Chinese parents say they will keep pushing children to succeed despite crackdown on private tuition

A ban on weekend classes was supposed to give pupils more leisure time, but many mothers and fathers are more worried about their children falling behind

Some people are already looking for ways round the ban, while other say they will do extra teaching themselves

Reading Time:4 minutes

Some parents say they will give their children extra lessons themselves. Photo: Shutterstock Images

Published: 4:00pm, 12 Sep 2021Updated: 1:36pm, 21 Sep 2021

Liu Yanan, a 37-year-old from China’s eastern province of Jiangsu, quit her job as a doctor after she gave birth to her son to take care of him full-time.

Like many parents across the country she finds the constant effort to ensure her son does not fall behind other children exhausting and fears that a recent crackdown on private tuition will only place a greater burden on her.

She helps the second grader with every subject except English, where she prefers online courses which each cost more than 1,000 yuan (US$155).

But now she feels she will have to take over this role after classes in English and other key subjects were banned on weekends and other rest days in an effort to reduce the workload children face and allow them more leisure time.

Liu and many other parents believe that out-of-school activities hold the key to getting on – her son goes to basketball practice once a week and recently dropped Chinese calligraphy classes because it was too exhausting – and is determined that her son will not fall behind academically.

“The policy also said first and second-graders can’t have homework, but does this extend to third graders and above? No,” Liu said.

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