In July 2021, the "double reduction" policy was officially implemented. Like the first domino that was pushed down, a large number of education and training institutions and internet companies' education tracks also "fell". In September, the school ushered in the first semester after the implementation of the "double reduction policy", and words such as "training class", "after-school tutoring", "promotion class" and "teaching and training teacher" disappeared from the public eye tacitly.
A vigorous history of the rise and fall of the education and training industry seems to have been peacefully annihilated. What makes us curious is, what did the dismissed teachers do? Are the parents who are anxious about the chicken baby willing to do this? Are the children really offloaded because of this?
When we try to restore the timeline before and after the implementation of the double reduction policy from the two different perspectives of teaching and training teachers and parents of students. We found that the double reduction policy did not really alleviate the so-called "chicken baby anxiety" - behind it was the unfairness of educational resources and the increasingly fierce competition in education.
<h1>01 Double Reduction Landed Half a Year Ago: Young People Pouring Into Online Education</h1>
In 2019, the sudden outbreak of the epidemic brought about a large-scale industry depression. However, the education and training industry has achieved a sudden rise. This spring, the education and training industry reached the top of the boom. Capital from all sides began to intervene in online education, advertisements for famous teachers filled the streets and alleys, and online education also entered the more sinking small town market from first-tier cities. Harvest high salaries in the material sense, and in the spiritual sense, you can erase the imbalance of educational resources through online education and training... All have become the reason why the online education and training industry has attracted tens of millions of outstanding young people to come.
"I know very well that I can't do a lifetime of education. So if I only make three hundred thousand or four hundred thousand a year, I will not be moved. But at that time, the agency promised that my guaranteed annual salary would be 650,000. That is to say, if I work hard, I can even do 1 million. ”
In the spring of 2021, Lin Yi, who is about to graduate with a master's degree, decided to go to an online educational institution to work as a Chinese teacher. Until then, entering the education industry wasn't his only consideration when he graduated. On the eve of graduation, Lin Yi also began to prepare for the application for a doctorate in education abroad, while paying attention to the consulting company that interested him.
What ultimately prompted his decision was a five-day trip to Beijing, "and those online educational institutions are really willing to spend money." They invited me to visit their company on the ground. A four-star hotel in Beijing hosted us fresh graduates, and we ate, stayed and ate for 5 whole days. A series of arrangements that spend money like dirt have made Lin Yi feel the determination of the institution to buy bones with thousands of dollars.
He caught up with the "spring" of online education. In January and February this year, with the recurrence of the epidemic, many education and training institutions began to carry out online courses. Perhaps inspired by this unstoppable trend, Internet companies have also begun to broaden the education track, which is also the "next outlet" that many young people are struggling to find at that time.
The online education and training industry is like a two-meter-tall tree that jumped out overnight, and in this spring, many education and training institutions are competing to go public. As of June 30, the market value of good future (TAL) reached 105.104 billion yuan, followed by New Oriental (EDU) with a market value of 90.692 billion yuan. No one can say whether this development is a miracle or a disease, after all, "standing on the vent, even a pig can fly."
The continuation rate has become one of the main KPIs for measuring online teachers. Throughout the spring, parents' educational anxiety continued to spread, and the renewal rate of the courses taught by Lin Yi even reached 98%.
In addition to the renewal rate, more and more education and training institutions are no longer obsessed with erecting a brand image, but have begun to create "famous teachers" and launch new course selling points.
"Qingbei high-quality students", "taught mathematics for a lifetime", "genius beauty teacher"... Eye-catching labels appear frequently in promotional videos and posters about educational institutions at bus and subway stations.
How to make parents believe that he is a good teacher has become the core proposition of Lin Yi's work. A few days after he first joined the company, a sister who jumped over and sat next to Lin Yi's workstation kindly dialed him, "Lin Yi, you don't think that you are here to be a teacher, you are here to be an Internet celebrity, you can only make money by holding an idea of being an Internet celebrity."
Different from the functional distribution of traditional education and training institutions, Lin Yi's institution is exploring new development models. Since joining the company, he does not need to communicate with parents and students, nor does he have to participate in course sales, and he has enjoyed a relaxed position that he has never experienced before.
