Recently, the State Council issued the "Opinions on Promoting the High Quality Development of Service Consumption" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), further releasing a clear signal of using service consumption as a lever to add momentum to expanding domestic demand.
The Opinion mentions stimulating the vitality of education and training consumption, promoting higher education institutions, research institutions, and social organizations to open up high-quality educational resources, and meeting the diverse and personalized learning needs of the general public. Promote the improvement and efficiency of vocational education, and build high-level vocational schools and majors; Promote social training institutions to meet public demand and improve service quality; Guide schools to introduce qualified third-party organizations through purchasing services and other means in accordance with relevant regulations to provide high-quality non disciplinary public welfare after-school services; Encourage high-level cooperative education with internationally renowned universities in China.
Chu Chaohui, a researcher at the China Academy of Educational Sciences, told a reporter from China Business News that "this training" is not "that training". In terms of content category, the training emphasized in the 'Opinions' is not the same as the subject training emphasized in the' Double Reduction 'opinions for compulsory education. From a practical perspective, it may be possible for the' Opinions' to have an impact on subject training
First 'push' after 'double reduction'
Xiong Bingqi, the president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, believes that the explicit mention of promoting education and training consumption is the first time after the "double reduction" policy.
Xiong Bingqi said, "Education and training have always been one of the consumer sectors, and after the 'double reduction' policy, there has been an emphasis on regulating the development of off campus training. Vocational training and off campus non disciplinary training have always been liberalized, and vocational education and training are also encouraged by policies
At the same time, he also put forward his own viewpoint: "Promoting education and training consumption is not about subject based training in the open compulsory education stage interpreted by some self media, but about regulating off campus training and improving service quality
Chu Chaohui told reporters that based on past practical experience, there is a possibility that the "Opinions" may have an impact on disciplinary training, especially under the drive of social capital, which may have a certain effect.
From Chu Chaohui's observation, he found that there are signs of a warming trend in subject training in basic education at present, "because there is indeed such a rigid demand. Firstly, there is an imbalance between schools, and secondly, our evaluation standards are too single and evaluation power is too centralized, which also drives the 'high' demand for training
The reporter noticed that Chen Zhiwen, the editor in chief of China Education Online, pointed out in an article that "in fact, the education and training consumption mentioned in the document mainly refers to non compulsory education, especially adult and continuing education. For the paragraph involving primary and secondary schools, the statement is very clear: guiding schools to introduce qualified third-party organizations to provide high-quality public welfare after-school services through purchasing services and other means in accordance with relevant regulations. Note that it is non disciplinary and public welfare after-school services. In other words, the basic requirements for compulsory education and subject training have not changed
Regarding the introduction of after-school services into schools, the "Opinions" mention guiding schools to introduce qualified third-party organizations through purchasing services and other means in accordance with relevant regulations to provide high-quality non disciplinary public welfare after-school services.
It is worth mentioning that in May last year, the Ministry of Education, together with multiple departments, issued the "Opinions on Strengthening Science Education in Primary and Secondary Schools in the New Era", proposing to comprehensively implement various measures of adding science education to the "double reduction" of education through 3 to 5 years of efforts, so as to make the primary and secondary subject education system more perfect.
Diversified demand
In February of this year, there were new changes in the drafting instructions of the "Regulations on the Administration of Extracurricular Training (Draft for Comments)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft for Comments"), such as "extracurricular training becoming a beneficial supplement to school education", "recognizing the training needs of parents", "clarifying the balance of rights and obligations of all parties", etc; And emphasize classification management.
Regarding this, Chu Chaohui explained to reporters, "Firstly, emphasizing the positioning of off campus training as a 'beneficial supplement' affirms the positive role of off campus training; meeting the diverse cultural and educational needs is to choose subject training, aiming to meet the diverse growth and development needs of different students; clarifying the balance of rights and obligations of all parties is to strive for a relatively balanced supply and demand relationship in the market
In fact, in the industry's view, compared to the relevant statements on non disciplinary education in the "double reduction" policy, such as "strict approval" and "strictly prohibited", the expression in the "Draft for Soliciting Opinions" is more positive; At the same time, the classification management is more clear, that is, in the future, off campus training will be classified and managed according to disciplinary and non disciplinary categories.
It is worth noting that the "Draft for Soliciting Opinions" directly states that while promoting the legal management of extracurricular training, we should also face up to the reasonable training needs of parents, and propose measures to encourage and support various extracurricular venues such as youth centers, science museums, and museums to carry out extracurricular training, and guide non academic extracurricular training institutions to participate in school after-school services.
In recent years, in terms of domestic study tours, technology, artificial intelligence, and AIGC themed research and learning have become popular, and middle-class parents are willing to pay for the high-tech and unique factory landscapes of large factories. According to incomplete statistics, education listed companies that carry out study tours include New Oriental, TAL Education, Angli Education, and iFlytek. According to relevant financial reports, New Oriental's study tour business has been launched in more than 50 cities across the country, while iFlytek has established an AI research and study tour project in 2023.
Education and training institutions have also made arrangements to meet diverse needs. For example, some educational brands have launched corresponding hardware products and opened self-study rooms for needs such as postgraduate entrance exams. In addition, companies such as New Oriental, TAL Education, NetEase Youdao, and Yuanfudao have different types of cooperation with museums and science museums.