In the wake of education reforms that have shaken China’s multimillion-dollar after-school tutoring industry to its core, training centers are revamping their business models and coming up with new strategies to stay afloat. One such innovation has been the rise of 父母智慧馆 Fùmǔ zhìhuì guǎn Parent Wisdom Halls, in which the training center organizes tutoring classes for, you guessed it, the parents. 

When I first received a phone call from the telemarketer/sales rep of an “education center” I had left my number with during a school fair, I listened vaguely, trying to distill the key message with my highly limited Chinese vocabulary. I pieced together that it was a math training center, and was intrigued about what they could possibly be selling now that after-school tutoring was all but banned. Then I heard it, “We would like to invite you to attend this special class to teach you how to teach your child math.”

I interrupted the man and clarified that he had indeed just invited me, the parent, to attend a tutoring class, so that I could come home and in turn, give my child a class. He confirmed it. I burst out laughing and thanked him for his time, then hung up. I heard the same thing happen to another parent and did some digging to discover that it was not an anomaly, but a rising trend.

Such strategies employed by training centers facing shrinking profits are clearly evidence of the toxic education culture that Jingkids editor Julie Wolf has written about previously. I believe the point of the government’s latest education mandate was to free up kids so they can live a little, not free up the training centers so they can tutor parents instead.

On the other hand, a different strategy that I have heard of is how some after-school training centers are turning their focus to vocational education or enrichment activities, offering classes that fall outside the jurisdiction of the new laws. Depending on the nature and quality of these classes, I think I could abide by this strategy more than the previous one.

One local parent hit the nail on the head when quoted in a Chinese news article: “Ten years ago, I had to attend training classes as a kid. Ten years later, I have to attend training classes again as a parent!” Well, my friend, here’s hoping the government’s next rules help protect us woeful parents from that plight.

KEEP READING: No More After School Tutoring: Is This a New Era for Kids?

Images: Pexels

We accumulate ridiculous amounts of data when updating our annual School Choice Guide every year and this process gives us keen insight into current trends going on in Beijing’s international schools and also helps us to analyze what’s on the horizon. While we don’t intend for this to give you the willies when taking into account the current or rising tuition prices, we do hope it gives you some perspective on how you should be planning for the future and what you need to look out for when selecting a school for your child.

According to the International Schools Database, Beijing has the second-highest tuition costs out of a list of 40 international cities, second only to Shanghai. While we genuinely believe that Beijing is host to a number of top-notch schools, keep in mind that you don’t always get what you pay for, so it essential to do your research. Also, alternatively, plenty of schools in the lower price bracket are very good.

12% price hike in tuition

We calculated this number from the 46 schools that have appeared in both the 2018 and 2019 School Choice Guides. And yes, we are as speechless as you are! Twelve percent is a significant increase in a single year. From our experience, one of the main expenses of international schools is finding and hiring the right teachers. While it would be interesting to find out how the teachers’ salaries correspond to this increase, that figure is unfortunately beyond our reach.

19 students per class…

…and there’s one teacher for every six students. This is four students less than the average class size in the US (23 students). Also, the average student to teacher ratio in a US public school is currently at 16:1.

40 percent of schools give scholarships

And that’s a 15 percent drop from the number of schools that offer scholarships and financial assistance based on the 2018 School Choice Guide. With tuition prices on the rise each year, this is definitely an area of concern for many families currently residing or thinking about making the move to Beijing.

55% of listed schools provide extra help

Check our school profile pages (p29-94) to learn if the schools you are interested in offer extra assistance for students with special needs, and also read our feature Educating for All (p25) for more insight into what’s on offer in Beijing’s international schools.

This article first appeared in the beijingkids School Choice Guide 2019-2020

For all the advantages that living in Beijing can provide for an expat — and there are many, including exorbitant salaries, cheap local costs, and easily making new language partners — the unfortunate trade-off is that many of us will be making up the difference when it comes to some of the most expensive international school tuitions in the world.

