Under The Storm Of Education Rectification: Parents Can Choose Schools But Not Extracurricular Classes

In the summer golden season is coming, the teaching and training institutions are silent.

Whether it is elevator advertising or mobile phone information flow, it is difficult to see exaggerated and provocative off campus training advertisements. After years of exploration and ups and downs, education and training has fallen into the storm of rectification again.

It seems that there is another "hand" behind the burden reduction. Since the enrollment season of primary and secondary schools in 2021, many provinces and cities across the country have issued enrollment policies for compulsory education, and the measures of "enrolling with citizens" have reached an amazing consistency. As early as March 2020, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission issued a new policy: to make sure that private compulsory education schools and public schools enroll students at the same time; If the number of applicants exceeds the enrollment plan, computer random admission will be implemented.

This means that public and private schools have entered an era of fair competition and symbiotic development. In the past, private primary and secondary schools were able to select students before public schools, and the enrollment ratio of some famous private schools even reached 1:20, and the interview resume even included the position, education background and graduation College of their children's grandparents.

To a certain extent, this has unloaded the burden on the parents who used to focus on "Jiwa" applying for private schools. However, it is only the means of administrative regulation, whether it is "the same recruitment of citizens" or the rectification of off campus training. On the surface, the parents are calm, but behind the scenes, they are preparing their troops.

In the summer golden season is coming, the teaching and training institutions are silent. People's vision

Chicken head or chicken tail?

"My God, my house has become a school district house." In the early morning of March 18, Chen Xiaoyu (pseudonym), who lives in Putuo District of Shanghai, couldn't help but share with friends on wechat that it's no wonder that house prices around the community have started to rise abnormally recently.

On the same day, the cooperation between Putuo District and Shanghai Foreign Studies University entered a new stage. Putuo Experimental School Affiliated to Shanghai Foreign Studies University was completed in November 2020 and will be put into use in September this year. The community neighborhood committee where Chen Xiaoyu lives is included in the enrollment scope. However, she did not relax before the formal registration information came out.

"Originally, I also planned to report to the private sector, but after inquiry, I found that this year has become a lottery. Later, I found that there was still uncertainty. If you are in a private primary school, but when the private primary school comes to the private junior high school, you have to shake it again. It's better to go to the corresponding school for the sake of insurance. What's more, the enrollment policy of secondary schools has changed again. If ordinary schools are top-notch students, there are still opportunities. " Chen Xiaoyu decided to choose a more secure way for his children.

On March 16, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission issued the implementation measures for the enrollment reform of Shanghai's senior high schools. Among them, the most noteworthy system is the "comprehensive evaluation and admission of quota allocation", which will account for 50% - 65% of the total enrollment plan of Shanghai's experimental demonstration high schools. This policy, which aims to promote the balanced education, pours cold water on the heat of school district housing.

In this way, is it calm? After observing a group of parents around him, Chen Xiaoyu found that everyone's positioning and purpose are not the same, but educating children is not easy to relax.

"There is a classmate in the big class of my son's kindergarten. He has passed the piano test for Grade 10, which is completely professional level. There are also students in the connection class, from Monday to Friday after school are arranged courses, table tennis, basketball, hard pen calligraphy, English and so on, do homework every night until 10:30. There's no way to compare this, and I don't want to spell it like this. " Chen Xiaoyu revealed that girls with piano level 10 practice piano for at least two hours a day, while their sons practice less than 10 minutes a day.

It's obvious that how much energy parents and children put in can be reflected in their children. Therefore, Chen Xiaoyu also reported to his son a chess class. At present, he has reached level 8“ At that time, he didn't go to a famous school specially. He still felt that he didn't want to be too stressed. He would rather be a chicken head than a phoenix tail. He studied hard in this primary school and spent more time on training outside the school, thinking that there would be opportunities. "

As a result, the anxiety of choosing a school is gone. However, the demand for extra-curricular training has not decreased. Chen Xiaoyu carefully found that after the rectification storm in the teaching and training institutions, the organization of his son's class was also quietly changing“ In the past, after class assignments were submitted on the app, the teacher would grade them online. Now there is no need to submit. The task of checking and correcting is left to the parents. "

In short, the surface of the calm, there are still undercurrent surging.

Happiness or "chicken blood"?

In the past, because private schools can independently determine the scope, standards and methods of enrollment, they can expand the scope of enrollment without restriction and have the right of enrollment autonomy. It is considered that it has "impacted" the existing enrollment order, intensified the "school selection craze" to a certain extent, and further created education anxiety.

After "the same enrollment of citizens", it does not mean that the private education is free from worries. Zhang Cheng, who lives in Pudong New Area of Shanghai, is deeply touched by this. A year ago, her family moved to Shanghai from other places. Without a registered permanent residence, she can't go to a public school. Therefore, she thinks it's a good choice to choose a satisfactory private school. Over the past half a year, Zhang Cheng and her husband have participated in the open day activities of private schools, taking their children to have a deep chat with principals. However, the process has not been smooth.