© "Over The Spring"
The "high salary" visible to the naked eye, the influx and advocacy of capital from all sides, many young people will choose careers to "migrate" here. Similarly, Guo Qing, who has six years of offline education and training experience, is a member of the "migration" army. In May this year, Guo Qing shifted from offline education to online.
But not all young people can squeeze into this high-speed train, and the recruiting staff admitted to Guo Qing's education and training institutions cannot escape the employment standards of "Qingbei Fujiao Vine (Ivy League)" and "postgraduate degree", and the ordinary 985 is eclipsed here. In addition to experience and profession, institutions pay more attention to academic background, and the education and training industry is absorbing outstanding talents from various universities with a gravitational force beyond everyone's imagination. "On my first day on the job, I clearly felt that the circle around me was immediately different. My academic qualifications are completely inadequate here, and they belong to the category of particularly poor ones."
At work, Guo Qing and Lin Yi's feelings are close, and he often plays Douyin in private, describing himself as a "popular anchor" in class. Sitting in front of the computer, sorting out today's shape, Guo Qing needs to adjust his state before opening the camera, and quickly switches from the appearance of playing in his spare time to a serious expression.
A live lesson of a thousand people is about to begin, and he connects the network through the camera to the children from all over the country, from the first line to the fourth and fifth lines, who are receiving different educational resources. Through one open camera after another, he peeks into different lives. There is no shortage of typical Haidian chicken babies in his classroom, but there are more students in the fourth and fifth lines than children who learn on the first and second lines due to the cheapness of the curriculum. Occasionally, when he was in The Wheat, he could hear the announcement of "Alipay Arriving", which was a student who opened a small shop in the house taking a class in the store.
Guo Qing is from a small mountainous area in Yunnan, and in his third year of high school, the school invited teachers from a famous English training institution to give a lecture, which was the first time he met a teacher who spoke English so well, and the first time he was so eager to go out of the mountain and want a better education. At that time, he would not have thought that seven or eight years later, he would become the teacher who "preached and taught karma to solve puzzles" in the lecture, and he was facing thousands of "myself" at that time.
One of the reasons why Guo Qing is determined to devote himself to online education is that he can gain a strong sense of meaning from his work – uneven education levels often make Guo Qing feel heavy, and being an online education teacher means that he can provide the same learning platform and opportunities for students in different regions. Unlike the previous offline classes, there are no regional restrictions, minus offline costs, and the price of courses has become more affordable, which allows children from families without high educational costs to enjoy extracurricular training opportunities.
When preparing for classes, Guo Qing often flipped through the examination papers of various provinces, "The fact is that the difficulty of the middle school examination in many places is not as strong as the first year of Beijing students, and it is really every generation that loses at the starting line." Now it only costs 250 yuan a month for courses, and many families with relatively low incomes can participate in the courses, "If I could take such a class when I was a child, I would feel very happy to know what students in those big cities are studying." 」
© "Me 11"
The education and training industry has developed so rapidly and absorbed so many famous school resources that many people can't help but speculate about when this crazyly developing tree will be cut down. As early as March, Lin Yi's parents, who are also engaged in the education industry, expressed many concerns about this easy and profitable job.
"I know that this day will definitely come, but everything is so vigorous", Lin Yi believes that even if there is a policy to restrict the education and training industry, the policy cannot come so quickly, such a large organization, so many employees, which is to say that it can be stopped?
Compared with the optimistic Lin Yi, Guo Qing did not feel relaxed. In June, all education and training institutions no longer allowed teachers who did not hold teacher qualification certificates to teach on the job, and Guo Qing's institution dismissed one-third of the teachers. In the middle of the year, in addition to Guo Qing's live teaching, his research group also began to lead the recording of recorded lessons.
Between work, when colleagues get together, everyone always talks about some "rumors". Some said that after the winter and summer vacations, make-up classes would not be allowed; some said that live classes would be completely banned; some said that the education and training industry would have to lay off employees on a large scale. These wind-catching sounds hung over Guo Qing's head like a sword.
