Chinese Economics Thread

[manqiangrexue]

So I have read more on the private tutoring education issue in China and I kinda agree on China's stance on this.

The only worrying thing is that by kicking out will reduce innovation on the education system. Yes yes I know that the pressure is too much for the students to handle but a middle point should be reached if possible.

China's private tutor education sector is very innovative. I am actually calling it more of a high-tech industry than a "normal" old school educational industry.

Maybe a middle point would be kicking out private enterprises on after class tutoring and instead use the public schools themselves to buy services from them in order to monitor the student's homework.

In this way the companies will be beholden to the gov and wont take extra time from the school as the school homework for the students would be integrated on their platforms

Then give the freedom to multiple schools districts (city-wide) to buy or use their "favourite" private company in order to create competition in the private and public sector.

IMO the key point is instead of having separate homework between school homework and private tutor companies, to merge these together in order to take less time and be more efficient. So that the only homework a student does is for the school and nothing else

So these expensive prep schools have two enormous problems:

First is that they make the cost of education too high, thus reducing the amount of people who are willing to have multiple children. And the reason that the cost is high is because these schools promise vast improvements in test scores making it nearly impossible for children who don't take these classes to compete with those who do. In that way, parents have no choice but to pay and everyone would rather have one prodigy kid than 2 or 3 who are mid-low tier in their classes.

The second issue stems from the first issue and that is that in order to produce these massive improvements in their scores that convince parents to hand over the big money, (over kids who already study the material very hard on their own, not over kids who don't study,) is to focus on teaching them skills that crack tests but are useless everywhere else. (Ex. Just look at the answer choices without the question, and use the differences amongst them to psychologically determine how the test-maker tried to trick you and where he hid the right answer.) This produces kids like my ex roommate, who scored a whopping 750 points (high 99th percentile) on the English section of the GRE, but ended up virtually unable to communicate in English, having difficulting understanding classes in the US and needing native English speakers to proof his disastrous essays when those people really only scored in the 500's (~70th percentile), sometimes even 400's.

The final combined effect is that parents reduce the number of children they have in order to raise kids who don't know how to do shit except find the correct multiple choice answers on a test without even trying to understand the questions. Needless to say, that's not good for China.

By making these prep classes non-profit, they can't charge egregious sums anymore and they lose the motivation to train kids on useless skills that elevate their scores without adding to their knowledge. This kills 2 birds with one stone; the parents now have more money and can consider more children, and the kids actually study the subject rather than test-maker psychology.

 

[Kaine]

So these expensive prep schools have two enormous problems:

First is that they make the cost of education too high, thus reducing the amount of people who are willing to have multiple children. And the reason that the cost is high is because these schools promise vast improvements in test scores making it nearly impossible for children who don't take these classes to compete with those who do. In that way, parents have no choice but to pay and everyone would rather have one prodigy kid than 2 or 3 who are mid-low tier in their classes.

The second issue stems from the first issue and that is that in order to produce these massive improvements in their scores that convince parents to hand over the big money, (over kids who already study the material very hard on their own, not over kids who don't study,) is to focus on teaching them skills that crack tests but are useless everywhere else. This produces kids like my ex roommate, who scored a whopping 750 points on the English section of the GRE, but end up having difficulting understanding classes in the US and needing native English speakers to proof his essays when those people really only scored in the 500's, sometimes even 400's.

The final combined effect is that parents reduce the number of children they have in order to raise kids who don't know how to do shit except find the correct multiple choice answers on a test without even understanding the questions. Needless to say, that's not good for China.

By making these prep classes non-profit, they can't charge egregious sums anymore and they lose the motivation to train kids on useless skills that elevate their scores without adding to their knowledge. This kills 2 birds with one stone; the parents now have more money and can consider more children, and the kids actually study the subject rather than test-maker psychology.

Thanks for the well-thought answer, i completely agree with all of your points.

Is there a possible way to retain that private education high-tech innovation going while retaining the advantages of being a non-profit entity?

I personally see a bright future for creating personalised AI-driven homework, tutoring, for each student. I think this would unlock great productivity gains for the educational sector while also maximising the learning potential for each student.

Most probably in the end it will be about putting the edu-innovation ecosystem under the state, in order to maximise the advantages (which you mentioned above) of kicking out the private sector from this business while also retaining the important high tech education innovation (with a relatively lower efficiency if it is under the state)

 

[manqiangrexue]

Thanks for the well-thought answer, i completely agree with all of your points.

Is there a possible way to retain that private education high-tech innovation going while retaining the advantages of being a non-profit entity?

I personally see a bright future for creating personalised AI-driven homework, tutoring, for each student. I think this would unlock great productivity gains for the educational sector while also maximising the learning potential for each student.

Most probably in the end it will be about putting the edu-innovation ecosystem under the state, in order to maximise the advantages (which you mentioned above) of kicking out the private sector from this business while also retaining the important high tech education innovation (with a relatively lower efficiency if it is under the state)

Exactly, it needs to be put under the state, because the interests of the state are aligned with China's interests so they can use all that high tech and innovation to teach kids what they need to learn and develop ways to assess true progress. This will train students who actually have the knowledge to apply to helping China while allowing parents to afford multiple children.

When big money is put into the hands of these private companies, it's a perpetual struggle of getting past the ways they come up with to hack your tests so that kids spend the minimum amount of effort to achieve the highest scores even if that means teaching them skills that are not applicable to real life. They, and the students, do not have the nation's interest in mind; they both want to beat the system and take what is not due. So the best solution is to cripple the private companies and teach the kids real knowledge instead of cheap tricks.

 

[Kaine]

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In the rental sector, violations include providing consumer loans for tenants to pay rent, offering higher rent to landlords than amounts collected from tenants, demanding long-term rental payments of as much as a year while paying landlords on a monthly or quarterly basis, failure to manage rent in accordance with regulations and failure to publicly disclose property management fees and expenses, according to the notice.

 

[KYli]

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[Bellum_Romanum]

China to build Pudong into global financial hub on par with London, Manhattan
Pioneer of socialist modernization to rival London, Manhattan

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[DarkStar]

China to build Pudong into global financial hub on par with London, Manhattan
Pioneer of socialist modernization to rival London, Manhattan

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Now, if the anglos bankers want Chinese money, they’re going to have to come to China and be subject to the laws of the people’s republic.
Whither, New York and London, twin towers of white supremacy

 

[siegecrossbow]

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Seems like they are going with the deleveraging route while the rest of the world keep blowing the speculative bubble.

 

[gadgetcool5]

China to build Pudong into global financial hub on par with London, Manhattan
Pioneer of socialist modernization to rival London, Manhattan

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What makes London and Manhattan influential is that not only UK and US companies go there to list, but many foreign companies choose to seek finance there. If China wants similar status for Pudong then you would see not just Chinese companies but for instance Southeast Asian companies or even further afield listing in Shanghai.

 

[Strangelove]

China to build Pudong into global financial hub on par with London, Manhattan
Pioneer of socialist modernization to rival London, Manhattan

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Last year Vanguard closed it's Hong Kong office and relocated senior staff to Shanghai, while Goldman Sachs is now making 400+ new hires for its SH office.