"Private schools also need to apply for residence permits one year in advance. I have a friend, because the landlord does not cooperate with the application for residence permit, they can only go to school in the outer district. " Zhang Cheng revealed that he had taken a fancy to a newly opened bilingual school. On the open day, he could clearly feel that the school was teaching students in accordance with their aptitude and could explore the bright spots of every child. More importantly, the headmaster has been encouraging parents to keep their children's enthusiasm for lifelong learning, focusing on the cultivation of inner drive, sense of purpose and action.

However, in the end, she chose to give up and choose another regular, orthodox bilingual school“ As a parent, you want your child to be happy, but you are afraid that he has been growing up in this kind of greenhouse. Is it possible to keep him under pressure in the fierce social competition Zhang Cheng's heart is still tangled and worried. Obviously, she doesn't want to go to a new school to try and make mistakes.

The data show that there are not a few parents who have such concerns. Recently, according to the data released by the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of education, 185200 children were registered in 2021, including 23200 private primary schools. 77 private primary schools participated in computer random admission, accounting for 89.53% of the total number of private primary schools; The ratio of enrollment to enrollment plan of private primary schools is about 1.47:1, which is roughly the same as that in 2020.

Among them, there are 24 private primary schools that have not registered too much, that is, the school whose enrollment quota is not full or the number of applicants has not exceeded the quota, and the school that Zhang Cheng gave up is also on the list.

In the swing of happy education and chicken blood education, Zhang Cheng chose the latter“ In fact, you recognize his happy education in your heart, but when you really want to let go, you will still beat the drum in your heart. We also discussed it many times at home. The headmaster of that school graduated from a rattan school in the United States and was responsible for the whole curriculum development. We felt that the concept was very good. However, in the end, children may still have to take the road of examination within the system. No one dares to take the risk and let the children enjoy this happy education all the time. "

After observing some of his friends, the 21st century economic reporter found that the parents who chose "Jiwa" in Shanghai also have obvious common points: there are many people living in Shanghai who are not local in Shanghai. After taking the exam, they are admitted to a good university, then stay in Shanghai to buy a house, get married and have children. Although they are in the middle class, the accumulated resources are not enough for their children to lie down and win, It is typical that the ratio is less than the ratio below.

Interest training of adding weight

After a period of backwardness, whether Chen Xiaoyu or Zhang Cheng, off campus training has become an inevitable choice, especially in summer vacation.

As a matter of fact, as early as 2010, "burden reduction" appeared in official documents. At that time, the main goal of supervision was the vicious competition within public schools, emphasizing the responsibility reduction of schools at all stages of their studies, requiring schools to reduce the workload of homework and the number of examinations, and not to increase class hours or increase the difficulty.

Since 2005, the Shanghai municipal government has constantly updated the "burden reduction" Regulations: no homework is left for grade one and grade two of primary schools, and schools are not allowed to make up lessons collectively. Each assignment should ensure that students can complete the homework within 40 minutes, and cancel the 100 point system and change it to ABCD or excellent, good, qualified and hard work.

All these have left room for the development of off campus training. For parents with two children and a large number of make-up classes, it is both helpless and just needed to sign up for extracurricular training. It doesn't matter how much lower grade children can learn in off-school training, mainly to reduce the burden of the elderly“ If two children don't go to class, the family will be very busy. It's very hard for people in their 60s to take care of them, and they can't control their children. It's a waste of time. " Huang Yimin, who lives in Jing'an District of Shanghai, counts the weekly curriculum arrangements for her two children, including go, Piano (guitar), dancing, painting, taekwondo, football, mathematics, English... Conservatively, it is estimated that the cost is about 200000 yuan, and the training cost of the eldest brother is about 67000 yuan per week.

However, Huang Yimin also knows that his arrangement is not the choice of most parents, neither time nor financial resources are allowed“ When choosing a school before, I didn't have the courage to choose a private school far away from home, or the principle of proximity. Moreover, the educational resources of public primary schools are gradually in balance, even if they are not the first echelon. Now, children go to training classes mainly to improve efficiency, and their time at home is games and parent-child activities. "

There are not a few parents who have the same choice as Huang Yimin. School choice fever has also cooled down to a certain extent in the past two years, which benefits from the balanced development strategy of education. According to the "statistical bulletin on the implementation of national education funds in 2020" released by the Ministry of education, the total investment in education in 2020 will be 5301.4 billion yuan, an increase of 5.65% over the previous year; Among them, the total funding for primary and secondary education is more than 3 trillion yuan, accounting for 60% of the total.