Seeing that Guo Qing was so anxious, his little leader secretly chatted with him and whispered to him privately, "He said at the time that there would be a small number of layoffs, but he certainly couldn't lay off me." Guo Qing's good performance has allowed him to find a little ease in his anxiety. The little leader affirmed him vigorously, saying that he was doing very well at work. Therefore, Guo Qing completely cut off the idea of changing jobs.
Along with Guo Qing and Lin Yi, there are thousands of online teachers. No one would have thought that the day online education reached the top would be the day it came to an end...
<h1>02 Double subtraction landing: teaching and training teachers looking for a way out</h1>
On July 24, the central government issued the Opinions on Further Reducing the Homework Burden and Off-campus Training Burden of Students in the Compulsory Education Stage, which re-rectified the off-campus training market. Before the official release of the document, New Oriental's stock price had not been heard, plummeting 54% on July 23, and on the second trading day, New Oriental's stock price fell another 34%. The stock price trend of New Oriental also basically indicates the collective fate of the off-campus training market.
"Laugh to death, I was fired."
July 19 is a very ordinary Monday. When Guo Qing's friends saw this message he posted in the WeChat group, everyone did not pay attention to it, thinking he was joking.
Last weekend, Guo Qingcai and his friends drove to Aranya for a tour. The itinerary was very rich, and Guo Qing did not return home until Sunday night. Despite dragging his tired body, Guo Qing decided to sort out the photos taken in this line and send a circle of friends as a souvenir. On nine carefully selected photographs, he wrote, "I'm going back to work."
After sending the circle of friends, Guo Qing quickly fell asleep. He could not have imagined that in six hours, he would soon become a member of the "army of youth unemployment" and would no longer have to "work".
On July 20, the double reduction policy landed. On the eve of this, a layoff storm began quietly and unexpectedly, and its terrible thing was not "who might be the next target of layoffs", but indiscriminate layoffs.
"The Self-Motivated Tamako"
"Whoever pays less compensation will be laid off first." Employees like Guo Qing, who have recently joined the company, and fresh graduates, regardless of their performance level and academic background, have all been "sentenced". Even if some people escaped the first round of layoffs, in Guo Qing's eyes, they were just "waiting for death". By the time of the second round of layoffs in August, junior middle-level leaders, once beautiful lecturers, were also included in the layoff list.
When Guo Qing walked out of the personnel office, he couldn't even find a word to describe his current mood, should he laugh at himself for being unemployed at a young age? Or should we shed a tear or two of grief appropriately?
After a few minutes, Guo Qing eased up, he thought of the annual leave he had not been willing to use, and a wave of anger was used in his head, "Angry to death!" 7 days of annual leave, when dismissed, can only be converted into two days of wages, five days are not counted, completely lost. ”
Also experiencing great ups and downs in his mood is Lin Yi, who is attending a friend's wedding in Sanya. When I went to Sanya, the double reduction policy had been issued, and he had long been less determined than when he joined the company, "I can only think about playing, how can I play hard in Sanya, so that I can break free from this news." ”
"Regret" is Lin Yi's strongest feeling, "I thought that I could make at least 1 million yuan this year." First of all, my life situation is very different from when I worked before, I used to spend a lot of money, and now many places need to be reconsidered. ”
For a child from an ordinary family, working well for many years may not earn 1 million. When will we wait for the next outlet? Lin Yi's plans for the future were all disrupted.
He had to re-contact his friends in the consulting industry and the seniors who had communicated when he was looking for a job to inquire whether there was still a suitable opportunity for internal promotion. Throughout late July, Lin Yi spent time revising his resume and frequent interviews. On August 10, Lin Yi received a notice of "all school recruitment departures" issued by the institution. At the same time, he also received an offer from a well-known consulting firm.
"Hurry up and get compensation and change careers" was all Lin Yi's thoughts at that time. Although the official entry time was only 40 days, Lin Yi still received a considerable dismissal compensation. In his words, "it can match the annual salary of many industries for a year." ”
For him, this compensation is already a blessing in disguise.
© "FlyIng High with You"
Half a month after being dismissed, Guo Qing went home for a while. He needs time to empty.
