China’s tutoring crackdown has created a black market
The academic system has become more unfair, but just as pressure-filled.
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Chinese children can spend 12 hours a day on academic work, cutting into sleep and exercise, not to mention fun.
PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO
The Economist
The inspection team barged in as business was in full swing. An official confronted the front desk staff, a cop snapped photos of incriminating evidence, an investigator questioned customers. Next, they got inside the computer system, scoping out prices paid and services rendered. Finally, when it was all done, the authorities in Huiyang, a southern city, posted a video of the sting, set to stirring music. For this had been a raid on a most dangerous scourge: an after-school tutoring centre. Heaven forfend children study even more maths!
Across China, the authorities have staged similar raids. Inspection teams in Inner Mongolia and Hubei have posted their own videos. Others have taken a different tack, naming and shaming: In Changsha, they released the addresses of 113 illicit tutors. Many have adopted disguises. One father in Beijing pretends his son attends a calligraphy school (permitted) when in fact he is studying for the maths Olympiad (discouraged). Wealthy families now hire “guidance counsellors” to aid their children, an expensive and illegal workaround.