Almost half of China’s primary and middle school students have participated in after-school services, the Ministry of Education has said. Lyu Yugang, director of the ministry’s department of basic education, said 77.4 million primary and middle school students have taken part in after-school services, with 71.2 percent of them attending them every weekday. There were 156 million students in 210,800 primary and middle schools in China last year, data from the ministry shows. As of last week, 108,000 primary and middle schools had reported their “double reduction” progress to a platform run by the ministry, Lyu said. The policy initiative, launched in July, aims to reduce students’ homework and after-school tutoring pressure. Among them, 96.3 percent are offering after-school services, he said. More than 5.34 million teachers have taken part in the services, and the schools have hired 206,000 outside professionals, he said. A guideline issued by the general offices of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council in late July banned curriculum-based tutoring on weekends, during national holidays and winter and summer vacations. The new double reduction policy aims to alleviate the excessive academic workloads placed on primary and middle school students. The guideline asked schools to reduce the amount and difficulty of homework and detailed requirements for improving the quality of after-school services offered by schools. It included a number of strict measures, such as requiring curriculum-based tutoring institutions to register as nonprofit organizations, and banning them from advertising, raising money from the public and hiring teachers who live overseas. Based on data on the double reduction platform, 97.5 percent of parents said they were satisfied with the new policy and its results, while more than 60 percent very satisfied, Lyu said. Based on a survey of more than 57 million parents, 99.6 percent said teachers had not asked them to grade students’ homework this semester, he added. Eleven guidelines have been issued by central government departments to guide local governments to implement the policy, an official with the ministry’s department for supervision of after-school tutoring institutions, said. They aim to cover every aspect of the supervision of after-school tutoring institutions, including fees, employee management and tutoring material, he said. A special coordination mechanism to implement the double reduction policy has been set up by 19 central government departments including the Ministry of Education, National Development and Reform Commission and State Administration for Market Regulation, the official said. The ministry will keep following the progress made by local governments in implementing the policy, offer guidance and help to provincial governments that are lagging behind and hold governments and officials derelict in their duty accountable, he added. (Xinhua) | 