"I also pretended to do some work. I have voted for other educational institutions, but there is no response. After that, I went to interview for sales and sold the house, but I didn't think it was appropriate. ”
For a young person like Guo Qing, who has a long experience in the education and training industry, or a middle-aged person in his thirties, "re-employment" has become a dilemma. With the recurrence of the epidemic and the overall downturn in the economy, it is difficult to have the same profitable jobs as the education and training industry. Many of the dismissed teachers switched to sales, insurance, and houses, but it was difficult for Guo Qing to get the sense of meaning of teaching from such occupations.
Thanks to the compensation and the accumulation of past savings, Guo Qing did not rush to find a job. After being able to relax for a while, he suddenly realized that perhaps this was an opportunity for Heaven to open up another path in life.
Guo Qing still wants to pursue a career in the education industry, but he believes that continuing to choose the education and training industry is not a sustainable development path, and public teachers may be a better choice.
The experience of being crushed by academic qualifications in online educational institutions made Guo Qing consider whether to apply for graduate school, "In fact, I have always had the idea of going to graduate school. But the previous job was very profitable, and I really didn't want to waste my time." But now it is different, if you want to enter a public institution later, a graduate degree is the most basic threshold.
It is difficult for Guo Qing to accept such a big impact brought about by the double reduction policy. After the dismissal, he got together again with his former colleagues to chat. In that chat, he learned that those who had been open for more than 20 years and had been listed, the big institutions in his eyes, would collapse because of the introduction of the double reduction policy. Even educational institutions that have already been listed have fallen to the bottom of their market value, and even fallen into a large number of labor disputes because they cannot pay employee dismissal compensation.
"Education has really made a lot of people, a lot of people, but now it's equal to zero."
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<h1 id="kfwia" >03 double minus three months: parents with nowhere to escape</h1>
As soon as a child is born, they are placed in a long-term competitive environment. To put it bluntly, these parents want their children to gain knowledge in order to "win at the starting line." But not all parents are like this, the landing of the double reduction policy makes some parents feel relieved, and the mother who is in the second year of junior high school talks about her views on education competition, "We are all college entrance examinations, and we firmly believe that we must hope that our children can also rely on education to change their destiny, but I also know that a lot of knowledge cannot be used after coming out of school, and even now a lot of competition is already superclass knowledge." Is this really necessary? Every time I see my kids so tired, I really feel heartache. "It is a pity that Li Jie is only an example in the army of educational anxiety.
For teachers in education and training institutions, there is still a way out to be found. It is difficult to imagine that under the double reduction policy, the real nowhere to escape is the parents who are caught in the anxiety of further education.
At noon on Saturday, a local residential middle school in Chengdu was out of school, and a long queue of vehicles stopping at the entrance of the school was blocked. Sister Li and I stood at the school gate, looking at the crowd, trying to find her children's scrolls from the children who came out of the fish.
Before we could find the figure of the small scroll, the parents standing next to us became agitated. He waved his hand at his child in the distance, put his other hand to his mouth, and yelled at him: "Hurry up! Run! His children rushed over in response. Sister Li squeezed her eyebrows at me, pulled me aside, and waited for a while before carefully saying in my ear, "This situation is in a hurry to make up for the class." ”
In September, the school ushered in the first semester after the double reduction policy. The previous vigorous layoffs and bans on education and training institutions have allowed "make-up classes" to become the "emperor's new clothes" in the mouths of teachers, parents and children this semester. Although in the public dialogue, there are no longer words such as "uplifting class", "after-school training", "small class class", "online class" and so on, in private, make-up lessons are still the norm for many children after class, and exist in a more secret way.
© "Winter Holidays"
From the fifth grade, Li Jie began to give her children a make-up class at the beginning of the primary school, and after a burst of Olympiad and English frenzy, the child barely reached the threshold of entering the local key middle school. Perhaps because I felt that the make-up classes in elementary school started too late, mathematics became a weak subject after the small volume went to junior high school. Li Jie did not dare to be sloppy, and quickly enrolled her child in a math improvement class.
