The introduction of this policy has triggered a "strong earthquake" in the education and training industry. On August 29th, the stock price fell to $6.97 in intraday trading, the lowest since listing. It closed down 13. 10% to $7.30 per share. These days, I have been thinking about the stock price, and Ambow Education has been dragged down by this. Some people even worry that a paper order will determine the survival or abolition of a market.
The interest chain of key school teachers and even education administrative departments participating in the "blending" is also exposed. The underlying problem is the scarcity and uneven distribution of quality education resources. There is a view that: "The Olympic Mathematics training industry was born in response to the market, and it is this abnormal educational situation that has made this market."
In fact, the current Olympic Mathematics has long been out of the category of thinking training and hobby training. It has become a tool for parents and students to choose famous schools and elite students, and it has also become an externalized commodity for some schools, training institutions and teachers to "make money". This alienated market has reached such a horrible level: almost 100% of primary school students in Beijing Xicheng and Haidian have enrolled in the Olympic Mathematics class, and many have even enrolled in more than one class. In order to get more qualifications for the selection of famous schools, they have to study in multiple classes in different times.
The olympiad has always been utilitarian.
If the Olympic math scores are no longer the "stepping stone" of prestigious schools, the Olympic math fever will naturally subside and return to the normal hobby training category, and the market will naturally not be so big.
Today's olympiad has gone bad.
Olympic Mathematics is the abbreviation of "Olympic Mathematics Competition", and there are organizations like chinese mathematical society Olympic Competition Committee, which aim to cultivate middle school students' interest in mathematics, improve students' logical reasoning ability, and discover and select mathematical elites.
Today, Olympic Mathematics has become a tool for junior high school and college entrance examination, and its utility is becoming more and more obvious. This way of forced learning in order to achieve the goal is not only difficult to stimulate children's interest in learning, but also to cultivate children's ability to explore actively, and even has the opposite effect, which has become the chief culprit to stifle children's interest in mathematics. What's more, it is a disaster-ridden "primary school olympiad".
"Haidian and Xicheng learn basics, and other districts basically don't learn. For example, there are many people in Chaoyang but they don't learn. " Jin Rui, a consultant of Beijing Xiaoshengchu and a teacher of Olympic Mathematics who works in a large education and training institution, told the reporter of China Business News that there are10.5 million students in Haidian and 7,000 students in Xicheng. In his view, the atmosphere in other districts is too bad for many reasons, such as busy work, disapproval, going abroad and so on. In fact, due to various reasons such as history, Beijing's high-quality primary and secondary education resources are mainly concentrated in Xicheng District and Haidian District.
Qi Yan, another assistant entrepreneur in primary and secondary schools who graduated from Tsinghua, also believes that the primary school Olympic math business is mainly concentrated in Haidian and Xicheng District. "There are almost no students who don't study in these two districts. Some students even signed up for several courses at the same time, just to get more qualifications for a prestigious school. In the class with 100 people, only 20 people attend classes, because children can't all go to class, so they can only choose some classes. "
Qi Yan himself won the Olympic Mathematics Award in middle school. He mainly provided one-on-one tutoring for students. His survival rule is to let the quality of teaching speak, and parents pass it on from mouth to mouth. Because it is not as good as a training institution with background, his school has no famous schools to recommend.
Behind the crazy phenomenon of Olympic Mathematical Training is the competition for admission tickets to prestigious schools. In Qi Yan's view, parents are willing to spend more money to enroll in several classes at the same time because the cost is less than the opportunity cost of losing a prestigious school.
Olympic Mathematics Training originated from 1998. At that time, Beijing carried out education reform, and "Xiaoshengchu" cancelled the unified examination and changed to "computer allocation" to enter the school nearby. Some parents don't want their children to go to weak schools, and key schools don't want to accept "computer-assigned students" in order to compete for outstanding students. Therefore, training schools focusing on Olympic Mathematics training have played a role in selecting students for key middle schools.
With the help of commercial power, the close relationship between Olympic Mathematics and Xiaoshengchu has been continuously strengthened. Only 5% of children with extraordinary intelligence are suitable for learning Olympic Mathematics. The reality has evolved into that most students regard Olympic Mathematics as a tool for further study.
