ECNU Review of Education

Private supplementary tutoring has been increasingly used by parents as part of wider strategies to assist their children’s education careers in China. With a theoretical lens of parentocracy, this article aimed to investigate the influential parental factors underlying the demand for private tutoring, focusing on parents’ socioeconomic resources and attitudes toward education.

This article drew upon data from the 2014 iteration of the China Family Panel Studies. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was employed to explore the influences of parental factors.

The SEM analysis confirmed that parental income, education, and aspirations on children’s education had both direct and indirect positive effects through the mediating factor of role construction on demand for tutoring. A multiple-group analysis was further conducted, and the difference in the patterns for urban and rural parents was explored. Parental occupation had no impact on demand for tutoring for rural parents but had both direct and indirect effects for urban parents. Both direct and indirect effects of household income on demand for tutoring were greater for urban parents than for rural parents.

This article examined the direct and indirect influences of parental factors on demand for private tutoring and explored the differences in patterns for urban and rural parents in a quantitative way. Findings have implications for education inequality.

This article examines responses from the tutoring sector to Chinese national and local government regulations on private supplementary tutoring. It adds to the literature on policy enactment, showing the importance of context and noting the diversity of tutoring providers compared with schools.

The article draws on semi-structured and informal interviews with 11 tutors, 15 managers of tutoring enterprises, 5 members and managers of professional organizations, 5 government officials, 5 school managers, 5 teachers, and 20 parents. Data from interviewees were triangulated with observations, news reports, blogs written by tutoring analysts, and ad hoc research by industrial observers.

Policy enactment in the tutoring sector is even more complex than that for schooling. Standardized policies do not necessarily achieve the aspired goals.

The article adds to the literature not only in China but also internationally. It highlights the importance of distinguishing between aspirations and realities in this domain. It also proposes conceptual considerations for regulating tutoring, given its diverse and fluid nature.

This article examines how individual, school, and social factors shape the perceptions of students in Senior Secondary Three (SS3; in some schools called Form Six [F6]) toward English private tutoring in Macao.

This is a comparative study of two F6 classes of an English-medium secondary school and four SS3 classes of a Chinese-medium secondary school in Macao, with a total number of 145 students. Mixed-methods approach (questionnaires and interviews) is employed in the study.

The respondents’ participation in English tutoring is not very intensive. They prefer to receive government-subsidized after-school tutoring taught by their schoolteachers more than fee-paying English tutoring taught by tutors outside. Low level of social competition and high tertiary enrollment rates contribute to this phenomenon. Students’ needs and beliefs in English learning play key roles in determining their receipt of English tutoring.

Teachers may need better understanding of their students’ needs so as to design suitable pedagogies. Schools can consider more fully the types of tutoring that they provide for different kinds of pupils. The government-subsidized after-school tutoring could be a plausible way to reduce educational inequality.

This article aims to illustrate from the author’s insider perspective the lived experiences of engaging in private tutoring in Hong Kong as a tutee, a tutor, and a researcher and draw implications on several issues arising from the prevalence of shadow education.

This article adopted an autobiographical narrative approach. Data were collected through the author’s memoir of events, stimulated by the tutorial materials he used when he was a tutee and a tutor, his own video-recorded lessons of tutoring, and reflective journals from his research projects.

Various issues are discussed based on the narrative of the author playing different roles in the tutoring industry, including (1) the positive and negative washback on mainstream education, (2) the lack of strict regulation of the quality of tutors and advertisements, and (3) how shadow education may exacerbate education inequality and how some tutorial companies and nonprofit organizations are addressing the issue.

This article, to the best of the author’s knowledge, is the only one that discusses the issues of shadow education from an author’s own personal experiences as a tutee, a tutor, and a researcher. It illustrates how practices and policies of the private tutoring industry are evolving in Hong Kong from an insider perspective.

This article sheds light on the historical changes in the tutoring industry and discusses the nature and driving forces of tutoring in the Hong Kong context. Based on the historical overview, this article introduces new developments in tutoring and discusses how tutoring fits into the bigger education picture.

