What’s new: China’s biggest private tuition provider is closing the vast majority of its branches, New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc.’s founder said, in the wake of new regulations that ban many in the sector from making a profit.
Almost 1,500 of its training centers are to be closed, Yu Minhong said during a livestreaming session on Douyin Sunday. According to media reports, the company had 1,547 training centers and 122 schools nationwide as of May.
The closing branches have donated more than 73,000 desk and chair sets to rural schools, the New York-listed company said.
The background: Many tuition companies have been affected by sweeping reforms launched in July to ease the burden on students, which bar for-profit tutoring in core curriculum subjects, including Chinese, foreign languages and mathematics.
The number of tutoring companies in business has fallen in several cities, according to a string of reports released by China’s Ministry of Education last month. Around two-thirds of the tutoring institutions operating in Beijing have closed since July.
Contact reporter Cai Xuejiao (xuejiaocai@caixin.com) and editor Joshua Dummer (joshuadummer@caixin.com)
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