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In China, it is a heavyweight in the private education sector who revealed a social plan on the Chinese social network WeChat. The New Oriental Education & Technology company is in fact preparing to lay off 60,000 people at once. A new turn of the screw from Beijing aimed at alleviating the overload of work of Chinese schoolchildren and the financial pressure on their parents.
In China, where education is particularly competitive and elitist, companies offering exam preparation courses are very popular. Obsessed with the success of their children, Chinese parents spend lavishly. This has allowed the emergence of education giants, some even listed in the United States.
But Beijing, which now allows three children per couple, is trying to reduce the educational burden of families. The government also wants to regulate the sector, which has become one of the juiciest in China, with a market weighing some 220 billion euros in 2018.
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New restrictions
Thus, since this summer, new directives have been put in place by the Chinese government. School support companies must now register as non-profit associations. Classes on weekends, public holidays and during school holidays are no longer allowed.
Analysts fear that this legislation will compromise future registrations, and therefore weigh on the profitability of companies in the sector.
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