On December 21, the MOE held a press conference to present progress in implementing the “Double Reduction” policy - a reduction in homework and in time spent in after-school private tutoring for children from kindergarten to 9th grade. The meeting was moderated by spokeswoman Xu Mei, and attended by Lv Yugang, director-general of the Department of Basic Education under the MOE, and Hu Yanpin, a first-level inspector at the Education Supervision Bureau under the MOE.
According to Lv Yugang, through coordinated efforts across multiple departments, visible progress was made in regulating out-of-school training, with academic subject-related tutoring significantly reduced. The number of offline training companies shrank by 83.8 per cent, and online ones by 84.1 per cent. The amount of time spent on homework was substantially reduced. More than 90 percent of students reported they were able to finish written homework in time for a good night’s sleep, as opposed to 46 percent before the introduction of the policy. So far, the previously unrestrained, chaotic extra-curricular training market has cooled down, with ads gone from public view, as investors swiftly withdrew from the heavily regulated market.
Hu Yanping noted that the MOE attached great importance to regulating the out-of-school training agencies, and that the “Double Reduction” was designed to protect families from falling prey to anxiety mongering private businesses, and relieve children of unnecessary school burden. To prevent unauthorized and unlicensed tutoring activities from migrating online, the MOE instructed messaging and live streaming service providers, such as TicTok, WeChat and Dingding, to ban such activities on their platforms.
The MOE conducted unannounced spot checks and field inspections of 89 schools and 938 after-school training institutions in 31 provinces, and had interviews with more than 800 students and 1,600 parents. 485 cases of noncompliance were communicated to local education departments for immediate action. In addition, as instructed by the MOE, local educational authorities inspected more than 70,000 tutoring institutions at weekends and during holidays, cracking down on 414 unlicensed ones, said Hu.
10 provinces have managed to reduce children’s school burden by 90%, while 12 provinces have had more than 95 percent of tutoring institutions restructure as non-profits.
The MOE also introduced supporting policies to protect the legitimate rights of both families and workers of tutoring centers. Such measures ensured that training institutions did not run off with up-front deposits and refunded advance payment for their classes. Local courts and law enforcement agencies were requested to increase mediation and arbitration efforts and strengthen labour security supervision and enforcement. Re-employment support was provided to employees of the affected after-school tutoring companies.