According to the International Schools Database, Beijing has the second-highest tuition costs out of a list of 40 international cities, second only to Shanghai.

Following China’s lead, Switzerland dominated the list with three of its cities named in the top ten (Lausanne, Zurich, and Geneva at third, fourth and sixth place, respectively). The Canadian city of Toronto came in fifth place.

It was Beijing’s first appearance on the list, which was restricted to just 25 international cities last year. On both lists, Shanghai claimed top position while Copenhagen, Denmark was either last or next-to-last.

However, no matter what critics may say, there is an advantage to living in Beijing. When compared to average rental prices in expat areas, the average international school tuition costs in Beijing fall to fourth place against the same list of cities, coming in after Hanoi, Brussels, and Ho Chi Minh City.

According to the study, the average Beijing international school’s tuition (USD 2,519) costs 20 percent more than the average expat rental cost (USD 2,091), making a huge significance in what is precisely offered in expat salary and educational packages.

As pricey as that may be, expats may find Beijing’s other advantages to be especially alluring.

Despite its position as the capital of China and a first-tier city, Beijing is only rated as the fifth-most expensive city for expats in China, falling well behind Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Dalian. What’s more, if you want to get the most bang for your buck, expats can also take advantage of Beijing’s ever-expanding subway system for making their commute from their apartment out in the city’s less expensive suburbs.

As an expat, you’ll find that weighing the trade-offs is a recurring aspect of your life. If you’re willing to live in a less-than-expat-tier area while taking a mode of transportation that isn’t a taxi or car share, you’d also probably be more willing to look into alternatives besides international schools.

All in all, if you have set your sights on Beijing international schools, we can only hope that you get what you pay for.

This post first appeared on our sister site, the Beijinger. See more stories by this author here.
Photo: Beijing Relocation

Caixin reports that as the number of Chinese high school graduates study abroad in a foreign university rises—up 14 percent in 2015 compared to the previous year—so does the number of Chinese applicants for international schools.  The boom has prompted the founding of many new private schools, as well as international divisions in existing elite public schools.

It is no wonder, given how existing international schools have struggled to select students from a growing pool of applicants. When Beijing No.4 Middle School first opened its international division, every applicant with enough for tuition could secure a spot, but now the school can only admit ten percent.  Another middle school with an international division affiliated with Beijing Normal University echoed the same, stating that their 60 spots were coveted by 600 applicants.

Private schools that can admit Chinese students have also noticed the boom, where Keystone Academy stated their fall 2016-2017 spots were all filled up by February 2016—more than six months before the start of the school year!

It has come to a point where international schools have had to higher their standards, giving and requiring more tests from its applicants in order to lower their pool. Where two years ago only five international schools required international standardized tests, such as TOEFL/TOEFL Junior or SSAT/SAT, now over fifty international schools require an official standardized test score upon application.

More stringent requirements are not the only changes international schools have made, but the cost of tuition has also been raised up to RMB 300,000 a year, where a few thousand will suffice for public school education with the domestic curriculum.

Why a boom?

Previously, only wealthy Chinese families would enroll their children in an international school or a school following an international curriculum. The reason was to avoid the stressful and highly competitive gaokao exam (university entrance exams) in favor of a foreign university degree.

Today, not only are there more wealthy Chinese, but the middle class is also prepared to invest in their children’s K-12 education.  Parents are better educated, and as a result, understand the differences between eastern and western education.  They (reasonably) have concerns about how their children will fare in university with the Chinese educational background of route learning and test taking. Hence, Chinese students aiming to study abroad are increasingly often enrolling in international schools to prepare for admissions.

So what?

The Center for China and Globalization (an NGO in Beijing) conducted research, surveying five elite middle schools where 75 percent of their top students chose to go study in a foreign university.  Since said students could have applied and just as well made it into China’s top universities, there is some concern that not only is China losing its young top talent, but these students often do not return.

