A government announcement saying that Shanghai will more strictly manage bilingual private schools, including changing their courses, recently sparked discussion on international courses in China.
The 24th conference of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People's Congress on Monday approved revisions to school regulations, ordering that all profit-led private schools run by Chinese citizens are not allowed to run classes for the compulsory education stage from September 1, 2017, thepaper.cn reported.
In China, compulsory education covers at least nine years, five or six years of primary school and three or four years of middle school.
Experts said that private schools which offer international courses have been relatively loosely managed by the government in recent years, but argued that education in China needs to become more diverse.
Compulsary courses
The Shanghai Municipal Education Commission posted on its official WeChat account on October 24 the new regulations on international courses in the city .
According to the post, there are four kinds of primary and middle schools in Shanghai, which are public schools, privately-run schools, Sino-foreign cooperative high schools and schools run by foreigners.
The post noted that privately-run schools in Shanghai should not enroll students in advance, and schools funded or run by foreigners can only educate kindergarten and high school students, but not students at the compulsory education stage.
The commission also reaffirmed the Compulsory Education Law clause which stipulates that the compulsory education courses should be decided upon by the education authorities of the State Council, and all textbooks must be examined and approved.
"The policy orders your children to stay and study in the Chinese education system from then on," wwMama2011, a mother from Shanghai, said in an education forum.
"It's exhausting to see such a policy. Chinese children can no longer take international courses but have to choose either exam-oriented education, or go abroad as soon as possible. So much pressure," "A happy happy bird" posted on Sina Weibo.
Unsatisfied
"Students in our school take the compulsory education courses," a staff member at an international school in Jinshan district, Shanghai, told the Global Times on Thursday, explaining that the school has foreign students from France, Switzerland and other countries who share classes with Chinese students in middle school.
At the beginning there were international schools for children with foreign nationalities, and some Chinese parents also sought ways to send their children to those schools, Chu Zhaohui, a research fellow at the National Institute of Educational Sciences, told the Global Times.
"Then there were some internationals schools built by Chinese people, or some international classes in some Chinese public schools, and all of them use international courses," Chu said, adding that the parents of the students in these schools are usually people who felt unsatisfied about China's college entrance exam system.
"On Halloween night, 99 percent of the children that came to 'trick or treat' were Chinese, but almost all of them were speaking English. I think the government's worry is reasonable, as it is very sad that children are losing their ethnic identity," wrote "EMMALIKA," another Sina Weibo user, arguing that the new policy is necessary.
However, Chu said to use the phrase "losing educational sovereignty," or even "Westernization" and "colonization" about international schools and international courses in China is hyperbolic, as the managers and teachers in those schools are mostly Chinese.
Gray zone
Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, said that some international courses in China are provided by private organizations, training institutes or even corporations, so those schools are not examined or approved by local education authorities, and some are not even registered. "There exists a gray zone," the Xinhua News Agency reported.
There is no clear definition of those schools, nor specific rules to manage them, Chu added.
The regulations need to be improved and completed, but the right of parents and students to make choices about education needs to be respected, Chu noted.
During the non-compulsory education period, including kindergarten and high school, private schools actually have provided a more diverse choices to students, Chu said.
