Thanks to the Double Reduction policy, after-school training classes are fast disappearing. Policy makers claim to lighten, by this institution, excessive burdens on the tender shoulders of primary and secondary school students. Can Chinese kids and teens have an easier life because of the new regulations? No one could give a clear-cut answer yet.

The other day, I was told that all the classes I used to attend after school hours have been closed. It shocked me. It was my parents who arranged for me to sign up for the classes, some of which I hated, but honestly speaking, looking back, I cannot deny that a couple of lessons that I went to did help me miles and miles on the way.

When I was a second grader, my weekend saw me get a companion, Little Dolphin, an English language training centre. As I grew older, a new mate called Yingcai joined me on the weekend. After I started junior high school, because of my miserable Chinese grades, my parents enrolled me at Sunflower. In those years I was busier on the weekend than on weekdays. Finding myself either in class or on the way to class every weekend, I felt like a pop star who is fully booked for tours and appearances.

The picture changed little after I embarked on high school at YYHS. I said farewell to Little Dolphin, Yingcai and Sunflower but was greeted subsequently with Zhixiang, Zhide and a private English class. Off campus training classes were an indispensable part of my weekend until I entered Grade 12. The last year of high school at YYHS saw me deprived of almost all weekends. As a senior, I find virtually all my waking hours, weekdays and weekends alike, spent within the campus walls. Then from out of nowhere came the news that all the weekend classes I used to pay for off campus were forced to shut down by the Double Reduction policy. It was so dramatic.

Despite the negative reporting on cram schools, I have fond memories of some of the classes I had there. Little Dolphin helped me lay good foundations in English by simulating an English language environment, where I celebrated Halloween and attended garden parties with my classmates and teachers. It was at Sunflower that I met a tutor who, a seasoned guide in her specialty, helped me navigate through the intricacies of the Chinese language and helped me finally rebuild my confidence in it. She is a role model in life as well as in learning. The maths lessons where I was coached broadened my horizons and empowered me to tackle a maths problem in creative ways.

The end to cram schools is not unprovoked. It is true that some of those schools offered good lessons, but it is a fact too that a lot of them unscrupulously milked Chinese parents of their hard-earned cash by exploiting the peer pressure overanxious fathers and mothers were under. Seeing other kids sent to such lessons, a lot of parents felt left behind if they did not follow suit. Around me I was not the only one who had to spend on so many classes; neither was I the student who bought the most. As far as I know, one of the friends was scheduled to go, for one weekend, to as many as 5 or 6 different kinds of courses. When cram schools, rather than doing proper teaching, turned into genius manufacturers feeding the parents’ insatiable greed and vanity, they deserved closure.

Behind Chinese children’s punishing overloaded after-school schedule lie fierce competitions for a place in a first-class university as well as unrealistic parental expectations of their children. Almost all Chinese parents have a burning conviction that their offspring deserve to attend the best universities and to get the best jobs after they become adults. In their mind, ordinary jobs are there for the kids of other families. Cram schools can be closed down, but the rat race is still on. In official terms, Chinese kids now do not need to pore over academic curricular subjects like Chinese, maths and English at a cram centre after school hours, but what awaits them instead are piano, jazz dance and basketball lessons among others. Worse still, some cram schools go underground.

I count myself lucky that it will be about 100 days before I finish high school and exit the rat race. My best wishes go to all the Chinese kids and teens who have yet to relish the fully-loaded new-style weekend and evenings served to them by their ambitious dear father and mother.

Be strong, kids, and you will all survive and shine. I will keep my fingers crossed for you.

Notes

Double Reduction: the reduction of homework loads and the reduction of off-campus academic training for compulsory education students