Private tutoring in Hong Kong saw its takeoff in business in the 1980s, when the economy started to boom and parents were more willing to spend money on their children’s education. These parents hoped that their children, by receiving university education, could improve their families’ lives and secure a brighter future. Public examinations were used as a screening tool to select the cream of the crop for university admissions. Therefore, for many local mainstream school students, passing the public examinations with flying colors became the be-all and end-all of their studies. Tutorial schools regarded their fears as an opportunity and devised courses to suit their needs and allay their fears.

More recently, educational reform, declining birth rate, and technological advances have brought challenges for tutoring businesses. They have explored new markets and changed the mode of operation to increase student intake and cut costs. It is expected that local tutorial schools, in particular the big tutorial-school chains, will provide more online courses for learners from early childhood to adult and will reduce the number and scale of off-line courses. Also, we may see a new kind of “star” tutors catering not to local mainstream school students but to their local international school counterparts.

Literature on tutoring in Hong Kong mainly investigates the phenomenon in recent times, specifically the past two decades. This article is the first attempt to draw a holistic picture of tutoring’s historical development from an industrial perspective.

This article focuses on rarely explored organizational practice of teaching research in China’s private tutoring industry. Taking a large private tutoring institution as an example, the article examines how private tutoring institutions understand and engage in educational explorations of standardization and informatization processes.

The article is based on a case study of one of the biggest tutoring companies in China. The study started with document analysis of the institutional history, supplemented by interviews with personnel who have worked in the institution since it was founded. Next, the researchers collected empirical data using mixed methods. Quantitative data were obtained from the user database owned by the institution. Qualitative data were collected directly by the researchers through interviews and participant observation. Both qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed from multiple perspectives.

Teaching research in private tutoring institutions commonly differs from that in public schooling. In this particular case, it is technology-driven, student-tailored, and process-standardized. Utilized well, it can supplement the mainstream public education system and promote education innovation and equity throughout the country.

It is hoped that this article could give some insights into the possibility of the cooperation between formal schools and tutoring institutions in the areas of teaching research and other in-class and off-campus activities. The article can also draw public attention to the necessity and benefits of adopting technical methods in the teaching process.

Focusing on the hot-debating issue of school choice in China, this article aims to present a narrative of the policy interventions, especially promulgated by the Chinese central government during the past 20 years, and to discuss those challenges facing the governments and the society as a whole in the new era.

This article conceptually approaches the topic based on policy texts analysis and literature review.

This article pictures the historical dynamics of school choice phenomenon and its interaction with the corresponding policy initiatives promoted by the central government. It argues that school choice governing in China basically experienced three stages since the middle of 1990s, namely controlling “choice fees,” promoting equalization and equity as well as comprehensive governance toward greater quality and equity. The effective implementation of these policy measures is gradually cooling down the “choice fever” in urban areas and restoring order for student enrollment in compulsory education, but great challenges are still lying ahead since the problem of school choice turns to be “wicked” in nature and cannot be simply solved within the education sector.

This article contributes to the global discourse of school choice research with much updated information of policy initiatives and the newly emerged situations since 2014, calling for close attention and deeper research from researchers both from China and from abroad.

This article provides an overview of the composition and evolution of China’s high-level talent programs in higher education.

This article reviews key talent policies adopted by the Chinese government since the 1990s, using content analysis methods to identify policy characteristics and reform trends.

Talent programs in China operate at four levels: the national level, provincial level, city level, and institutional level. The main objectives of China’s high-level talent programs are to support and promote the development of young talent and to encourage overseas scholars to return to China. China’s high-level talent programs have undergone various changes since 1993. The evolution is characterized by the following five major aspects: individual program optimization; replacement, integration, and separation; preventing overlapping funding; mitigating the unbalanced impact the programs have on higher education institutions across regions; and strengthening risk assessment for programs focused on attracting overseas talent.

This article offers a comprehensive assessment of the talent programs implemented by Chinese universities and explores the key trends and content of recent policy changes.