Chinese tutor changed job after being banned from teaching

Dong Yuhui became an English tutor of New Oriental Education and Technology Group right after graduating from university. Now, after eight years of teaching about 500,000 students, Dong, 28, works as a livestreamer selling agricultural products.

“It was not easy to decide to do this job because I am passionate about teaching and very good at my field,” said Dong.

Summer and winter break used to be the busiest times for tutors, so for the past few years, Dong hasn’t been home for the Lunar New Year. One year, Dong’s parents invited Dong to the house for the year-end dinner, but he refused. The next day, on New Year’s Day, they brought homemade dumplings outside the classroom.

“I ate dumplings while crying. Although it was exhausting to teach classes for nearly 12 hours a day during the holidays, the high appreciation of students and parents was satisfying enough,” Dong shared.

Two years after joining a private education company, Dong became the head of the English teaching research team in the Xi’an branch, Shaanxi province, of New Oriental. In 2019, Dong moved to Beijing and was promoted to dean of the English department at Koolearn, the online education division of New Oriental.

But at the end of last year, Dong changed to a new job, working as a livestreamer at Dongfang Zhenxuan, Koolearn’s live streaming platform, after the government tightened tutoring.

In compliance with the government’s “double reduction” policy, New Oriental ended its tutoring activities for students at the end of last year. In a recent post on WeChat, Yu Minhong, founder and president of New Oriental, announced it had laid off more than 60,000 employees. He said severance payments, tuition refunds and the cost of tenancy agreements amounted to nearly 20 billion yuan ($3 billion).

Most of the employees in Dong’s former division received severance pay and left the company. “I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I feel ashamed that so many colleagues have lost their jobs and can’t do anything,” Dong said.

Dong explained, he stayed because he wanted to do the right thing, helping farmers sell their produce. He was born in a village in Shaanxi and felt an obligation to contribute to the survival of the countryside.

Becoming an online direct seller is more difficult than Dong imagined. “There were personal attacks about my appearance, complaints from people who bought shares of the company (Koolearn) and lost money,” he said.

He told himself to focus on explaining the stories behind the product and the farmer, not paying attention to the negative comments. However, that is not easy. Dong finds it a pity to give up so easily, while his original desire – to help the farmers – remains unchanged.

“I’m still confident about my future. Whenever I find it too hard to move on, I go for a walk or read a book,” Dong said.

From a math tutor to a mom

Late last year, Zhang Limei’s 10 years as a math tutor and teaching researcher at TAL Education Group came to an abrupt end. Zhang is now a full-time mother, taking care of two children. Her oldest child is in elementary school, and her younger son is only two years old.

Zhang had planned to take a break from teaching to take care of her children, but was passionate about her work, so she still worked until a few days before the birth of her second child. Her company started laying off employees at the end of August last year. “It was difficult for me to say goodbye. I had a lot of good memories at the company,” Zhang recalls.

September 10 is Teachers’ Day in China, and Zhang’s colleagues got together to celebrate their last event as a team. Many people burst into tears knowing that it would be difficult for them to see each other again.

Since leaving the company, Zhang has focused most of her time on taking care of her young child and taking her older child to school.

Hope disappears

Teng Ya’nan stores many photos and videos of former students in his phone. Teng loves teaching at 51 Talk, an online English teaching platform. The working environment here is good, the tutors are all in their 20s like him. Teng is also satisfied with the salary earned. He hoped the company would make changes in line with government requirements so he could continue working as a teacher, but that hope did not materialize.

Teng joined the company in Wuhan, Hubei province, in 2017 and left in early November last year. “For the first few days after I quit my job, I felt very happy because I was able to enjoy some free time,” Teng said. “However, anxiety and boredom started to appear as time went on.”

He has to pay the rent on his current house and the mortgage on the apartment he bought in Wuhan. Staying at home for a month, Teng started looking for a new job, but it wasn’t easy.

After applying to dozens of companies and being interviewed by several places, Teng decided to work as a headhunting consultant for international companies. The job requires a high level of English.

“The current salary is lower than before but I have to close because it’s the best option I have,” Teng said.

Dawn (According to China Daily)