● The Ministry of Education has always required strict control of national competitions for primary and middle school students, and in principle no competitions for compulsory education will be held.
But in practice, this kind of illegal competition still changes its appearance to attract primary and middle school students to participate
● Driven by profit, illegal competitions still occur from time to time. They either go underground in a hidden form, or continue to exist in a disguised form, or even revive.
These illegal competitions have seriously violated the laws of education, disrupted the order of education and teaching, and are very detrimental to the cultivation of students' personality, interests and specialties.
● Clarify the main responsibilities of relevant administrative departments, through the establishment of precise identification and dynamic supervision mechanism, comprehensive investigation, proactively crack down on illegal competitions, and strictly prevent the resurgence of illegal competitions
□ Reporter Chen Lei
"It seems that the child has no chance before entering elementary school." Liu Hongyu (pseudonym), a parent of a student who lives in Chaoyang District, Beijing, has no choice but to accept this fact after continuing to be anxious and confused.
The "opportunity" mentioned by Liu Hongyu refers to participating in the Olympiad competition.
At the beginning of this year, she signed up her daughter, who is in the sixth grade of primary school, to participate in a Math Olympiad competition.
However, because the competition is not included in the white list of national competitions issued by the Ministry of Education, it is a "black competition". During the Spring Festival, this "black competition" was suspended twice.
The Ministry of Education has always required strict control of national competitions for primary and middle school students, and in principle no competitions for compulsory education will be held.
But in practice, some illegal competitions still change their appearance to attract primary and middle school students to participate.
On January 29 this year, the Ministry of Education issued the "Reminder on Joint Boycott of Illegal Competitions for Primary and Secondary School Students", saying that it is hoped that students and parents will rationally view the meaning and value of participating in the competition, and jointly resist illegal "black competitions".
So, why has "black competition" been sought after by a group of parents for a long time?
Competition turns into winter camp
The event was called off twice
Liu Hongyu's daughter is studying in an ordinary elementary school, which does not belong to the nine-year consistent school (after graduating from elementary school, she can go directly to the junior high school of the school), and is facing the problem of entering the junior high school.
In order for her daughter to enter a key junior high school, she set up a small study class with other parents in a training institution when her daughter was in the fourth grade, and invited an Olympiad teacher to teach.
While her daughter was in class, Liu Hongyu was also asking the teacher about signing up for the Mathematical Olympiad.
At that time, the Ministry of Education strictly controlled national competitions for primary and middle school students, and in principle did not hold competitions for compulsory education.
"Hope Cup" and "Welcome Spring Cup" and other national Mathematical Olympiad competitions that used to be open to primary schools were all suspended.
Even though the "Hope Cup" is included in the white list of national competitions for primary and middle school students in the 2019-2021 school year, it can only be carried out for high school students.
But Liu Hongyu discovered that the Math Olympiad competition in elementary school is actually still going on, and the teacher sometimes sends her a registration link.
Considering that her daughter's aptitude is not outstanding, she rarely enrolls her daughter.
When the epidemic was severe, the small study class held by the parents was disbanded, and she invited the teacher to her home for one-on-one tutoring.
In September 2022, as her daughter entered the sixth grade, she found that if she didn't sign up for the cup, there would be no "highlights" to write in her daughter's resume for Xiaoshengchu.
At the end of December 2022, the teacher sent her a registration link called "2023 IHC Thinking Challenge Winter Camp". According to the plan, her daughter needs to "enter the camp" on January 15 this year-in fact, she will take an online exam. The content is Olympiad.
But on the eve of the "entry into the camp", an "emergency warning" issued by the Guangdong Provincial Department of Education was circulated among parents, which stated that: the masses reported the so-called "2023 IHC Thinking Challenge Winter Camp", which actually hosted illegal mathematics competitions. The fee for this activity is Charged through the receiving QR code account without issuing an invoice, suspected of concealing income, tax evasion and huge amount.
Later, Liu Hongyu received a text message saying that due to policy reasons, the activity on January 15 was suspended. If you give up participating in the activity, you can apply for a refund.
On January 23, she got another news that registration for the event was restarted, and the event time was determined to be from 8:30 am to 10 am on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year on January 27, and the first to sixth grades will take the test together.
She also received a registration link, which is a QR code.
But within two days, the event was called off again.
She heard that it was because someone "complained".
On January 29, the Ministry of Education issued the "Reminder on Boycotting Illegal Contests for Primary and Secondary School Students", saying: A WeChat group spread the news that the "Hope Mathematics" illegal competition was held online on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year.