The logic of parents is to give students who have no right or money a fairer chance to go to a prestigious school through the channel of Olympic Mathematics than to choose a school with rights and money. Children suffer from childhood, but it is better to learn Olympic mathematics than not to learn it well, and they have the opportunity to enter a prestigious school.
According to the survey report "How to Deal with the School-choosing Fever in Beijing's Junior Middle Schools: What to Do" compiled by the 20th Century Education Research Institute in September, 2 1 1, less than 50% of compulsory schools in Dongcheng, Xicheng and Haidian areas of Beijing advocate the deployment of computers nearby, among which the High School Attached to the National People's Congress and Tsinghua University are among them.
The survey results of this report also show that more than 90% of parents who occupy pit classes spend more than 8,000 yuan a year, and most students who occupy pit classes will choose about two or three, and the cost of occupying pit classes is only a small part of the cost of junior high school. I also have to take courses in many training institutions headed by Gauss, Learning and Thinking, and Giants, including separate "rescue classes" for parents (parents hire teachers to teach according to their children's learning needs). The cost of each course is about 2000 ~ 3000 yuan/session, and 4 sessions are * * * 8000 yuan ~ 12000 yuan/year.
Correspondingly, an intricate interest chain can be formed. The class fee for Olympic Mathematics training in primary schools is even higher than that for secondary schools.
"Training institutions were born to cope with the market. There is nothing wrong with Olympic math training itself. Taking it as the entrance threshold is the result of unbalanced educational resources. It is a misunderstanding that society pushes this responsibility to training institutions. " Zhao Xiaolin, vice president of Anbo Education Group 1 and dean of Anbo Elite College, told the reporter that if the results of Olympic Mathematics are no longer the "stepping stone" of famous schools, the popularity of Olympic Mathematics will naturally go down and return to the normal hobby training category, and the market will naturally not be so big.
Campus darkness
Training institutions have very deep ties with some famous schools, and their interests are the same. At the same time, there are some gray operating spaces underground. For example, private Olympic Mathematics training institutions have some "blending" with some famous schools and leaders.
In view of the increasingly popular Olympic Mathematics training, under the pressure of public opinion, the Ministry of Education issued a document on 200 1 prohibiting public schools from selecting students with Olympic Mathematics scores, and private schools are not allowed to have Olympic Mathematics test questions. However, despite the ban, the Olympic Mathematical Training is still in full swing and vigorous.
As the person in charge of the Beijing Municipal Education Commission said, Beijing has always explicitly opposed and prohibited any form of discipline competition in compulsory education. On 20 1 1 year, the Notice on Prohibiting Organizing Students to Participate in Disciplinary Competitions in Compulsory Education Stage was issued again, clearly requiring that the results of Olympic Mathematics should not be used as the entrance condition for junior high school students.
But the market still exists, and it has been repeatedly banned. After the strike hard, the Olympic Mathematical Training revived.
According to the aforementioned report, all famous schools have their own counterpart training schools, such as Renmin University High School and Beijing Renhua School, Tsinghua High School and Shui Mu Longhua School, Peking University High School and Peking University Primary School, Weiming School, Beijing No.4 Middle School and No.4 Middle School Online School, and No.4 Middle School Training Department. Only when you enter a training school can you be "recruited" into a prestigious school and "occupy the pit". Many students enter the training school through exams from the third grade of primary school, and continue to test, screen and rank in the following years. Only top students in grade six can enter key middle schools.
In addition, Beijing Xicheng District Teachers' Association is a "pit-occupying class" in Beijing Xicheng Experimental Middle School, Beijing No.8 Middle School, Sanfan Middle School and No.35 Middle School, and this training and education institution is in charge of Xicheng District Education Committee. Olympiad Education is the focus of all "pit classes" except English. This also gave birth to off-campus training and Olympic Mathematical Competition. In fact, the "pit class" is only taught in large classes, and the tuition is relatively cheap, mainly to explain the test sites. If students want to fully grasp the knowledge points, they must go to the off-campus training class to make up lessons.
