China struggles to enforce for-profit tutoring ban

After China’s for-profit tutoring industry was cratered by government order last July, many families found ways to skirt the rules. Now, the country is cracking down harder, issuing rewards to snitches and permanently blotching student records and social credit scores of offenders.

• In early January, the Ministry of Education issued a notice requiring local authorities to ramp up supervision for after-school tutoring over the winter holidays.
• Authorities in Changsha county are handing out rewards of up to 10,000 yuan ($1,572) for local residents who report any illicit tutoring activities.
• Some regions have also handed out heavy penalties for non-compliance: On Jan. 13, the education authority of Henan province issued a rule that put receiving illegal tutoring on students’ school records, jeopardizing their career prospects.

The context: The social and economic costs of losing out in the education race are so steep in China that, ever since the tutoring bans, the government has been playing a game of whack-a-mole with its citizens.

• In September, the Ministry of Education broadened the scope of the rules to patch loopholes including one-on-one home lessons. The watchdog singled out individuals who brand themselves as “providers of housekeeping and childcare services,” “professional nannies,” or “crowdfunded private tutors.”
• All tutoring companies were required to register as non-profits by December 31. New Oriental, the largest tutoring outfit in China, lost over 90% of its market value and had to dismiss most of its 60,000 employees. Some of the illicit activity doubtless comes from tutors trying to stay afloat.
• Social credit scores are also in jeopardy. In the city of Harbin, several after-school institutions found engaging in illegal tutoring were banned from re-entering the tutoring industry and teachers had social credit points docked, which limited their personal spending.

The takeaway: So ambitious are Chinese parents that children — of at least the well-off — continue to receive extramural tutoring. But the government is keen to have the final word. Who will win out in the end?