Chinese parents spend up to US$43,500 a year on after-school classes for their children
- Cramming is becoming more common among younger students, education group says
- More than 60 per cent of primary school pupils in China are tutored outside the classroom in subjects such as English, literature and maths
Chinese parents spend an average of 120,000 yuan (US$17,400) a year on extracurricular tutoring for their children – and some shell out as much as 300,000 yuan (US$43,500), a national education association says.
“Tutoring classes have risen [in popularity] against conventional schooling,” Gu Mingyuan, head of the Chinese Society of Education, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Education, told news site Jiemian.com.
“Parents send their kids to six hours of extra tutoring per week at an average cost of 120,000 yuan per year, and that can rise to 300,000 yuan per year. Parents are also feeling very helpless.”
Academic pressure in China’s education system is said to reach its peak when students are preparing for the university entrance exam in the last year of high school. But according to an annual report by the China Education 30 Forum – which Gu is part of – cramming is becoming more common among younger children.
More than 60 per cent of primary school pupils in China are tutored outside the classroom in key subjects such as English, literature and maths, according to the report released at an annual gathering of scholars, teachers, economists and business representatives on Sunday.
In Beijing and Shanghai, some 70 per cent of primary school pupils receive tutoring, the report said. In general, the older they are, the higher the proportion of students taking extra classes – and by the sixth grade, more than 40 per cent of pupils are being tutored in two subjects, the group found.