In this regard, the Ministry of Education and relevant departments have conducted a serious investigation and punishment, and the relevant agencies have issued a statement that they did not participate in the illegal competition.
The Ministry of Education once again reminds students and parents that those not on the white list are "black competitions" held in violation of regulations.
Liu Hongyu said that under such circumstances, her daughter probably would not have the opportunity to participate in the Mathematical Olympiad Cup again. "The purpose of signing up for the Mathematical Olympiad was to "go ashore" as a junior, and some key schools would recruit students based on their scores in the Mathematical Olympiad."
A classmate of her daughter started taking Mathematical Olympiad classes in the first grade, participated in many cup competitions and won prizes, and also applied for the Ye Shengtao Cup Composition Competition and won the second prize. In the fifth grade, she transferred to a well-known elementary school.
It costs 100,000 a year to sign up for classes
Crazy brushing questions before the game
Compared with Liu Hongyu, Li Juanjuan (pseudonym), a Beijing citizen, has gone further on the road to the "chicken baby" in the Olympiad.
Li Juanjuan's daughter, Doudou, is in the second grade this year. She is a student of a key elementary school in Beijing. She has participated in about 20 Mathematical Olympiad competitions, including domestic competitions and foreign competitions.
Doudou first came into contact with the Mathematical Olympiad in the preschool stage, and participated in the first grade level of the Hope Cup.
"It's not too early for our children to be exposed to the Mathematical Olympiad. I heard that many children have started to attend the Mathematical Olympiad class when they are three or four years old." Li Juanjuan said that she reported to Doudou for the Mathematical Olympiad. In the district of Xiaoshengchu, the key junior high school in the middle school pays attention to the Olympiad results in the "selection", and she hopes that her child will be admitted by the key junior high school.
Even if Xiaosheng was assigned a position in the early stage, the child learned the Mathematical Olympiad to prepare for the junior high school placement test.
Li Juanjuan also graduated from a key junior high school and high school in Beijing.
In her opinion, if a child from a middle-class family like hers can enter a key school, it is "very worry-free" for the middle school and college entrance examinations.
She recalled that Doudou scored more than 90 points in the first competition and won a third prize certificate.
Doudou officially began to learn Mathematical Olympiads from her kindergarten class. In addition to normal classes, she also hired one-on-one tutors.
Li Juanjuan's incomplete statistics found that, taking the school year of the first grade as an example, Doudou has participated in the YMO mathematics competition (World Youth Olympic Mathematical Competition), IHC (Hope Cup), WMO (World Mathematical Olympic Competition), American Major League, Kangaroo Cup, etc. YMO alone has participated in various competitions at home and abroad 6 times.
It is worth noting that none of these Olympiad competitions are included in the white list of national competition activities issued by the Ministry of Education.
According to Li Juanjuan, the cheapest registration fee for Doudou's competition was two to three hundred yuan, and the registration fee alone cost about 6,000 yuan during the first grade.
What is even more expensive is the fee for the Mathematical Olympiad class. Even if the fee is paid quarterly, "the total cost of online and offline classes for the entire first grade is about 100,000 yuan."
Even though she spent so much money, she did not have any requirements for Doudou's test scores. "My idea is that the child is still young, so she feels that participating in the Mathematical Olympiad is like playing. She doesn't ask about the results. She is happy to do well in the test. It doesn't matter if you don't do well, after all, the Olympiad 'chicken baby' is not a matter of a day or two, and children should not be bored."
At the end of 2022, Liu Juanjuan also reported to Doudou for the "2023 IHC Thinking Challenge Winter Camp".
According to her introduction, there will be a special group for parents who "play" competitions and Mathematical Olympiads in Beijing. Once there is competition information, the group owner will directly send a registration link to the group, and everyone can click on the link to register; Children will also receive the registration link issued by the teacher of the institution.
Doudou participated in the preparation for the fourth-grade competition. One month before the competition, the test questions printed on A4 paper were several inches thick.
On January 27, Li Juanjuan was convinced that after two suspensions, it should be impossible to continue this Mathematical Olympiad competition, "the state's investigation and punishment are too strong."
She also received calls from three mothers one after another that day, who asked her "very anxiously": "We chose to let our children learn Mathematical Olympiad in the first place for the purpose of junior high school. What? We still hope that our children can enter key junior high schools, what should we do? What should we learn next?"
The dozens of other parents contacted by the "Rule of Law Daily" reporter all had the same goal of learning Mathematical Olympiad, and they all had the same confusion, no matter whether their children had excellent aptitudes or mediocre ones.