While many will state that an education reform will solve China’s “brain drain”, but no one believes in the 2009 instituted ten year reform. The reform had promised to cut red tape and improve equal access to education, the latter of which tends to be poorly received by parents in urban cities.

Earlier this spring, The Ministry of Education announced a quota of 140,000 spaces—a record number—in top universities for students from less developed provinces.  The schools would not increase the number of overall spaces, but would instead reduce the number of local students it could intake by 6.5 percent.

Outrage ensued as urban parents took to the streets, protesting with signs and marches outside government offices.   The protests had been contained by police and local news reports were largely censored as education is a sensitive topic in President Xi’s “China Dream” vision.  After all, the class inequality between urban and rural provinces in educational opportunities could spark larger protests.

In Beijing, parents have filed a complaint requesting that gifted minority children recruited for Beijing’s elite schools should not be treated as residents for university application. Instead, their potential study spaces should be freed up for local children (with Beijing hukou, or residence).

Photo: Flickr

More bad news from the school sticker shock department: brace yourself for increased costs from international schools next year as the effects of China’s new social insurance laws for foreigners begins to take effect.

Most expats have already heard news of China’s new social insurance laws that will now require foreigners to pay into the social security system, which covers medical insurance, retirement, unemployment insurance and the like. The net effect for this is an increased cost of hiring expats of an estimated 33% to 39% of an employee’s base salary.

For international schools, which are heavily dependent on foreign staff, this could be a massive increase in operating costs. A recent article from USA Today put it in these real terms:

At international schools, which employ a large number of foreigners, expatriate salaries and other costs make up about 70% of operating expenses, according to the American Chamber of Commerce in China. The foreigners’ tax could raise one unnamed international school’s operating expenses by 30%, which would "threaten the financial viability of the school," the chamber says in comments posted on its website. AmCham says that contributions to China’s unemployment and maternity insurance program should be voluntary, as many employees already receive such benefits in their own countries or through personal insurance.

The law will also drive up the already-high cost of international school education, says Tim McDonald, headmaster of the International Academy of Beijing, a Christian school that serves the expat community. More than half of the academy’s 70 staff members are foreigners.

With international school fees in Beijing hovering around RMB 200,000 a year already, one begins to wonder: how much higher could it go? To offset an operating cost increas of 30%, are we looking at an average of RMB 260,000 next year? Expressed in US dollar terms, that’s more than a year of tuition at Harvard.

Common sense dictates that as Beijing continues to grow city authorities should be doing everything in their power to expand its infrastructure, as has been the case with our much-improved subway system and on the flip-side, the high-end housing glut.

But there are other areas where efforts, much less the supply, seemingly cannot keep pace with the demand. Beijing’s beleaguered healthcare system, a woeful lack of roads and the dwindling water supply are at the top this list; but for the city’s growing population of parents, perhaps most alarming is the Capital’s school situation.

A few weeks ago I blogged about a recent article in The Diplomat in which Jiang Xueqin, a writer and deputy principal at the Peking University High School, described how Shanghai’s school system is now considered the world’s best by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and compared it with Beijing’s school system (which comes up woefully short, I’m afraid to say).   

The differences cited (i.e. an emphasis on analytical and creative thinking in the curriculum, a system of "tangible awards" for faculty and administrators to improve the schools etc.) were eye opening.

Qualitative differences aside, one thing Beijing shares in common with Shanghai is a dearth of schools, both public and private – an unfortunate reality my family has learned first-hand after spending a year dealing with administrative problems at our daughter’s kindergarten (I’ll spare you the details).

Quite simply, we’ve found out that when it comes to schools in Beijing, it’s a seller’s market. Of course there are undoubtedly many caring and competent school faculty and administrators in this city; but it seems that there are just as many, if not more, who seemingly operate with impunity by routinely under-investing in competent teachers, facilities and educational resources (lord knows how higher-level regulators might also be personally profiting from all this).

