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It all happened so suddenly.
Last Sunday afternoon, Kobayashi, who was playing catch with her children, once again received a WeChat from the sales department of the teaching and training institution, inviting her to attend a free children's English class. Before she could figure out how to reply to these repeated invitations, the other party sent another message, and the online class was suspended, and now it is transferred to the online listening class.
On March 10, education and training institutions in several urban areas in Beijing received notices one after another, demanding that classes could not be resumed, and began to conduct surprise inspections in the form of "four no's and two no's" (no notice, no greeting, no report, no accompanying reception, going straight to the grassroots level and going straight to the scene), with the focus on school license and fund supervision. Offline training institutions that have been closed for a long time because of the epidemic have to face the trend of tightening public opinion and supervision.
Figure/notice at the entrance of Gauss (photo by Ai Caijing)
The share prices of educational companies listed in the US stock market, such as New Oriental, Good Future and Who to Learn from, fell sharply that day, evaporating 75.3 billion yuan overnight.
Offline teaching and training will "turn off"
The four-lane wide road is occupied by parked vehicles, leaving only one road for driving. Parents in the driver's seat are either flashing lights or honking their horns, waiting for their children to finish class. Traffic jams in Huang Zhuang, Haidian, Beijing, where offline education and training institutions gather, are normal here, with traffic jams in the afternoon, at night, at weekends, and even more in winter and summer vacations.
However, such a scene has not appeared for a long time. On the morning of March 1 1, a traffic coordinator in charge of the intersection near Huang Zhuang, Haidian, said with emotion: "Now there is basically no traffic jam except going to school."
The epidemic situation is the most direct cause. Since the beginning of 2020, the offline education and training institutions in Beijing have stopped directly, and they have experienced a short resumption of classes in the middle, but they have not fully recovered their former prosperity, and they have been told to suspend all offline training and group activities.
Yinwang Center is located atNo. 1 13 Zhichun Road, Haidian District. This 20-story building is home to many teaching and training institutions, such as Learning and Thinking, New Oriental, Gaosi Education, Bean God Education and Jerry Education. The once crowded corridor is now empty. During Ai Caijing's visit, few parents and students appeared.
Everywhere is closed. On the glass door of Gaosi Education, there are Spring Festival couplets and Year of the Ox blessings, a lock across the door handle, and two "tips on epidemic prevention and control" on the left and right. The signing dates are 65438+1October 23rd and 65438+February 8th respectively.
Figure/The door is locked (photo by Ai Caijing)
The interior of Xuesisi, located on the second floor, is still brightly lit, but it has nothing to do with teaching-only employees can freely enter and leave this gate that once welcomed students. There are rows of tables and chairs left in the classroom, and the desktop is bare, and the voice of the teacher chatting occasionally rings. A parent who came to consult told Ai Caijing that this is the place for classes, because there are no offline courses at present, and there is no teacher on duty to receive them. If you want to register or consult, you have to go to another building.
A staff member of the building revealed that there are currently no education and training institutions in the building. "Before the outbreak, there were many people here at night, but there were no students recently, only teachers came to work."
A number of staff of education and training institutions revealed to Ai Caijing that there are only online classes at present, and as for when offline can be resumed, we still need to wait for notice. One of the staff said: "This is a special case. There should be news after March 15. In short, when the policy comes down and the offline is allowed, we can start again. "
In this storm, Huang Zhuang UnionPay Network Center in Haidian is just the tip of the iceberg. Ai Caijing called a number of training institutions published on the website of Haidian Education Bureau, but no one answered in many places. One of the English training institutions said that the epidemic had never started since last year, while another training institution, which focuses on counseling students and teenagers who failed in the college entrance examination, said that "an emergency meeting is being held, and the specific start time will come out in the afternoon".
The news Kobayashi got from the training institution is that online classes will not resume until April this year. The person in charge of a training institution has informed parents that they will take classes online in the next two weeks, and whether they can take classes online after that is waiting for notice.
Being anxious, I have to work hard.
"Not going to cram school?" Hearing this assumption, packer felt incredible. Obviously, this is not her choice.
Zhang Feng is a full-time mother. Every morning, she sends her two children to primary school and kindergarten. After school, she took her second-grade eldest daughter to study English and math 30 minutes away from home. Because the child was too young, the teacher allowed Zhang Feng to sit in the back of the classroom and "restart the nine-year compulsory education".
Going to cram school is the consciousness of all Beijing mothers. The difference is that they have several classes, especially in Haidian, the holy land of chickens and babies. Children who don't go to cram school become different.
"Most of the children in Haidian have been attending cram schools since kindergarten. We didn't have English class until the third grade of primary school. The teachers in those institutions kept shelling me. You went too late, which has a great influence on the children's future exams. " Wang Xue's children go to a second-rate school in Haidian.
Figure/vision china (Haidian Wang Yin Center has a large number of teaching and training institutions)
Parents' anxiety is also related to the simple content of school professors. "In the English class of grade one and grade two in primary school, there is no requirement to recite words, no homework, only dialogue, but from grade one to grade three, grammar, phonetic symbols and long sentences are immediately followed. Where can I learn this without going to extracurricular classes? "
"What I learned in the cram school is another set of textbooks, most of which are deeper than the content in the class, such as mathematics. Children in grades one and two learn equations after class. " Wang Xue revealed that school teachers generally encourage students' extracurricular activities. "I will talk privately at the parent-teacher meeting and encourage everyone to strengthen their study."
