Tens of thousand of online teachers stand to lose their classes as Chinese companies pull out of the market for under-16s. One-to one giant VIPKid, which employed a reported 70,000 tutors, has stopped selling new courses to mainland China as has the App GoGoKid, according to Bloomberg.
Under China’s tough new law on after-school classes, tutoring services are banned from using online teachers living outside the country to teach 6 to 15-year-olds any core curriculum subjects, including English. According to English Language media outlet China News, the crackdown on overseas tutors followed the failure of online providers to abide by the recent law requiring such tutors to be graduate native speakers with two years teaching experience or a recognised qualification.
Initially the companies maintained that the law did not apply in their case as they merely provided a platform to link students and their families to freelance teachers acting as independent contractors, but this argument failed to convince the Chinese authorities.
Even online schools using China-based teachers can expect increased scrutiny. Regional authorities have been instructed to re-approve all existing operations and to ensure that no class lasts longer than 30 minutes, with a 10-minute break between sessions, and must not continue after 9pm.
To deal with the childcare fall-out for working parents, the government is asking schools to provide more after-school activities and free online material. Government-backed after-school activity centres have already opened in Beijing and Shanghai.
Under the new laws, tutoring centres are also banned from offering any offline or online training for pre-school children, including foreign language education.
