Author(s)

Xiaoyang Du

Corresponding Author

Xiaoyang Du

ABSTRACT

With the development of economy and society in China, the education policies have changed a lot during these years. Students seem to suffer from increasingly more pressure in terms of their education as they face a more competitive labour market in the near future, they have to study harder to let themselves have more possibilities to win. Recently, based on the current situation, Chinese government has issued a new policy named double reduction policy (Shuang Jian policy) which aims to ease the burden of students for excessive homework and off-campus tutoring for students undergoing compulsory education. This paper focuses on assessing the effectiveness of policies aiming to reduce the involution in the compulsory education level in China. The paper introduces the problems caused by the involution and the current policies implemented by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. In addition, the similar policies in South Korea are also introduced to make a comparison. The proposed methods used to compare the effectiveness of these policies are questionnaire and a literature review approach. The results obtained in this article indicate that the compulsory education policy in China is less effective in reducing the advanced teaching and excessive extracurricular tutoring compared to South Korea. It should focus on improving the entrance system in middle school and the equal distribution of high quality educational resource, which would also create more opportunities for the expansion in higher education, training and development of teachers, and introduction of new tutoring mechanisms.

KEYWORDS

Effectiveness, Compulsory Education Reform, South Korea