English and mathematics are the courses that children in the same class choose the most, and the purpose is also very utilitarian. English can be graded, and these certificates can play some roles in future junior high school exams. Parents will be eager for grades and certificates.
Anxiety and comparison are also everywhere. Among parents, Wang Xue often sees parents throw out links to courses reported by some institutions. Parents know each other what classes their children are taking through these links. The most exaggerated thing is that a child signed up for seven extracurricular classes.
Gao Min, who lives in Haidian District, has a daughter who is in the fifth grade of primary school, but in addition to her daily courses, she also has five remedial courses: Chinese, Mathematics, English, Fine Arts and Vocal Music. "We still belong to those classes. We only reported five classes at the weekend, and many children with excellent academic performance reported more classes. When they were in elementary school, they went to the National People's Congress early education class and studied junior high school courses. " Gao Min said.
In fact, Gao Min is not an education activist, and the education of children is not so urgent. However, when my friends next to me started classes and took their children to study in exams all over Beijing, the pressure naturally came in order to get into a good middle school.
"Now this is a necessary state. If everyone doesn't study, there is no need to do so. But the problem is that everyone is studying now, and you are relatively backward if you don't study. This is the so-called theater effect. " Gao Min further explained that when the person in front has stood up, you can't see anything on the stage if you are still sitting in your seat.
More and more people are standing in the theater. Recently, KET, PET, FCE, etc. began to register for the Beijing Competency Examination, but the places were robbed instantly. Gao Min didn't react until he saw the news. When she realized that she had not registered her children, she "felt like a particularly backward and inactive parent". She even once questioned herself whether her children would say that they were lacking in some way when they grew up, because their parents did not create conditions. She couldn't help feeling guilty.
This anxiety has deepened again and again. During the epidemic last year, schools all over the country were closed. Gao Min sometimes takes her children out to play, but there are no other children in the same community. "Everyone dare not idle. All the other children are studying in class. If there is no appointment in advance, no one will even play together. "
"If you talk about involution, so do the children. Everyone will not say resignation and go directly to a bad school. " Gao Min said. "Going to higher school" and "getting points" are the usual propaganda words of educational institutions, and they are also the psychological warnings that can touch parents most.
Behind the cram school craze, to put it bluntly, it is also a competition for scarce and high-quality educational resources. Gao Min talked about a practical problem. The outside world once had a rigid understanding of the Beijing college entrance examination. Everyone thinks that the online rate of the college entrance examination in Beijing is extremely high, but few people realize that the admission rate of middle schools in Beijing is strictly stuck at 50%. This means that half of the students must go to vocational high schools. "Now no one wants to let their children go to vocational high schools, especially parents who have received college education or above, and will not see their children worse than themselves."
In order not to be the one who has no choice, parents can only work hard. From high school to junior high school, from junior high school to primary school, from primary school to kindergarten, layers of pressure forced, anxiety accumulated one by one.
An inescapable spell
There are many indications that this round of supervision of educational institutions can be called the strictest rectification action since 20 18.
This time, the focus is on school license and fund supervision. Haidian District clearly mentioned in the notice: "Regular training institutions must sign supervision contracts with banks, and the tuition fees collected cannot be withdrawn in advance, so they can only move after the supervision period expires to solve the problem of difficult refund."
According to the founder of a K 12 organization cited by Duo Zhi. Com, this time it is very unfavorable to the training institutions of disciplines, and it must be put on record and have a school license. However, in the past two years, the school license has basically been in a "closed" state, and the application process is very difficult.
"Now the power of administrative law enforcement has been given to the Market Supervision Administration. This department has the right to increase the punishment. Next, institutions without school licenses are basically difficult to survive. " A teaching and training practitioner mentioned.
Before this, the chaos of teaching and training institutions existed for a long time. Last year, Xuebajun closed down, which caused the discussion of misappropriation of funds, and the overwhelming advertisements of educational institutions also caused parents' anxiety. It is logical to strengthen supervision.
Figure/vision china
But many parents are still at a loss. Wang, the mother of Haidian, seemed a little uncomfortable when she learned that the online class was rectified and might not be able to start for the time being.
In order not to delay the children's attending cram school, Wang specially hired his aunt to do housework at home. She was a little worried when she was told by her teacher that "two weeks before school starts, she will take classes online and then switch to offline classes". "The classes we reported are all offline, and children who go to work online are easily distracted and play computer games." Even though many training institutions discount the cost of online teaching by 5-8% on the basis of offline.
"Parents are actually very simple and utilitarian. One of the main demands of education and training institutions is to give children extra points. Spending so much money and so long is to hope that children can be admitted to famous schools in the future and eventually win the college entrance examination. Even if you increase one point, you have already gained something. After all, the efforts of parents 13 years determine the stepping stone of children's life. "
"Involution is serious. The root cause of involution cannot be solved unless it is out of the environment. " Gao Min said bluntly. In the eyes of many parents, the problems of educational institutions are mentioned every year, whether online or offline, but they do not solve the problems that parents are most concerned about.
Under the new round of rectification storm, there is a joke circulating on the Internet: primary and secondary school training is not allowed. Now some people try to do adult training and bring a family member.
A good future internal employee revealed to AI Finance that not only offline institutions are being rectified, but also online.
In a dilemma, parents Mingxi had to make a decision. In the absence of off-campus training courses, she can only find a few good children in the community and contact the teacher to make up lessons. Nevertheless, she needs to pay more energy and money.
(Note:,,, Wang is a pseudonym)
(Chen Chang also contributed to this article)