The internal turmoil in China’s education system is not only limited to schools but also prevalent in extracurricular training. Industry insiders indicate that due to the skewed distribution of educational resources, parents are extremely anxious and children are under immense pressure. The entire educational environment reflects this sentiment.
According to the data from the China Family Tracking Survey released by the China Social Science Survey Center of Peking University, the cost of raising children aged 6 to 17 accounts for nearly 50% of family income, with educational expenses comprising 34% of child-rearing costs. Data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2018 show that Chinese students spend up to 57 hours studying per week, one of the highest globally.
Former education and training industry professional Li Congling from Shenyang, Liaoning, told reporters from Epoch Times that high school students nowadays spend an extensive amount of time on school studies. Schools across the country have started to mandate weekends off for high school students in March due to instances of multiple high school students in Zhejiang province jumping off buildings due to the unbearable pressure they face.
“The structure of the college entrance examination, including schools wanting students to achieve average grades leading to mutual competition, creates immense pressure on students with excessive homework and exams,” he said.
Li Congling moved to the United States in August 2024. From early 2020 to early 2024, he worked at an educational training institution for junior and senior high schools in Shenyang, Liaoning. After being involved in the education and training industry, he discovered some shocking behind-the-scenes realities.
He mentioned that classroom teaching only covers the most basic aspects, and for students to improve their grades, they have to seek further learning at extracurricular training institutions. Teachers and schools primarily focus on the results when it comes to students’ achievements, with the efficacy of in-school learning being quite low.
“Teachers dedicate more time and effort to extracurricular tutoring. In reality, students gain very little knowledge in the classroom,” Li Congling pointed out. Teachers’ preparation time and communication with students are extremely limited within the school setting. Since the schools provide minimal compensation, most of the teachers’ income comes from conducting extracurricular tutoring outside of school.
“Many of these extracurricular institutions are established by school principals and directors from within the school. Enrollment processes are completed within the school premises, guiding students to take supplementary classes outside of school. Each parent meeting, from the principal to the directors relayed instructions to homeroom teachers, and ultimately, promotional pamphlets are distributed on the students’ seats during the parent meeting.”
The training institution where Li worked is located near a middle school in Shenyang. During holidays, they would run up to seven to eight classes simultaneously, with each class accommodating around forty to fifty students. The collaborating teachers are mostly from this middle school and cover subjects from junior high to senior high school levels, including language, mathematics, history, politics, physics, chemistry, and biology.
A prevailing trend in domestic tutoring classes revolves around advanced learning. After the junior high school entrance examination, students would attend classes in the tutoring institution to learn high school knowledge, and even during the break after transitioning from primary to junior high school, they engage in learning junior high school content ahead of time.
For these advanced learning classes during holidays, the fees range between 15,000 to 20,000 RMB for twenty days, with each day having six classes spanning six subjects. Depending on the qualifications of the teaching staff, higher fees may apply. For one-on-one tutoring, one session per week per subject, some children have to take classes for four to five subjects, with annual expenditures ranging from 30,000 to 100,000 RMB.
“This results in extreme anxiety among parents, and children are constantly feeling the pressure with no time to rest. The entire environment is characterized by this atmosphere. Everyone feels helpless being swept up in this wave, unable to break free,” said Li Congling.
In July 2021, the Chinese Communist government’s education supervision agencies called for a halt on profitable extracurricular training institutions. However, Li Congling noted that education institutions under the whitelist of the education bureau can still offer subject-specific educational training, a point of consensus within the industry. Without the protection of the education bureau, these institutions would undoubtedly face closure, fines, or shutdown.
Li expressed that the exchange and transfer of benefits within the education sector are prevalent. He personally accompanied his boss to regularly give gifts to a director from the education bureau during holidays, including Maotai liquor, branded bags, and at least 50,000 RMB in cash, on multiple occasions.
“The benefits our educational institution provided to them were substantial, not to mention the numerous institutions, both academic and non-academic, including interest-focused educational institutions. The scale of these benefits is beyond imagination,” he said. “The entire industry chain is formed within the education bureau, training institutions, and school teachers.”
It is worth noting that compared to before the cuts in tutoring, the fees for tutoring have generally increased by one-third. Due to the need for tutoring institutions and in-school teachers to be more cautious and discreet than before, selecting more hidden teaching locations incurs higher costs, resulting in an increase in tutoring fees. For instance, one-on-one tutoring for high school students charges between 800 to 2200 RMB per session, lasting an hour and a half.
“To witness education being commercialized to such an extent, with so many hidden dealings, I feel that there is no hope for this country,” Li Congling remarked. Parents are burdened with great financial strain, as every family exerts their utmost effort to support their children, yet the cost of tutoring continues to rise. Children bear a significant psychological burden, with their mental health greatly impacted.
“During my time at the educational training institution, I witnessed numerous parent-child relationships crumbling, and even one high school senior boy threatening his mother with a knife before the college entrance examination. The immense psychological pressure on students leads to rebellious tendencies, which is truly heartbreaking,” he stated.
By 2022, the detected rate of depression risk among teenagers had reached 24.6%. Data from the National Health Commission show that in 2022, the overall myopia rate among children and teenagers nationwide was 53.6%, with rates at 36% for primary school students, 71.6% for junior high school students, and 81% for high school students.
