“IPO” and “education” are two different animals, but they’re beginning to cohabitate in China and hopefully will procreate smarts BACK TO SCHOOL INC.: The New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. is recognized as the first Chinese school to be listed When the Beijing-based New Oriental School’s parent company went public in New York on September 7, it essentially nullified the oxymoron “rich teacher.”On the first day of New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc.’s IPO when its share value rose by 46.7 percent to close at $20.88, its educators, encouraged to invest, found that teaching is indeed a rewarding experience.
“Stimulated by people’s craze for learning English and going aboard, the New Oriental School grasped the opportunity and made a fortune out of it,” said Gu Mingyuan, a professor with Beijing Normal University.The New Oriental School is an extreme example of school privatization in which a school isn’t public―it goes public. But in a country that prizes education, many Chinese wonder whether schools so obviously interested in profit can do a proper job with their youth. The successful IPO of the New Oriental has shown the country that private education can be industrialized. But should it?
Aye for school IPOsFounded in 1993, the New Oriental School offers a wide range of educational programs, services and products consisting primarily of English and other foreign language training, test preparation courses for major admissions and assessment tests. By the end of May this year, the New Oriental School had trained more than 3 million students and established an extensive network of 25 schools, 111 learning centers, 13 bookstores, and 1,700 teachers in 24 cities.
The school’s virtual online network has approximately 2 million registered users. But perhaps the most impressive is its recent IPO.On that day, Yu Minhong, founder and president of New Oriental School, saw his assets soaring to $200 million overnight based on owning 31 percent of the stocks. As the New Oriental School also encourages its teachers to buy its shares, many of them also have become rich.For all the attention New Oriental got for its IPO, Yu remains a cool cat.
“I don’t know how much pressure I should bear at the present stage,” he said. “If I fail in the future, the New Oriental will be included as a negative case in MBA classes.”He has a reason for confidence: The IPO isn’t just a get-rich-quick scheme.
Many believe it has solid grounding.“The biggest benefit of the listing is that the school can collect much more money for its development,” said Sun Baoquan, professor with Beijing Geely University. “It is very inspiring for China’s money-thirsty private schools.”According to statistics from the Ministry of Education, by 2005, there were altogether 86,200 private schools and more than 29,000 private training institutions around the country.These statistics indicate that the number of China’s private educational institutions is not small. “However, their scale is mostly small with limited development potential due to a shortage of money,” said Sun. From 2002 to 2005, many of the private schools stopped operation as their teaching equipment was insufficient and could not meet the requirements of the Ministry of Education.Under such circumstances, many private schools and sociologists call for government fiscal support. But Yu insisted that the only way out for private schools is industrialization.What is industrialization?
Yu explained,“Industrialization means to earn more money from the market to stimulate the development of education.”And seeking development is what New Oriental does. Reportedly, its goal is to jump out of the niche market of English training to degree-based education. The New Oriental School also plans on forging an entire educational chain that would include the links of kindergarten, primary school, middle school and even higher education.Copycats are beginning to turn up too, as reportedly the Beijing-based 101 Distant Learning Center is taking on the project of being listed.Government is good SOCIETY FRIENDLY: While earning enormous money from the education market, New Oriental pays back society by establishing free community training classes Li Yumei, a teacher with the Beijing No. 15 Middle School (a public school), has given some thought to the listing effort of the New Oriental School.
“Our final conclusion is that we are different from the New Oriental School, and we have got different objectives in education,” Li Yumei said.
“We shoulder the responsibility of conducting compulsory education and are funded by the government. The New Oriental School, however, is a private school and earns money from education.”Regardless of New Oriental’s successful listing, the fact is that most teachers in China like Li will remain without shares in their schools.
“The New Oriental School’s IPO is just an individual case,” said Gu Mingyuan, professor with Beijing Normal University. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that once it is listed, all of our education segments should be listed, which is incoherent of our actual situation.”Basic education in many regions is far from sufficient, Gu said. The biggest problem is the shortage of educational funds, and some village schools do not even have public-school funds. Some schools owe salaries to teachers. The heavy economic burden on students’ parents has resulted in a considerable number of dropouts. Currently, the number of adult illiterates, above the age of 15, reaches as high as 100 million.
“A sad truth is that many cannot go to school because of poverty,” said Gu. “Therefore, at present, special attention should be focused on the development of basic education.”Beginning this year, the Chinese Government decided to implement completely free compulsory education in rural areas.Luo Yan, lecturer with Tsinghua University, pointed out that government-funded free compulsory education in rural areas can guarantee the implementation of basic education, while industrialized education could lead to more poor dropouts if schools tried to make money off of them.
The Chinese educational circle had once questioned whether education should be industrialized as they had seen that many schools posed arbitrary charges on students. Still, in 1998, the Chinese education brass reached a consensus that “education is a public product and can have features of an industry.”
As a result, many educational institutions treated education as an industry, which directly led to various arbitrary charges such as epidemic prevention fees.In 2003, the government identified altogether 853 million yuan of arbitrary charges, punished 2,488 offenders, and 359 headmasters were fired.
But in 2004, the National Bureau of Statistics revealed that arbitrary charges were still prevalent in 50 counties it had investigated. In 2005, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences issued the Blue Book of China’s Society, which revealed that many students dropped out of school due to poverty.The Chinese Ministry of Education itself has taken some measures to curb school industrialization, announcing that schools should not be industrialized. However, the ministry, adopting a “non-intervention” attitude toward private schools, did not prevent their industrialization effort.
It has become a hidden rule that public schools should not be industrialized but the private schools can.“When the country lacks sufficient educational funds, it is beneficial to develop education in an all-around way,” Gu said.
Middle school teacher Li suggests a compromise.“The government’s investment can guarantee the input of basic education, while the market can make sure that private education can get enough money,” Li said.