In some ways, it’s easy to understand the jaded cynicism that some administrators must feel – for every disgruntled parent or problematic child they deal with there are probably ten families waiting just to get into the door – call it the "Surly Restaurant Waitstaff Effect." Small wonder that local parents often feel compelled to bribe teachers and administrators just to ensure their kid gets adequate attention.

I shouldn’t complain too much, my family is among the fortunate – at least we have a school for our daughter to attend (for now). The situation is even more dismal for less advantaged families, many of whom are migrant workers, in the Capital. The China Daily reports that around 14,000 students in the city are being affected by a campaign of school closures targeting "unsafe private schools:"

Since June, about 24 schools in Daxing, Chaoyang and Haidian districts have been shut down. With the new semester just days away, the parents of stranded students face a race against time to get them enrolled before classes restart … Reasons for the crackdown on private schools vary. The most common are that there is a lack of permits and that school buildings do not meet safety standards … According to safety standards, a school should be at least 15,000 square meters in size and have a floor space of at least 3,587 square meters, as well as a 200-meter track for sports. "Being realistic, no private school for migrant children can meet that standard," [says]Principal Yang Tuan, whose school was among those ordered to close this summer.

The motivations behind dealing with these schools, many of whom undoubtedly operate under less-than-stellar conditions, are justifiable to an extent – safety, health and administrative problems surely exist at these schools. But what’s befuddling is why local authorities are not constructively working with these schools to improve their facilities, as opposed to allegedly and simply shutting them down – under these conditions the affected students – many of whom have reportedly not been guaranteed placement in other schools – literally have nowhere else to go. Am I missing something here, or are not enough palms getting greased?

The article also cites one NGO worker’s claim that to date, only 63 such schools "have been approved by city authorities" – factor this in to a citywide population of some 20 million and it doesn’t take a math genius to figure out that we’ve got an alarming problem. A lack of adequate educational resources for such a large portion of the city’s population does not bode well for this society’s future, and it brings to mind what’s happened in the US after decades of educational decline (or closer to home, the chaos that erupted in China just a few decades ago). 

Perhaps I’m being too cynical, but I hate to think that this is just another case of "sweeping things under the rug" or, to be more precise, "sweeping undesirables from one pile to another" (e.g. we don’t want your kind around here so we are going to cut you off from the necessities of life). At this rate, such shortsightedness means we will eventually all pay a heavier price in the future – and I’m not just talking tuition.

More info: Chinese Migrant Workers Walled Off From Society (voa365.com)

Like rent, transportation and the cost of vegetables, international school tuition is quickly rising in Beijing.

The Global Times reported yesterday in a story on inflation that 2011/2012 tuitions posted on international school websites in Beijing were up by 10% or more from the previous year.

A quick reference check on a dozen of Beijing’s top international schools reveals annual 12th grade (or its equivalent) tuitions that range from RMB 110,000 to RMB 216,000, with a median price of RMB 198,500.

In US dollar terms, that’s a range of roughly $17,000 to $33,000, with a median of $30,500 for senior year of high school.

The comparison is somewhat arbitrary as most schools charge less for lower grades, and the myriad discounts on one end and additional fees on the other render a head-to-head comparison almost moot. However, one thing is clear: the cost of education is indeed going up. Quickly.

An influx of new school choices over the past few years (with more to come this year) has seemingly not affected the overall cost of the schools. With rising numbers of expat families considering Beijing a long-term home and an increasing number of Chinese opting out of the local school system, demand for spaces in these schools does not appear to be diminishing.

Rather than competing on price, Beijing’s international schools compete on offerings — world-class facilities, top-notch teachers recruited from overseas, and enrichment programs that make these schools not only educational facilities but centers of the family community.

 While the price is high, no doubt the quality is there. The only question being: if tuition continues to go up 10% a year, how much longer before the cost of living for expatriate families becomes too high to bear?