Domestically, parents either focus on preparing for the college entrance examination or plan for their children to study abroad. A woman from Hebei mentioned that she insists on sending her child to a private school because private schools employ a process-oriented evaluation educational model, unlike public schools that resemble concentration camps, requiring students to study for over ten hours a day, which she believes hampers their survival skills. She aims to ensure her child learns practical skills for future international study. As private school tuition fees are exorbitant, this parent decides to make sacrifices for her child’s education.
A Guangdong netizen by the name of “Shadow” mentioned, “Unable to level out, unable to cope. Every night, accompanying my primary school child with homework is exhausting. Fortunately, my work schedule is not too busy, but it has severely impacted our parent-child relationship!”
A father from Heilongjiang commented, stating, “Children are no longer referred to as children; they should be called hostages. Parents must provide however much is demanded because they genuinely dare to rip the ticket. Even though parents exhaust all efforts, ultimately, they just want to ensure their children survive.”
Another netizen, “Hai Ming,” expressed, “I detest this kind of education! Yet, I am powerless. My child is in the ninth grade, staying up until 11-12 each night studying, memorizing languages, writing essays, political principles, and history. I find it utterly useless. My child tells me, ‘Mom, I am tired; I don’t want to study anymore…'”
Of course, there are a few parents who reject ineffective internal turmoil, often referred to as “Buddhist-style.”
A netizen from Jiangxi, “Qiu Haitang,” said, “I have grown indifferent. I have decided not to enroll my child in any tutoring classes. I want them to grow up healthy and happy. As long as my child’s character is sound, their academic performance doesn’t matter. I aim to teach them a useful skill for the future and let others worry about the rat race.”
Some netizens believe that:
“The internal turmoil in education is widely recognized throughout society, but without reforming the top-level design of the college entrance examination selection system, reducing workload at the grassroots level remains impossible.”
“The expenses for children’s schooling are also a means to stimulate domestic demand. Otherwise, how can tutoring classes that were previously restricted suddenly be entirely allowed?”
In August 2024, the State Council of the Chinese Communist Party issued an opinion on “Promoting Service Consumption,” allowing schools to introduce non-academic quality after-school services by purchasing services from qualified third-party institutions.
Li Congling believes that which institution enters the school, its fees, and the corresponding promotions are driven by an exchange of benefits. “After-school services enter schools openly and formally, which was rarely seen in the past and was not as conspicuous. This wasn’t happening before the tutoring cuts,” he pointed out.
Many ordinary families exhaust their savings to put their children through university, only to confront unemployment upon graduation. Many question whether the escalating education turmoil is truly a ladder to social mobility or an inevitable gamble that leads to financial depletion. Tutoring classes, school district homes, international curricula – ordinary families are ensnared in an endless competition.
A netizen from Beijing, known as “Moutai is Inferior to Erguotou,” belonging to the 1970s era, expressed, “Our generation could alter our fate through learning. Most of our peers have surpassed our parents and live better lives, but I now deeply realize that times have changed, and the rules of the game for the children’s generation are different…”
British young scholar Ignatius Lee, in an interview with Epoch Times, noted that Chinese education fails to cultivate talent matching the investment put into education, consequently creating a vast pool of graduates who face immense employment pressure, unable to realize their full potential. While it can’t be said to be a surplus of talent, it can be described as an oversupply in education.
Lee reflected on how China once had a low overall education level due to the Cultural Revolution’s destruction of the country’s primary, middle, and high school education systems, resulting in extreme scarcity of talent. The distribution of university graduates was based on allocation with no employment worries. Nowadays, some Chinese Ph.D. graduates from top foreign universities can only teach at high schools in China. Most individuals receiving education can’t change anything, and some can’t even find employment.
“As the economy falters, companies relocate, shut down, or lay off employees, with a massive loss of job opportunities. Unless you are involved in a few fields specifically supported by the Chinese (Communist) government, such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and new energy vehicles, professionals from other fields may face unemployment.”
National scholar Wang Donghua has repeatedly expressed opinions stating that China’s college entrance examinations have reached a stage where reforms are essential. “Based on the current learning model, studying for twenty years without gaining any practical skills leads to a plethora of mental health issues. Their life education, their moral education, everything is sidelined for exam preparations, with children growing further apart from a real, living human being.”
Ignatius believes that some seemingly valueless majors exist in Chinese universities, such as those related to Marxism. During Xi Jinping’s first decade in power, the number of Marxist schools at universities nationwide increased by 14 times. What will these graduates do in the future?
“The logic of China’s education and industrial systems follows the same pattern, excessively advocating for government investment and fiscal bias. The outcome is merely overproduction: government investments in new energy vehicles lead to overcapacity, and investments in education result in an oversupply of graduates specializing in Marxism,” he added.
These issues in the Chinese education system and industry stem from excessive dependence on government investment and financial imbalance, leading to oversupply: excessive government investment in the field of new energy vehicles creates excess production capacity, while a similar scenario unfolds in the educational sector with an excessive number of graduates in Marxism-related fields.”
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This translation was a summary of the entire given article and rewritten to maintain the essence and key points of the news piece, catering to the English-speaking audience.