Enrolled in a boarding school, the small volume has a one-day break a day, and it takes half a day to make up math. Such a high-pressure learning state often makes Li Jie worry, "The child is only in the second year of junior high school, and when he reaches high school, will he be crushed by make-up classes?" ”
The introduction of the double reduction policy made Li Jie finally breathe a sigh of relief. The previous training institutions have closed their doors, the people who handed out training flyers at the school gates have disappeared, and the children can finally arrange their weekends according to their preferences.
This peace lasted only two weeks, until the child came home and told her, "Mom, some of our classmates are still watching the recording of broadcast classes, and some students are still secretly making up for the weekend."
These children did not mean to say something, but it made Li Jie's nerves tense immediately, she felt like a back row audience in the theater effect, as long as there were people standing in the front row, she could never sit down.
Guo Qing is no stranger to the educational anxiety that parents have nowhere to put. There is a saying in the industry, "Create demand without demand". He believes that to a large extent, in order to become a good salesman, capturing the anxiety of parents is the core point.
Lin Yi also has a similar feeling, "Parents will feel that their children's performance is an uncontrollable thing, but they always want to make this thing controllable." For most parents, counseling is a very effective measure.
Many times parents will complain to Lin Yi, and the child's grades cannot be improved. At this time, parents always seem to be more anxious than children, "many children with poor grades will not attract the attention of teachers at school, just like an invisible person." Over time, the child himself does not believe that he can learn well. ”
Minyi's children are in the third grade of primary school in Haidian, which is known to be the hardest hit area for chicken baby anxiety. Her children have long been in the bottom five of the class, and Min-yee laughs at herself, being criticized more by teachers for her poor grades than when she went to school herself.
© "Hot Girls at the Bottom"
In the second semester of the second grade, Min Yi listened to the opinions of her sisters and "grabbed" a place in the bridging class for her children. However, the next day, after the child had completed the entrance test, the institutional teacher called min yi to withdraw from the class, on the grounds that "the child's level was too poor to keep up with the course."
The child was so bad that he didn't even want a tutoring agency, which was greatly unexpected by Min Yi, not to mention that his child had just entered the second grade of primary school. Min Yi smiled, and there was a hint of helplessness in her smile. Her children are more sluggish and rarely hear children take the initiative to compare learning resources with other children. Even in the third grade, the child still vaguely believes that the English teacher whose original surname is Zhao is surnamed Ying. Min Yi has always advocated that happiness is the most important, never give children a strong idea of making up lessons, watching children grow up silly every day, she often has a sense of satisfaction.
However, unexpectedly, after the double reduction policy, Min Yi secretly contacted the departing teacher of an institution and reported one-on-one after-school tutoring to the child.
"No one doesn't make up lessons, everyone is secretly making up lessons." Perhaps aware of this, Min Yi felt the uncompromising urgency of giving her children make-up lessons.
"If all the children are competing on the same starting line and starting to learn like a blank piece of paper, then he is not as good as others I can accept." But now no children are on a starting line. Min Yi bought a tutoring book for the child in the summer vacation of the second grade, and when the child's classmates came to play at home, they saw it and were very surprised to point to the tutoring book and asked, "Why are you still doing the third-grade problems?" ”
Min Yi was shocked, but the child's classmates felt that it was normal to tell her that everyone was now learning the knowledge points of the fourth grade. This incident deeply stimulated MinYi's nerves, and she always couldn't help but ask herself, "What if my child is only one tutor away from school?" ”
If this is the case, Min Yi is willing to make up for this "hole". It is better to secretly make up for it, or to urge the child to brush up on the problem. After all, who would gamble on their children's future?
In this sense, the education and training industry may not be discussed, but it will never and will not be allowed to disappear.
At last.
The double reduction policy has landed, the soaring education and training institutions have fallen, and enterprises, employees, parents and children have found a way out. In the face of change, these participants toss and turn, some looking for another way, looking for life, and some trying to avoid the rules and continue to be carried forward by the anxiety of education.
The absurd drama interpreted in this scene is also a naked reality, but the people who stand up from the theater have never sat down, the policy may not be able to reduce the burden on parents and children, and the education and training practitioners are also moving forward in the turmoil of the industry. Anxiety continues, and when the tsunami comes, swimmers dare to lie flat.
Written by | Xiao Zeng
Edit | Sharon
Design | Sam