Teach knowledge or play routines: Why is the off-campus training "hard to extinguish"
■ Observer
The society is intertwined with “love” and “fear” for off-campus training. It is necessary to explore the underlying reasons and reflect on it.
Recently, the Beijing Municipal Market Supervision Bureau organized special inspections in response to the off-campus education and training issues that the masses reported strongly. According to law, off-campus education and training institutions involved in price violations, false propaganda, etc. were imposed with administrative penalties of warnings and a fine of 500,000 yuan.
Prior to this, Chongqing also imposed administrative penalties on some off-campus training institutions.
As the "shadow" of the mainstream education system, off-campus training is developing rapidly, and "there is a great trend to rebuild a national education system."
However, its impact on the mainstream education system and the various issues it has generated have also been controversial. Many parents are even more "love" and "fear" for out-of-school training.
The recent frequent rollovers in supervision have once again brought the chaos of "off-campus training" back into public view.
Off-campus training impacts the mainstream education system
It should be said that about half of the supply of off-campus training is undertaken by specialized market institutions or enterprises, which collectively form the off-campus training industry.
Data show that the overall market size of my country's off-campus training industry is about 2 trillion yuan, equivalent to 2% of the national GDP.
Among them, the scale of out-of-school training in primary and secondary schools accounts for about 40%.
The huge market volume has contributed considerable tax revenue, and it has also performed well in terms of employment absorption and education and public welfare.
The total employed population absorbed by the off-campus training industry across the country is approximately 10 million, and it is still growing rapidly.
Many training institutions have taken advantage of platforms and other advantages to carry out a large number of public welfare projects that promote fairness in education through science and technology, especially during the epidemic period, to help schools "suspend classes without suspension" activities.
But at the same time, the rapid development of off-campus training has also had an impact on mainstream education.
For example, investing too much time and energy in off-campus training will have a negative impact on the school’s normal teaching plan, content, standards, and value orientation; children from low-income families will also find it more difficult to achieve class jumps through education.
The source lies in the parents' grade anxiety
Tracing back to the source of the rise of off-campus training, it is still the anxiety of most parents and students about improving their performance.
Although off-campus training institutions "prescribe the right medicine" to increase their scores, the "only scores" and "only advancement" orientations have been repeatedly criticized by the society, but for many families, they even have time to worry about whether this model violates the laws of education, so they can't wait to get on the boat. ".
Moreover, students with leading grades tend to occupy a larger proportion of the tutoring group.
Some training institutions use quick scores such as problem-solving skills, routines, and templates. Behind it, there is damage to students' learning and thinking abilities, at the expense of children's innovative thinking, problem-solving ability, and their motivation and potential for sustainable growth.
The “advanced learning” in winter and summer vacations and the “primary schoolization” of kindergartens also violate the objective laws of cognitive development. It not only hurts students’ creativity, but also affects children’s self-confidence and self-confidence to a certain extent. Learning autonomy.
In addition, as far as off-campus training institutions are concerned, while they have become the main force in promoting educational innovation, there are also many chaos such as false advertising, excessive marketing, misuse of funds, and thunderstorms.
For example, for a leading company listed on the US stock market, marketing expenses in the third quarter of 2020 will be as high as 2.056 billion yuan, which is 9 times as much as its course research and development expenses.
This means that when parents spend 10 yuan, 9 yuan is used for marketing.
Some off-campus training institutions do not even focus on teaching, but rack their brains to sell lessons and even use parent marketing with rebates.
Some institutions also use tuition fees for investment and speculation.
Under the false fire, phenomena such as breaking the capital chain and running away from thunderstorms have occurred from time to time, pushing a small number of companies into the abyss of blindly pursuing economic interests.
All these can be described as the "fear" of off-campus training and education.
Double increase in economic burden and psychological pressure
Parents are so fond of off-campus training institutions because they at least cater to the needs of parents in two respects.
On the one hand, it is the nursing fault of elementary and middle school students after school.
"Instead of letting children go to play games or participate in outdoor sports after class, which may cause unknown risks, it is better to go to training classes." This is an important reason for parents to report to their children.
On the other hand, training institutions free up parents’ time for tutoring homework.
It is undeniable that there are indeed parents who are "hands-off shopkeepers", but more generally, many parents think that even if they spend time and energy to tutor their children, the effect is not as good as going to a training institution.
But the economic price paid by the family is not small.
According to the "2019 Domestic Family Children's Education Investment Survey", 38.8% of the interviewed families spent 20 to 30% of their annual family income for their children's out-of-school training.
Moreover, it is not only the economic burden, but also the psychological pressure.
The same is tuition, there are high-quality offline "one-on-one tutoring", and there are also "large class online classes" for tens of thousands of people. Which one should I choose for my child?
For this reason, out-of-school training is not so much the pressure of the child as it is the extension and penetration of the pressure of the parents on the child.
In general, the society’s love and fear for off-campus training are intertwined.
It is more important to explore the underlying reasons and reflect on them than to "discuss on the matter".
□Guan Chenghua (Professor of Beijing Normal University)