Proceedings of the 8th World Conference on Future of Education
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Profitability Through ESG: A Dual Analysis of Demand and Supply in Small Educational Enterprises
Siqi Li
ABSTRACT:
School students in China often feel overwhelmed by excessive academic training and competition, known as academic burdens. Shadow education, or private tutoring, along with its capitalised industry scale, has further intensified academic competition and deepened education inequalities in uneven access to quality resources. In response, the Chinese government introduced the Double Reduction Policy (DRP) to restrict shadow education activities, replace them with school-based After-school Services (Kehoufuwu in Chinese, which refers to supplementary educational activities provided by schools beyond regular class hours), and reduce in-school academic burdens. This qualitative study aims to examine the role of DRP in promoting education equality. Drawing on Nancy Fraser’s social justice theory, the research analysed DRP policy documents from national to local levels and conducted interviews with eight teachers from both the school and private tutoring sectors across China. Findings reveal that while DRP has alleviated disparities in education resources outside of school by limiting access to private tutoring, it has overlooked the uneven distribution of quality education resources in its practical implementation. As a result, families continue to seek shadow education, and schools, especially socioeconomically disadvantaged ones, have resisted reducing academic burdens to maintain their performances, thus undermining the policy’s intended effects. By contextualizing the findings within China’s neo-socialist context, this research offers an Eastern perspective on government responses to education inequalities intensified by marketisation and their approach to addressing such issues through policy enactment.
keywords: Double Reduction Policy, social justice, shadow education, education policy, China