On August 1 2008, the news view page of this newspaper published a report entitled "Repeating classes, the game under the ban", which exposed the phenomenon that Shangqiu violated the ban of the Ministry of Education and attracted the attention of all walks of life.
However, recently, the reporter received a complaint that the city's education director ignored the "ban" of the Ministry of Education and publicly declared in the news media that public schools could run repeat classes, which caused adverse effects in society and caused doubts and dissatisfaction from many private schools.
On April 15, the reporter investigated the matter again.
The director's "slip of the tongue" caused a storm
According to the complainant's prompt, the reporter logged into Shangqiu, China, and found a written record named "Zhang Ruixiang, Director of the Municipal Education Bureau, answered questions from the audience" in the hotline column. It is understood that on April 2, Director Zhang Ruixiang led the heads of relevant departments to visit the "hotline for professional conduct".
The reporter noticed that the first question in this interview was about the repetition class.
A mass reported on the hotline that his child failed in the college entrance examination and wanted to attend a repeat class, but he learned the policy of the Ministry of Education that "public high schools are forbidden to run repeat classes in senior three", so he asked, "Should public schools or private schools be chosen for repeat classes?"
In his reply, Zhang Ruixiang said that high school education is not compulsory, and high schools are allowed to make use of their existing school resources, such as holding repeat classes in his branch school.
Zhang Ruixiang's interview affected the enrollment of repeat classes in many private schools, so she was complained.
On April 15, the reporter contacted the director of Shangqiu Education Bureau, who said that he was receiving important guests and arranged an interview with Lin, the head of the basic education department of the bureau.
Lin told reporters that on April 2, he and the director were guests of the "Fashion Hotline" and witnessed the whole interview process. Lin said that according to the requirements of the Ministry of Education, it is indeed forbidden for public schools to hold repeat classes, and the Shangqiu Municipal Education Bureau has issued a special document to require all public high schools to strictly enforce this "ban", and at the same time showed a copy of Shangqiu Municipal Education Bureau (2007) 14 to reporters.
Referring to the "resumption of classes" questioned by private schools, Lin said that it was probably the first time that the director made a live program, and he was a little nervous when answering the hotline, and there was a "slip of the tongue", which caused dissatisfaction among some private schools.
Later, I explained to reporters on the phone the situation when answering the hotline, which was consistent with what Lin said.
During the reporter's interview in Shangqiu, a news published in Shangqiu's Beijing-Kowloon Evening News caught the reporter's attention. This report, entitled "The number of candidates in our city will increase by another 6%", was published on April 9th. According to the report, the number of high-tech applicants in Shangqiu City has increased against the trend this year, even though the number of high-tech applicants in the province may be reduced to some extent.
Why does Shangqiu have a "contrarian growth" when the number of applicants for high-profile recruitment in the province has decreased?
An educator familiar with the situation in Shangqiu told reporters that these increased numbers are mainly the previous graduates of the "repeat classes". All public high schools in Shangqiu have classes to repeat senior three, and some even hold more than 20 classes to repeat senior three, attracting a large number of foreign students who failed in previous years to repeat.
In this regard, Lin, head of the Basic Education Department of Shangqiu Education Bureau, also admitted that many branches of public schools in Shangqiu are holding repeat classes, but these public high schools owe a lot of foreign debts because of the investment in infrastructure, and they are not allowed to charge some fees for repeat classes, so it is difficult to fill these "holes".
Lin said that there are currently 12 public high school branches in Shangqiu City, and there is basically no "four independence" according to the requirements of the higher education department, because the ban of the Ministry of Education refers to public high schools and does not mention branch schools. Therefore, the Education Bureau acquiesced in holding repeat classes in the branch schools of these schools.
This statement has been questioned by some principals of private schools. A principal of a private school in Shangqiu, who asked not to be named, said that many public high schools put key teachers in repeat classes, hoping that the high enrollment rate of repeat classes would win the school a reputation and generate income. The public brand resources, hardware equipment, teachers and similar accommodation enjoyed by some students in public high schools are all national resources. Even if it is separated from public schools in terms of teachers and school buildings, the brand resources of the repeat classes in public high schools are a very large intangible state-owned asset.
"Sequela" of Policy Imbalance
In fact, a more noteworthy problem was exposed in the turmoil of Shangqiu's re-reading class: how to deal with the "sequelae" caused by the uneven implementation of the policies of the Ministry of Education?
During the interview, several principals of private schools revealed to reporters that in 2008, after the Ministry of Education issued a ban on repeating classes, neighboring provinces such as Shandong and Anhui in our province implemented better policies, strictly abolishing the power of public high schools to run repeating classes, and even Zhoukou, Kaifeng and other places around Shangqiu also implemented this policy, while all public high schools in Shangqiu held repeating classes with great fanfare and enrolled students under the brand of "provincial demonstration" and "municipal demonstration".
Relevant experts believe that the enforcement of the "ban" of the Ministry of Education varies from place to place, and some places even have local protectionism, resulting in policy imbalance and cross-regional mobility of students. Therefore, while strictly enforcing the "ban", we should speed up the development of private education. After more than 30 years of development, private education in Henan has occupied half of the country's education, and a number of powerful and large-scale private high schools have emerged in various places. These private high schools can totally. As soon as possible, the supervision, evaluation, management and preferential support policies for private schools will be introduced to encourage and guide the healthy development of private education in our province and form a diversified school-running pattern.