Illegal competitions happen from time to time
Accurate identification of dynamic supervision
In September 2018, the Ministry of Education required the regulation of national competitions for primary and middle school students, and in principle no competitions for compulsory education will be held.
In March 2022, based on the practice of competition management and combined with the latest requirements of the "double reduction" policy, the Ministry of Education and other departments issued the "National Competition Management Measures for Primary and Secondary School Students" to further improve the management of competition activities for primary and secondary school students system.
In this regard, Cai Hailong, deputy dean of the Institute of Educational Policy and Law of Capital Normal University, told reporters that the implementation of the norms has effectively reduced the number of competitions and basically cut off the interest chain linked to admissions, examinations, and training. On the surface, the chaos of the competition was curbed, which played a role in cooling down the heat of the competition.
Zhou Xiang, an associate professor at the School of Education of Renmin University of China, said that in order to systematically solve the problem of excessive schoolwork for primary and middle school students, effective supervision from the source of standardizing competition is an important means of governance in the educational environment.
In this sense, the promulgation of relevant documents by the Ministry of Education, especially the white list system, provides a basis for healthy competition and purification of the competition environment.
However, in Cai Hailong's view, driven by interests, illegal competitions still occur from time to time. They either go underground in a hidden form, or continue to exist in a disguised form, or even revive.
These illegal competitions seriously violate the laws of education, disrupt the order of education and teaching, and are very unfavorable to the cultivation of students' personality, interests and specialties.
In November 2022, the Ministry of Education issued the "Notice on the Investigation and Handling of Illegal Competitions for Primary and Middle School Students", directly naming many illegal competitions such as Hope Mathematics, Math Garden Quest, Wasa Star, and the American Major League.
An ensuing question is, under this situation, why are the illegal competitions with Mathematical Olympiad as the main body still sought after by parents?
Cai Hailong believes that the essence of competition fever is actually the competition for high-quality educational resources, and there are profound policy reasons behind the popularity of illegal competitions.
For a long time, due to the disadvantages of education evaluation and admissions, competition results are often used as the basis for enrollment in primary and secondary schools, or as a project to add points to high school and college entrance examinations, and can enjoy the admission of reduced scores in the independent enrollment of some colleges and universities Therefore, many parents use competitions as a tool for school selection and access to high-quality educational resources.
"In addition, as a special form of education, competition itself requires students to master a lot of knowledge, which can play a role in inspiring thinking and promoting intellectual development to a certain extent. Therefore, even if it is not for winning awards, some parents are willing to Let your own children participate in the competition, which further fueled the competition boom." Cai Hailong analyzed.
From Zhou Jing's point of view, there is another factor worthy of attention, that is, objectively, the results of some competitions are used by some educational institutions or falsely and exaggerated by some training institutions, which leads to parents' pursuit.
The interviewed experts gave their own suggestions on how to fundamentally solve the parents' pursuit of illegal competitions.
Zhou Xiang believes that parents need to pay attention to the individual development of students and view competitions rationally; schools need to provide better after-school services, pay attention to the effective use of students’ after-school time and individualized education needs; the government needs to strengthen the effectiveness of illegal competitions. Supervision and investigation, cutting off the chain of interests, etc.
"We also need to provide more scientific and effective evaluation methods, means, and standards to solve rigid evaluation models such as the theory of competition." Zhou Xiang said.
Cai Hailong called on my country to further strengthen and improve the supervision of illegal competitions.
In view of the invisible variation of illegal competitions that still exist, clarify the main responsibilities of relevant administrative departments, and through the establishment of precise identification and dynamic supervision mechanisms, comprehensively investigate and proactively crack down on illegal competitions, and strictly prevent the resurgence of illegal competitions.
In addition, it is necessary to strengthen the supervision and inspection of the enrollment process of primary and secondary schools, establish and improve the supervision mechanism for competition-related training institutions and personnel, and completely cut off the profit chain of illegal competitions.
In Cai Hailong's view, the education evaluation and enrollment system should also be reformed.
In view of the widespread test-oriented tendency in basic education in the past and the persistent disease of score-onlyism in educational evaluation, the reform of the education system should be further deepened, and the enrollment model based on test scores as the only criterion should be gradually changed.
"Behind the fever of competition is actually the problem of insufficient supply of high-quality educational resources. The fundamental solution to the problem is to increase the supply of high-quality educational resources with institutional guarantees, to achieve balanced development and fair distribution of educational resources, so that every child can enjoy Fair and quality education will allow the competition to return to its original intention." Said Cai Hailong.
(Rule of Law Daily)