In addition to public education, parents' demand for extracurricular interest training is also increasing“ For example, parents of private kindergartens will take piano as a basic music course, and on this basis, they will choose an instrument that can enter the orchestra. In addition, the sports course is also, a small single event, will certainly choose a collective sports course. These are basically standard But she didn't want to be such a bloody parent.

Of course, with regard to trafficking anxiety, educational institutions have been contributing to the problem for many years. In the first half of 2020, the enrollment growth rate of several top K12 online education institutions generally exceeded 100%. In the spring of 2020, the enrollment of XRS online school, homework help and who to learn were more than 2 million, 1.2 million and 647000 respectively, realizing the rapid growth of income and flowing water.

However, the scale of interest education is also increasing year by year. According to the survey data of epsilon consulting, the four major market segments of education and training are ranked from high to low according to the market heat: interest education, discipline education, overseas education and early childhood education. Among them, there are 75 categories in the interest education market. The competition index of ball training, art college entrance examination training and competitive / martial arts training is low, and the market heat is the highest.

Education reform is still on the way

In the interview, the 21st century economic reporter found that after the discipline education has been strictly regulated, the biggest resistance to reducing extracurricular training is not the school, but the parents themselves. As long as the entrance opportunities of key universities and high schools are scarce, as long as exam oriented education and college entrance examination exist, parents' independent burden on their children will not stop. When the baton of college entrance examination has not changed, it is difficult for the reform of teaching methods and teaching concepts to go forward in a big step.

"To say the least, extra-curricular training has been closed. I can spend more time teaching my daughter by myself. I can teach senior three English, physics, chemistry and mathematics Mr. Wang, an executive of an enterprise, confessed his worries. Many years ago, he successfully entered the University of science and technology of China as the city's number one college entrance examination. For other parents who do not have the time and ability to educate their children, it is unfair to shut down the extracurricular institutions in an all-out way. He has lost the opportunity of further education and has no way to rise. After all, not every child has a father who was the number one in the college entrance examination.

Many people look on coldly and think that the parents of "Jiwa" are too nervous, but only when they are in it can they feel how anxious they are“ Originally, we also hoped to study happily, but when we arrived at the kindergarten graduation ceremony, we found that the children were so much worse than others. Other children's piano, guzheng and small host were outstanding in all kinds of abilities. Under the gaze of all kinds of eyes, I can hardly carry it. How much will I envy you? " Chen Xiaoyu believes that it is not only parents' requirements, but also that children will care more about their self-esteem when they grow up. It will be sad to see that their classmates are stronger than themselves. In this case, an adult is needed to help him make his choice.

At present, the policy of "the same recruitment of citizens" has been launched in many parts of the country. For parents, whether they choose public or private, they need to think about how to cultivate their children into happy and outstanding people. It is always difficult to accept that children are inferior to themselves. In the view of education experts, private or public are not the most fundamental. What is more important is whether the whole educational philosophy of principals, teams and schools echoes the laws of education and children's development.

"Education needs professional ability, just like feeding. It's not like feeding one piece from the east to the West. Together, the best effect and nutrition are obtained. Professional cooks are still needed. Like Hengshui middle school children review their learning career, really grateful to the school, also learned a lot of knowledge, admitted to a good university. But he didn't really think about what he had lost LAN Tianxiao, the Chinese principal of Nord anda school in Xiangcheng District of Suzhou, has been engaged in private education for nearly 20 years. In his opinion, parents don't need to decide whether their children will go abroad or stay in China, or even where to go to university as soon as they enter primary school. All these will increase anxiety. You might as well slow down and be more peaceful. Education is not black or white.

In his opinion, it is also a good start for private schools to enroll with citizens. He is much more relaxed than in the past“ In the past, due to the scarcity of resources, some private schools produced a lot of strange standards to select students. Is the child good or bad? There is no absolute standard, and we are against this kind of selection. Now it's a lottery. I'd rather choose according to the blind box. No matter what kind of children come here, we just concentrate on teaching them well. "

The involution of education may be difficult to avoid in the short term. No matter how the external policy changes, parents should be more rational and calm to face the road of child rearing.

"Don't pay too much attention to your own experience and common sense, because mistakes are often made. In fact, 70% of the parents in our school are concerned about whether their children's potential can be fully exploited? Can he be happy and independent? This is a gratifying change, which shows that the whole society is also making progress. " LAN Tianxiao further pointed out that when parents educate their children, they need to set an example for themselves, because their problems will be reflected on their children.

At present, the long-term policy formulated by Shanghai also includes running schools in groups, that is, famous schools become famous school groups. The essence is to alleviate the shortage of high-quality education resources. This policy has been implemented since 2014. To some extent, Chen Xiaoyu and Huang Yimin are beneficiaries.

(at the request of the interviewees, Chen Xiaoyu, Huang Yimin and Zhang Cheng are pseudonyms)

?