Parents are eager to choose online courses. Students can't help but participate in off-campus training
Who touts education anxiety in winter vacation
● The imbalance of existing school resources has led to an imbalance in the mentality of many parents. Before they can enter a better school, they can only narrow the gap in test scores by signing up for extracurricular tutoring classes.
It can be seen that the gap between schools is the external condition for the popular training, and the single student evaluation system is the internal fundamental reason for the popular training.
● Online education companies are basically hopeless to achieve profitability in the short term. They have cast their sights on a new growth point-the training business of quality education.
New policies for quality education, such as "sports scores and aesthetic education for entrance examinations" have become new growth points targeted by online education institutions, but there are also hidden worries of being trapped by exams
● To solve the problems of off-campus training institutions, the education evaluation system should be fundamentally changed, education management should be improved, and education content should be improved
□ Our reporter Zhao Li
From January 7 to 8, the 2021 National Education Work Conference was held in Beijing.
One of the important issues is to rectify and reorganize training institutions outside the school.
It was proposed at the meeting to focus on rectifying unhealthy behaviors such as profiteering, subject training, and false advertising.
Comprehensive use of economics, rule of law, and administrative measures to put forward requirements for training institutions' school conditions, training content, teaching materials and teaching plans, fee management, marketing methods, and teacher qualifications.
Effectively solve the problem of inadequate teaching in schools and classrooms.
Due to the sporadic outbreaks of new crown pneumonia, the winter vacation of 2021 will start early in many areas.
According to a recent interview with a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily, students have also been arranged for various off-campus training courses by their parents in conjunction with the early winter vacation.
Among student groups, especially urban student groups, off-campus training for the three subjects of language and mathematics has become "standard."
As early as 5 years ago, the "Survey Report on the Status of Teachers in China's Tutoring Education Industry and Tutoring Institutions" issued by the China Education Association revealed that the market size of the tutoring industry in primary and secondary schools in my country has exceeded 800 billion yuan, and the number of students participating has exceeded 137 million.
In the context of reducing the burden every year, when will students get rid of the fate of being "extracurred" by many extracurricular classes?
Epidemic affects early winter vacation
Extracurricular training fills up student holidays
Around New Year's Day, Su Ping, a citizen of Beijing, began to choose online courses for her daughter who had early winter vacation.
Her current enrollment principle is not to hoard classes (not to buy many courses at once), because many online training institutions will continue to expand as they grow larger, and the quality of teaching cannot be fully guaranteed.
10 classes a week, at least two classes a day, each class is 30 minutes; the mathematics training of the two institutions is three times a week, focusing on the cultivation of mathematical thinking and calculation skills; online one-on-one foreign teachers practice oral English; online English picture book reading ; The rest is learning Chinese Pinyin-this is an online course arranged by Su Ping for her 5 and a half year old daughter.
In order to find better educational resources, Su Ping joined 4 "chicken baby groups", 4 group owners mainly engaged in online course marketing.
According to Su Ping, the main theme of these four "chicken baby groups" is "Never report offline, dangerous", and online courses are therefore favored and recognized by parents.
After comparing various online courses as a whole, Su Ping found that online education now has many different segmentation dimensions.
According to the learning theme, it can be divided into quality education and test-oriented education.
Children’s English and children’s programming, which has become popular in recent years, belong to the former, which are carried out in strict accordance with the "curriculum" of the public education system; knowledge points and problem-solving training for primary and secondary schools are targeted at the exam-oriented education scene.
"Only by'knowing yourself and the enemy' can you choose a course suitable for children. Children's time is precious and must not be wasted." Su Ping said.
Recommended by Su Ping, a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily noticed that even outdoor courses such as children's physical training have online recording and broadcasting courses, and even one-to-one live physical training.
In fact, online courses are not only favored by younger students.
Cheng Hao, a citizen of Beijing, has recently drawn up a winter vacation plan for his 12-year-old daughter. The online courses include an English reading camp's online system course, first grade math and PET exam sprint class.
The son of Beijing citizen Yang Bin is in seventh grade. This winter vacation, his son is only free one day a week.
"Since I enrolled my children for extracurricular classes, my year has been divided into the four payment seasons of the training class: spring, summer, autumn, and winter vacation. The class fee is 350 yuan per hour, two hours at a time, and one season is about 15 classes, only one subject is 10,000 yuan. 4 times a year, the money is harvested by the training class.” Yang Bin said.
Most parents have educational anxiety
Don't let your children lose at the starting line
The actions of Su Ping and Cheng Hao reflect the educational anxiety of Chinese parents to some extent.
"Parents, you are too careless. You must know that if the extracurricular class is not training your child, then it must be training your child's competitors." This is the marketing "chicken soup" commonly used by off-campus training institutions.
When his child was in the fourth grade, Yang Bin stood at the door of a training institution introduced by others and heard the marketing staff's "chicken soup". This sentence also made Yang Bin "suddenly realize."
Many parents now have a history of "change their destiny through learning". This process allows them to know the taste of competition and understand the cruelty of competition.
The phrase "chicken soup" thrown by the teacher of the extracurricular tutoring class evoked Yang Bin's memories and fighting spirit, "I don't expect my son to achieve much, but at least it should not fall below the level we have now, and can't fall further. ".
Many parents have similar ideas to Yang Bin. They believe that the "threshold" they strive to enter does not guarantee the "entry" of the child, but determines whether the child is "excluded".
