Beijing curtails expansion of after-school classes

Beijing education authorities announced on Tuesday that no more after-school training institutions will be approved for teaching primary and middle school students whose parents are pushing them to improve their performance in a particular subject.

Existing programs can continue as long as they meet standards, but all of them will be reviewed, they said.

The new rule was made to prevent young students from being overloaded with academic work. Li Yi, spokesman for the Beijing Education Commission, said at a news conference that Beijing will continue to take steps to ease the burden heaped on children in the form of additional homework required by private teachers outside of regular school.

"The training institutions should not take up holidays, weekends or vacation time in winter or summer to teach," he said. "Nor should they go public for financing."

He added that the public schools themselves will increase their services to meet demand from students, such as providing after-class services to help with homework or other activities.

Beijing's Haidian district, where most training institutions are located, announced that it will hold job fairs to help employees of education institutions find new jobs as needed.

Previously, the commission had asked schools to offer day care services for students in grades one to five during summer vacation to ease the burden of parents.