Interview with Channel News Asia: On China’s Private Education Ban

Article Published On: 7 August 2021

The date was 24 July 2021. The Chinese Communist Party made an earth-shattering announcement that it would ban all forms of private tutoring in the country. This decision put many education companies in China to the sword. Think Teach Academy, which has a presence in Shanghai and Beijing, was no doubt affected as well.

In an interview with Channel News Asia, co-founder Algene Tan shared that the academy had to think quickly on its feet. In less than a week, it flew all its teachers back to Singapore and moved all its tutoring in China online. While the academy still has a physical office in Shanghai, it remodelled its business in China from tutoring to consulting. In China, only university counselling is offered. Should students want to continue attending lessons, they can still do so online.

Our students have always been loyal. As a testament to our effective way of teaching, every student of ours opted to switch to online lessons. The most amazing part was that results in the IGCSE and IBDP examinations were not affected at all.