China has announced a broad set of reforms for private education companies, seeking to decrease workloads for students and overhaul a sector it says has been “hijacked by capital.”
Released over the weekend, the new regulations ban companies that teach school curriculums from making profits, raising capital or going public. They can no longer offer tutoring related to the school syllabus on weekends or during vacations. They also can’t give online or academic classes to children under the age of 6, a segment of the population that had increasingly been pushed to start studying early.
China’s education technology sector had grown to $100 billion (¥1 trillion) as companies catered to parents seeking to give their children every advantage.