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Beijing (AFP)
Sam Josti would connect every morning from his home in the United States to teach children on the other side of the world, in one of thousands of private courses in foreign languages that offered Chinese children a window into Western culture.
But teachers like Josti from Massachusetts were hit by Beijing’s tough crackdown on these extracurricular classes.
Foreign language teaching companies had taken advantage of the huge demand for English in China, where many parents seek to better educate their children in the competitive education system.
But this came to an abrupt end in August, when Beijing announced an education reform that banned private course companies from hiring educators abroad.
The Chinese authorities presented these measures, which also forced these educational platforms to operate non-profit, as necessary to relieve stress on students and reduce the costs of education.
Critics point out that the changes prevent Chinese children from having influence from abroad, as the increasingly nationalist government seeks to reaffirm socialist ideology in the country’s classrooms.
“I understand that they want to take the pressure off parents … but I don’t understand why it’s so sudden and rigid,” said Josti, 44, a former school teacher who has been teaching online since 2017.
“We were serving as a bridge between the two countries, and it seems that it was over before we finished it,” he told AFP. “On a personal level it is painful.”
– Socialist values -
Cindy Mi, founder of the online educational platform VIPKid, told Chinese state television in March that her company had 800,000 Chinese students, in what she called a “global classroom.”
But a few months later, VIPKid announced that it would no longer teach English classes with tutors abroad due to the new rules.
So did other distance education systems, such as GOGOKID and 51talk.
Tim Gascoigne, a Canadian trainer at VIPKid, said the changes closed an interesting space for cultural exchange and learning.
“A lot of what was given was ‘edutainment’, short, fun, interactive classes with native speakers, it was great cross-cultural communication,” he told AFP.
The reforms appear to be part of a broader set of measures to control what is taught in classrooms, after last year China banned foreign educational materials and ordered President Xi Jinping’s ideology to be taught in all schools.
Chinese leaders “pay attention to various factors such as socialist values, patriotism and educational sovereignty,” said Claudia Wang, an education specialist at Oliver Wyman consultancy.
“It may be difficult to have an American or European trainer to teach a Chinese child history or patriotism,” he said.
– Black market –
Since there is still a high demand for these types of classes in English, specialists say that a black market is emerging.
Some teaching platforms seek to recruit foreign teachers in China to teach, said Jessica, who worked at an education agency in Beijing.
Other teachers offer alternative classes on social media.
In 2017 there were more than 400,000 foreign educators in China, according to a study in the state press, although some have left because of the pandemic and rigid border controls.
“Most of the guys I know still have a way of learning English and acquiring what they need,” Jessica said.
Many Chinese parents prefer foreign teachers for speaking practice and for learning oral English, according to mother Wang Xiaogui.
“My daughter misses her teacher a lot,” said Wang, whose 14-year-old daughter Wendy was taking classes with an American teacher in the eastern city of Shaoxing.
“The teacher really cared about my daughter,” he added.
© 2021 AFP
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