Since the results of the "Welcome to Spring Cup" math competition with official background became the passport to enter key middle schools, there have been "Tongfang Cup", "Resource Cup", "Yuanming Cup" and "Chengda Cup". It is worth noting that the "Learning and Thinking Cup" and "Giant Cup" organized by training institutions are becoming more and more important in "junior high school". For example, the number of participants in the third "Giant Cup" held in May 2009 was close to15,000, and the cup results became an important basis for participating in activities such as "Xiaoshengchu" walking, "Xiaoshengchu" recommendation and Renhua school examination.
"Training institutions have very deep ties with some prestigious schools and their interests are the same." Yang Dongping, Dean of the 20th Century Institute of Education and a professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, once pointed out. There are still some gray operation spaces underground, such as private Olympic Mathematics training institutions, which have some "blending" with some famous schools and leaders.
In the past, the management of Olympic Mathematics training was like traffic control, and it would be all right after a while. However, this crackdown in Beijing came a bit "suddenly".
"Although it is overdone, the so-called chaotic times use heavy code, but we support the government's decision, the company has also issued documents to stop Olympic training." Zhao Xiaolin said that there are still institutions waiting to see, but the Olympic Games will no longer be the focus of our development.
According to an insider of another large organization, the Olympic Mathematics training class has just changed the name of a thinking training class, so it goes on as usual. "So many teachers have to eat."
Hou Ruiqi, a senior consultant of Hejun Consulting Co., Ltd., who specializes in education and training, believes that famous schools exist because there are smart students. If there is no zoning, it will be difficult for the Olympic Games to stop. Without the Olympics, there will be other tools for selecting top students, and Olympic training will go from underground to the ground.
At the request of the interviewee, Jin Rui and Qi Yan are both pseudonyms.
Reporter's notes
Grab a place, not only for the Olympics but also for the dead.
Olympiad became a rat crossing the street, and everyone shouted.
As we all know, the problem is not the Olympiad itself. The Olympic Mathematics is just a tool and symbol, a screening tool for re-authorization of schools after the abolition of the unified examination, and a utilitarian symbol.
Wang Xuming, a former spokesperson of the Ministry of Education, said in Weibo that it needs to be clear that there is nothing wrong with the Olympiad, that there is nothing wrong with those who study it, and that there is nothing wrong with those who cultivate it. The fault lies in those who take the Olympics as the threshold, and those schools and departments should put them to death!
Indeed, the Olympiad has been alienated into a tool, which is a terrible thing. The main reason for opposing everyone's study of Olympic Mathematics is that something suitable for only a few people is universally applicable, which is also scientifically unfounded.
Parents of children are also very helpless: Olympiad has become the only way for many parents to enter prestigious schools. "Special students", "* * * Jiansheng" and "striped students" have no chance with them. Compared with choosing schools with strength and money, Olympiad at least chooses schools with strength.
Should it become a national Olympic mathematics in order to get into a prestigious school? No!
Two years ago, Yong Peng, a teacher of Olympic Mathematics, showed readers what he saw in the book "Olympic Mathematics is a scapegoat-don't let each generation get tired": children's life in and out of class, the contest between society and family, and the entanglement between environment and personality ... He questioned the so-called scientific and technological progress and social development from two levels of experience and theory, telling us that behind the phenomenon of Olympic Mathematics is the pathological structure of commodity society and industrial civilization system.
He said: "It is people who torture children, not problems. Olympiad is a scapegoat! " If the whole society is smelling the smell of money, and the life of adults is getting more and more tense, then the pressure will of course be transmitted, and the pain will not linger locally, which will inevitably lead to more fatigue from generation to generation. On this road of pursuit, the workload and knowledge of the whole people are increasing day by day, but the more tired they are, the more they want to get rid of all this and fall into a new vicious circle. "
Yes, we should reflect. It's not just Olympic math training. In the process of junior high school, Olympic Mathematical Training has formed its own complete chain. However, if we extend this chain to both ends, we will see utilitarian us.
In fact, behind the Olympic Mathematics is the distorted educational status quo. On the one hand, the college entrance examination is a big stick, and there is a difference between key and non-key middle schools. On the other hand, it is contradictory to think about the fairness and non-competitiveness of compulsory education.
If the equalization of educational resources is not realized, the Olympics will be like an invincible Xiao Qiang, and it will be "the wildfire will never go out and the spring breeze will blow high". At most, change to a number one and then debut, and then "Aoying" and "Aoyu" will be reloaded.