China's Ministry of Education requires local departments to pay close attention to students who receive homeschooling or education in private schools, emphasizing that any form of teaching cannot take the place of compulsory education.
The notice released at the official website of the ministry on Feb 22, 2017, stresses that all the children and teenagers must receive compulsory education.
For those who need to quit school for causes like physical disadvantages, their parents and legal guardians should file an application and get approval from the local education authority, says the document. No student should receive homeschooling to replace compulsory education without permission.
It is estimated that the country has exceeding 3000 private schools. There are about 18000 home-schooled children in the mainland China, according to a report published by the 21st Century Education Research Institute in 2013. The report shows that the five major reasons why these families choose homeschooling are "disagreement with the education philosophy of public schools", "slow teaching progress at schools", "inadequate respect to children in schools", "children's boredom of campus life " and "religious reasons", respectively.
Currently the province with the most homeschooling families is Guangdong, followed by Zhejiang and Beijing. An education expert claims the main distribution of these families in the east China is related to the high cultural and economic levels and open education concept of the public in these areas.
Translated by Karen Luo