"There is no reduction in the number of children's winter vacation training classes due to the epidemic." The father of a fifth-grade elementary school student in Beijing told a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily that the children reported math, English, guzheng and basketball, some of which have been in two or three years.
In 2018, the "Chinese Parent Education Anxiety Index Survey Report" released by Zhike Education and Sina Education showed that 68% of parents felt "very anxious" or "relatively anxious" about their children's education, and only 6% were not anxious.
In order to prevent children from "losing at the starting line", sending their children to remedial classes has become the choice of most parents.
According to the National Time Utilization Survey Bulletin 2018, Chinese parents spend an average of 1.5 hours per day escorting and tutoring their children and 3.1 hours of accompanying and caring for their children.
"Accompanying baby" has become the fifth largest time control item except for sleep and rest, employment work, family production and management work, and study and training.
When the above data is applied to Xiao Jing, a 14-year-old third-year student in Beijing, her state is: "Since I was in the sixth grade of elementary school, I haven't spent a weekend, winter and summer vacation without extracurricular classes." "Classes I have attended. There are many types, wired off-duty class, online class, offline one-to-three, offline one-to-one, online one-to-one"...
Education and training institutions aim at quality education
Be wary of test-taking and counter-increasing burden
Educational anxiety has stimulated the development of off-campus training institutions.
As early as 5 years ago, the "Survey Report on the Status Quo of China's Tutoring Education Industry and Teachers in Tutoring Institutions" issued by the China Education Association revealed that the market size of the tutoring industry in primary and secondary schools in my country has exceeded 800 billion yuan.
The sudden outbreak of the new crown pneumonia in 2020 has brought the education field into a "two heavens": online learning is rapidly popularized under the impact of external forces; the offline education and training industry has suffered a heavy blow.
Along with this, online education has started a more fierce battle for "burning money" than in previous years.
According to Su Ping, she retired all offline training institutions that could withdraw, such as vocal dance and offline English classes.
The reason is simple. I am worried about offline training institutions running away.
The parents' worry is not unreasonable.
With the expansion of the risk of the rupture of the capital chain, offline education and training institutions frequently "explode", and the legal representatives or persons in charge of some institutions "lost contact", and parents and students have suffered heavy losses.
For a long time, in the environment of free growth of education and training institutions, the lack of supervision of the advance payment mechanism cannot provide effective early warning, and it has also laid the fuse for "running."
The "Survey Report on the Training and Education Industry During the Epidemic Period" issued by the China Private Education Association shows that more than 90% of institutions said that the epidemic has had a greater impact on their operations. Among them, 29% were facing bankruptcy, and 36.6% had operations stalled, which barely maintained. Accounted for 25.4%.
Most offline institutions are facing difficulties.
79% of institutions said that the funds on the account can only be maintained for less than 3 months, and 8% of institutions can only maintain it for less than half a month.
A number of non-head companies such as Web English, Yousheng Education, and Xuebajun have been shut down and closed down.
However, as offline education and training enters the winter, capital is rushing to online education. Since 2020, high financing has emerged.
Online education has been continuously promoted, and leading institutions continue to increase their “burning money” to gain customers.
According to data from the China Internet Network Information Center, as of March 2020, the number of online education users has reached 423 million, with a penetration rate of 30% among the national population, forcing educational institutions to adapt and improve their abilities in teachers, teaching and research, etc. .
Many educational institutions have launched free public welfare classes during the epidemic to build their corporate image and reputation and obtain more customers.
Many agency officials said that online diversion and offline realization is a channel for future operations.
Su Ping told the reporter of Rule of Law Daily that in her WeChat circle of friends, all families with children over 4 years old will send out exclusive posters for online courses basically every month or even every half month.
If a friend applies for a trial listening based on the QR code of this exclusive poster, then she will receive at least two lessons; if successfully enrolled, she will receive 10 lessons; even if no one applies, just share this poster. Can get a free lesson.
"This year's winter vacation, the enthusiasm for off-campus training will not decrease. After the midterm exam results came out, many parents started taking action and enrolled their children in off-campus winter vacation classes." The person in charge of an education and training school said that there is a difference from last year. Yes, when choosing winter vacation classes this year, parents have to choose between online and offline tutoring classes. "Nowadays, powerful training institutions have added online courses."
However, it is worth noting that under the fierce competition between online and offline education, a new round of competition between education and training institutions has not escaped the entanglement of exam-oriented education.
The transformation of learning methods has also brought about the anxiety of students and parents, and the inequality of educational resources in the digital environment.
During the investigation, a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily noticed that online education companies are basically hopeless to achieve profitability in the short term, and they have cast their sights on a new growth point-the training business of quality education.
New policies for quality education such as "sports scores and aesthetic education entering the entrance examination" have become new growth points targeted by online education institutions, but at the same time, there are also hidden worries of being trapped by exams.
According to the deployment of the Ministry of Education, "the school's physical education entrance examination will increase the score year by year, reaching the same level as the number of foreign languages." "The aesthetic education entrance examination should be promoted as soon as possible on a pilot basis."
However, these regulations are regarded by some scholars as "using test-oriented education methods to force quality education, fearing to increase the burden of students' academic work."
Some principals pointed out that the current details of the implementation of the New Deal are still unclear, and that the policy with the original intention of promoting quality education needs to be vigilant "intensified in the direction of utilitarianism."
Both inside and outside the school should work together to cultivate students' interest in arts and sports skills and humanistic qualities.