In July of 2021, the Chinese central government enacted new regulations, ostensibly designed to reduce the burden of the nation’s young students. The crackdown, known as the Double Reduction Policy, took aim at extracurricular tutoring businesses whose rising popularity in the competitive Chinese educational landscape saw scores of children locked into intensive and isolating educational commitments for up to seven days a week. With the introduction of the regulations, the employment of international teachers within China became increasingly scrutinized, and foreign educators in the digital space were outlawed in a single line of legislative text. As the pandemic continues, understandings of experiences outside of one’s own community remain as vital as ever, but are becoming increasingly inaccessible due to restricted movement, and are only foreclosed more firmly by global educational reforms that limit students’ scope.
I had left a job teaching for a Beijing-based, online tutoring platform a week before the new policy took effect.
