Chinese education changes could hit ELT divisions at UK publishers

China has announced a series of reforms for private education companies, which could impact English Language Teaching (ELT) divisions at UK publishers. 

The changes, announced last month, seek to decrease student workloads and overhaul a sector Beijing says has been “hijacked by capital”. Bloomberg reported the new regulations mean agencies cannot teach foreign curriculums or hire foreigners outside China to teach.

There is also concern the changes could damage the imported textbook market, with locally registered international schools and training centres potentially being barred from using imported books. 

The changes also ban companies that teach school curriculums from making profits, raising capital or going public. They can no longer offer tutoring for the school syllabus on weekends or during holiday periods. They also can’t give online or academic classes to children aged under six. Foreign firms are banned from acquiring or holding shares in school curriculum tutoring institutions, Bloomberg reported.  

A spokesperson for Pearson told The Bookseller that, although it does not have a private school tutoring business, it was monitoring any possible impact on its English language courseware division.

It said: "Whilst we don’t have a direct business in this area, we do sell English courseware into private language schools. Clearly this is an evolving situation, and we are working through the details and monitoring closely.”  

The publisher said it had nothing more to add to its statement when asked whether changes to the imported textbook market would result in redundancies for staff at the sales force in China.

Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, which also have large ELT divisions, said they were not in a position to comment on how the changes may affect them at this time.  

Many companies around the world have already been affected by the changes. The South China Morning Post reported last week that Wall St English China, an English training centre that used to be owned by Pearson, is set to file for bankruptcy as “an apparent casualty of the central government’s crackdown on private education institutions”.  

Zhangmen Education, a leading online education company in China, said in a statement that it expected the guidelines to have “material impacts” on existing business operations and its corporate structure. It added: “As we are currently exploring measures to comply with the requirements in the guidelines, we will continue to improve our operations in strict compliance with all laws and regulations, fulfil our social responsibilities, provide our users with high-quality services, and promote the long-term development of China's education industry."

Elsewhere, Nikkei Asia reported that that more than $100bn was wiped off the market value of three US-traded Chinese education giants, TAL Education, New Oriental Education & Technology, and Gaotu Techedu, in the wake of the changes.