The English Lesson, Suspended or Cancelled?

More than 100,000 teachers across America were fired or left their jobs this summer. Many are awake at night wondering if they can even say goodbye to their students. They had worked in an invisible industry teaching students in China, until July 20, 2021, when the Chinese government announced new regulations, intended to spur population growth and social equality, but that also made their jobs untenable. These teachers were employed by Chinese companies as independent contractors to deliver online English classes. Many of the companies are owned by larger Chinese firms with values in the billions like Tencent, New Oriental Education, TAL Education Group and ByteDance. This is a story of loss: — lost jobs, lost education, lost cross-cultural personal relations. However, the government action might in the long run create a better regulated industry that services the full population.