Dreams die young for China’s private tutors as jobs vanish under sudden crackdown

Once-promising off-campus tutoring industry, which used to employ 10 million, has been left reeling under policy change

More than 9 million graduates this year put added pressure on the job market, only to find a rewarding option has been taken off the table

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Workers head home during the evening rush hour in Beijing. China’s tutoring sector employed more than 10 million people nationwide. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 12:09pm, 29 Aug 2021Updated: 9:22pm, 29 Aug 2021

Julie Tian was happy to work hard, and was paid well for it. But that was then.

The former English teacher at a private tutoring company in Beijing now spends most of her time on the sofa, doing little all day except checking WeChat messages, only to learn that more of her ex-colleagues are leaving the once-promising sector.

Tian, 26, was among the first batch laid off by China’s tens of thousands of off-campus tutoring companies, as a strict, unprecedented clampdown kicked in and upended the US$70 billion industry.

“I worked hard and got a good pay,” Tian said. “I used to think it was a stable job as demand to learn school curriculum subjects is so strong in China. I never imagined I could be laid off.”

She was proved wrong. In February, the Ministry of Education said it would tighten its grip on the after-school tutoring sector, responding to repeated calls from President Xi Jinping to reduce the workload for students and the financial burden for their parents.

Chinese parents, like those in many other East Asian countries, are willing to pay huge sums for tutoring services to prepare their children for a future marked by intense competition – be it entry to a quality university or the job market.

This is especially true of middle-class parents, who may spend an average of 120,000 yuan (US$18,500) a year on extracurricular tutoring, with some shelling out as much as 300,000 yuan, according to a 2018 report by the China Education 30 Forum, a national association affiliated with the Education Ministry.