Draft seeks to tighten family education

An amendment to a draft law seeks to prohibit family education coaching institutions from conducting for-profit tutoring services for students, as China tightens its regulation of the after-school tutoring industry to alleviate students' excessive academic burdens.

The draft law on family education promotion was presented to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for a second reading on Tuesday. A draft generally becomes law after being reviewed by the top legislature three times.

Compared with the first draft, the new one includes a specific article stipulating that institutions that provide family education services will be categorized as "nonprofit family education service organizations" and they should not organize "for-profit education tutoring".

Institutions operating for profit or engaging in misleading or false promotion could be closed and lose their license, the new draft said.

Family education refers to guidance and influence from parents or other guardians over children's knowledge, cultural awareness, morals and lifestyle for the purpose of healthy development, it said.

The basic tasks of family education are to foster ethics and character, cultivate and practice core socialist values, promote exceptional traditional Chinese culture and cultivate comprehensive moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic and labor development for the builders and successors of socialism, the draft said.

The new draft comes amid China's intensified efforts to regulate the after-school tutoring sector to reduce students' academic burdens and the financial burdens borne by families sending children to often expensive tutoring classes.

A guideline issued by the general offices of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council late last month said all existing curriculum-based tutoring institutions would have to register as nonprofit organizations and prevented them from raising money from the public.

They cannot conduct training on weekends, national holidays or during winter and summer vacations, the guideline said.

Once passed, the new family education law will govern how parents conduct education at home for their children.

It would also ban parents or guardians from coercing, luring, inciting or using minors to violate laws, regulations or social morality. They should not discriminate against children based on their gender, physical condition or intelligence, the draft added.