Ministry to punish illegal schools over curriculum problems

Providers of training courses that failed to give children compulsory education in primary and middle schools will be punished according to the law, the Ministry of Education said on Monday in a notice on school enrollment in 2019.

In recent years, institutions offered training courses for learning Chinese culture under the guise of "Sishu" (traditional private schools), "Guoxue classrooms" (classrooms of traditional Chinese thought) and "Classics reading classrooms" (classrooms for learning Chinese classical works).

The training courses are only extracurricular, not compulsory education. Most of the institutions have no licenses to run schools offering compulsory education and issuing official diplomas.

The ministry has asked the education authorities at all levels to search for and seriously deal with those training institutions offering training courses instead of compulsory education.

In addition, without reasonable cause, parents or statutory guardians who haven't sent their children of school age to attend compulsory education or who made them drop out will also be punished according to the law.

The official notice aims to regulate and guide the 2019 primary school and middle school enrollment work. Other detailed rules are included in the notice, such as not allowing compulsory schools to be selective about candidates or to lure students with material rewards or false advertising.