Chinese parents spend big on online English tutors

[Photo: from VCG]

Chinese parents are willing to spend a fortune on English tutoring for their kids, regardless of their financial situation.

In big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, parents are turning to online tutors instead of sending their children to a language school.

A recent report, released by the Chinese Academy of Sciences big data mining and knowledge management laboratory, is based on a year of study, following more than 200,000 young learners and their parents, and over 30,000 North American tutors on China's three biggest online English tutoring platforms.

According to the report VIPKID, 51talk and vipJr jointly make up 80% of the market in China and the average age of online learners is six.

Of the surveyed parents, 73 percent said they spend at least 10,000 yuan (1,580 U.S. dollars) on online English classes each year and they prefer to hire tutors from North America, believing them to have good pronunciation and lively teaching styles. Many parents hope their children will attend university in the United States or Canada.

[The audio clip is from Studio+, produced by CRI] 

(News source: Xinhua)