Beijing gets tough with private education institutions

BEIJING - Beijing has raised the standards for private education institutions.

In a standard released by the Beijing Municipal Education Commission, authorities have banned private education institutions from conducting classes in underground areas or residential buildings.

Private institutions are not allowed to change teaching venues or expand branches or training areas without authorization.

According to the standard, the teaching venues of private education institutions must be more than 300 square meters. Teachers in Chinese, math, English, physics, chemistry, and biology are required to have teacher's certificates, and their names, photos, class numbers and certificate numbers should be displayed in "obvious areas" in the teaching venues.

Private institutions engaging in pre-school education should not teach elementary school content in advance, including Chinese pinyin, Chinese characters, arithmetics, and English.

The standard also stipulates that teaching content should be in line with the educational principles of the Communist Party of China. Private institutions for middle schoolers and elementary students should not host any exams or competitions to rank students.

The standard is based on a previous version concerning private institutions issued in 2017.