School students enjoy winter break as tutoring craze abates

The craze for tutoring courses among China's students was notably absent during this winter break following strong measures taken by authorities to end extracurricular academic tutoring, the Ministry of Education said on Thursday.

As of Feb 20, inspection officials have closed 10,100 tutoring institutions without operating licenses or teaching permits, it said in a notice.

Another 918 academic tutoring institutions and 4,218 nonacademic tutoring institutions with licenses and permits were also held accountable for violating regulations and some 1,000 one-on-one tutors have been reprimanded for offering academic tutoring during the winter vacation, it said.

To reduce the excessive academic burden on primary and secondary school students, academic tutoring has been banned during the winter and summer breaks, as well as on public holidays.

Authorities have conducted 150,000 rounds of online inspections to root out possible violations, and 503 tutors and two institutions have been punished, the ministry said.

Through concerted effort, both offline and online academic tutoring has been curtailed during the winter break and there was no evidence of advertising for such services.

The ministry added that it will continue to strengthen management of extracurricular tutoring and help local authorities conduct regular inspections and strengthen law enforcement on the sector.