Chinese tutoring site VIPKid has stopped offering classes to customers in China. Customers who have already taken classes can continue, but only overseas tutors are eligible to renew until Aug. 9. The company is owned by Tencent Holdings, one of China’s largest social media and gaming companies. However, some parents are upset about the sudden change in their children’s tutoring services. They are wondering how to move on without disrupting the industry and are seeking alternative options.
Gaotu founder and CEO says he is “very, very sorry.”
After a long silence from his employees, the CEO of Gaotu has written an open letter to apologize. Chen Xiangdong, the company’s founder, once became the best GRE logic teacher at New Oriental. Chen earned the nickname “steak” (row of giant bulls) after using the same rhetoric in his classroom and delivering his lectures. His comparison sentences first appeared in the 2020 Spring Festival meeting of GAOTU. In the PPT for Gaotu’s 2020 Spring Festival meeting, the company’s founder and CEO reportedly listed 30 sentences, each starting with “working hard.” In an employee letter, the CEO reads a Chen-styled comparison sentence.
Impact on after-school tutoring industry
The Chinese government’s new policy on after-school tutoring has hit private companies hard. It has prohibited tutoring related to core school curriculum on weekends and has restricted foreign firms from buying shares in such institutions. It also has limited online tutoring for children under six and has set a cap on after-school tuition fees. Beijing’s education regulators have also fined the two most prominent startups for false advertising, and the government has prohibited foreign firms from investing in after-school tutoring institutions.
While the new regulations may not have been anticipated, they left many parents shocked and businesses reeling. They were also unable to make much-needed cash. Some parents were already struggling financially, while millions of employees braced for job losses. Moreover, some parents will still opt for private tutoring, which means that their hourly rates will rise, and they will need to pay fewer upfront deposits.
Another nonprofit organization, Instruction Partners, works with local school districts to provide after-school tutoring. Its programs use tutoring to identify students’ learning needs, hover around to motivate them to keep working and succeeding and build their self-esteem. Moreover, it helps reduce student bullying. It is also beneficial to disadvantaged students. Typically, they sit quietly in class and do not speak up, but tutoring enables these students to escape their shells and take on the world.
The growing student population, inadequate funding, and a lack of qualified teaching staff drive the private tutoring industry. But, as the market grows, these factors may cause disruptions. The most significant risk is the impact of government regulation on the industry. In the meantime, private tutoring companies can continue to grow by offering better quality services. You can still find plenty of students in the market, but many will continue to be denied the chance to expand.
Rules set for stoppedprivateclasses
There are two ways to create a rule set: manually or automatically. Manually creating a rule set can be done in many ways. You can create a custom rule set to match your needs or use a pre-existing one. Either way, you’ll have a few options to choose from. Here are some examples. You can either manually create a rule set or automatically use a pre-existing one.
