical and mental development. Only in this way can a healthy education ecology be formed.
Fan Weichen