Ministry calms anxiety over private schools
Print Edition
ZHANG Xun became anxious when she heard about an amended law passed this week targeting private schools.
The Law to Promote Private Education Institutes, which takes effect in September 2017, bans for-profit private schools from enrolling students from primary to junior high school, the period covered by China’s nine-year compulsory education program.
Zhang’s initial reaction was one of shock as the news spread around social media groups popular with parents of private school students.
“I’m totally lost,” was one message. “What does it mean?” asked another. However, concerns that their children’s schools would be shut turned out to be unwarranted.
Education officials say licensed private schools in China are registered as non-profits, meaning they will not be affected by the law. “Most online reports misunderstood the law,” said Wang Feng, an official with the National Center of Education Development Research.
Xie Huanzhong, a Ministry of Education official, told lawmakers during deliberations on the amended law that non-profit schools were those required to re-invest all their profits into school operations, regardless of whether they charged tuition.
To the public, the law’s definition of “for-profit” didn’t appear so straightforward, since even some non-profit schools charge fees that some consider prohibitive. Keystone Academy, a school in Beijing, charges annual tuition of over 200,000 yuan (US$29,500) per student, four times the disposable income of an average Beijinger in 2015.
Deputy Education Minister Zhu Zhiwen said it will be business as usual for operators who want their schools to remain non-profit and continue to charge fees in line with market demand and operational costs.
China rolled out its nine-year compulsory education program in the 1980s.
The program now covers most of the country, but demand for an alternative has also emerged.
On one hand, the growing middle class has come to expect something better. On the other, many newcomers to big cities are denied access to public schools. Without a city hukou, or household registration, the children of migrants can only enroll in public schools in their hometowns.
According to the Ministry of Education, China now has about 162,700 private schools with more than 45.7 million students. While it is said public schools continue to deliver the best results for primary and junior high school education, private institutions have become as popular as public schools at pre-school and junior college level.
China Insights Consultancy estimates that private education in China is a market worth some 800 billion yuan (US$118 billion) and one that is expected to maintain an average growth rate of 15 percent over the next few years.
Zhu said compulsory education is a basic public service provided by the government, but it does not exclude private institutions from delivering customized instruction to meet demand.
For families such as Zhang’s, private schools offer students the opportunity to bypass the gaokao, China’s highly competitive college entrance exam, by preparing students for college overseas.
“There are excellent public schools out there, but the competition is fierce,” she said. “And their teaching methods are sometimes counterproductive to developing students’ creativity.”
Zhang, who runs a tutoring company that organizes science and nature programs for children ages 4 to 12, added: “We’re not against public schools. We just want to have choices.”
Education experts say the amended law will boost the development of private institutions, especially those that offer a non-standard curriculum.
However, an expert working for ETU School, a private school in Beijing, said: “We can’t simply say ‘for-profit’ is bad and ‘non-profit’ is good.
“A number of non-profit entities are not as efficient and waste more resources.”
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