Save The Whale Class: Survival Samples Of Online Education Under "Double Reduction"

Overnight, online Youth English organization whale class exploded. On the evening of August 18, a user suddenly found that the original online foreign teacher 1-on-2 course system suddenly failed to open.

Due to the "double reduction" policy, it is strictly prohibited to employ foreign personnel to carry out training activities. In early August, online Youth English institutions, including vipkid, 51talk and whale class, have stopped recruiting and renewing courses for overseas foreign teachers. However, other institutions still promise that old users can consume the purchased courses.

People familiar with the matter told the 21st century economic report that this was actually a sudden technical accident, "the original foreign teacher course system collapsed.". When the user found that the system could not be opened, the whale class issued an urgent announcement at 0:00 on August 19 to announce the suspension of the course, and launched a compliant live broadcast course for domestic and foreign teachers four days later.

This has aroused the dissatisfaction of users. Under the rumors of running away, a large number of users ask for refund, and the situation is about to evolve into a run. Although the whale class completed 120 million yuan financing in February this year, it did not make profits under the rapid expansion business model, and there was insufficient cash on the account.

With the intervention of regulatory authorities and industry associations, the whale class is the first in the industry to transform passively, replacing the compliance courses in an all-round way, and introducing public welfare assistance courses from dozens of other institutions. The success of the transformation of whale class has attracted the attention of the whole online foreign teachers industry.

However, parents' dissatisfaction still exists because it is difficult to start the refund substantively. Although the new curriculum is compliant, whether it can be recognized by the market is the key to the survival of the whale class and even the whole industry.

Domestic and foreign teachers live class is actually just a response to the pressure of compliance, whether it meets the needs of users has not been verified. Visual China

A sudden drop

The whale class was established by a group of parents on the parent-child forum. It was officially founded in 2012. It used the names of the northern lights online school and Rouzhi English.

In 2016, softwood English was transformed into a corporate operation and renamed as whale class in 2018. It provides courses from zero basis, PreK, GK to G10 for young children aged 3-18.

When the mainstream online foreign teacher institutions mainly focus on the 1-to-1 mode, the whale class early launched the 1-to-2 mode, adopting the three fixed mode of "fixed foreign teachers, fixed peers and fixed timetable".

At the beginning of 2017, whale troupe obtained the pre-A round financing of 15 million yuan from Shanhang capital. Since then, revenue and the number of students have increased by two or three times a year.

"Double reduction" brings the online foreign teachers industry to an abrupt end. Vipkid announced that it would not sell or renew courses involving foreign teachers from August 7 and 9, respectively. 51talk will no longer sell foreign teachers' courses from August 9.

In fact, the transformation of the whale class was earlier. On August 6, it announced that it would no longer sell foreign teachers' courses, and announced that it would launch live classes for domestic and foreign teachers the next day.

But the whale class went too fast. On August 18, the original foreign teacher class was suddenly interrupted. Other organizations in the industry claim that regular users can sell classes to the end. People familiar with the matter told the 21st century economic report that "the interruption of the old course is really sudden, because the technical system suddenly fails, so that the old course is offline without notifying the user.".

Whale class has been haunted by rumors of "running away". Under the worry of "double reduction", on the one hand, whale group has laid off staff, on the other hand, the number of user consultation has soared, resulting in users' inability to contact the company, which further stimulates emotions.

Wu Chong (not his real name) just reported to his two children about the whale class in early July“ One reason is that children go to bilingual kindergartens and like to communicate with foreign teachers. The other reason is that sales are "bombarded" and there is a discount for registration Wu Chong bought 120 classes for each of the two children, with a total price of 45600 yuan. Adding in the lessons he had not finished before, there was still more than 60000 yuan.

Another user "DOMA" told 21st century economic report that among her users of whale class, more of them bought 120 classes, and the regular price was about 24000 yuan.

This is in violation of the "Implementation Opinions on standardizing off campus online training" issued by the Ministry of education and other six departments, which stipulates that if fees are charged according to class hours, each subject shall not charge more than 60 class hours at a time; If the fees are charged according to the training cycle, the fees with a time span of more than 3 months shall not be charged at one time.

Rescue stranded whales

After the crisis, refund became a problem. Many users reported that the whale class will not be refunded.

Whale class said on August 12 that it is usually difficult for a teaching and training institution to support most users to refund their fees. After that, he said through an open letter that the refund application submitted at present has formed a run on the institution, and it is difficult to support such a large amount of refund in the short term. "We need time to relieve the pressure of funds, and we really can't give a definite refund time.".

Although the revenue of whale class has exceeded 400 million yuan in 2019, and completed the B + round of financing with a total amount of 120 million yuan in February this year, it has not yet announced its profit. Online education is a "money burning" industry, and the cost of acquiring customers has reached thousands of yuan, especially the business model of 1-to-2 live broadcasting has not been verified.

The whale class said in the open letter that the external environment has changed dramatically. Since the original foreign teachers' courses have been suspended in accordance with the regulations, the company's funds have only been unable to come in, and the pressure on funds is indeed quite large.

Wu Chong told the 21st century economic report, "it is not the whale troupe that faces the problem of fee refund. However, the whale team has not announced how many people have been refunded from the beginning to the end. According to the number of the queue, it just keeps us waiting. As a matter of fact, we can accept the sincerity and attitude expressed by a part of it. "

The 21st century economic reporter has learned that at present, only sporadic refund has been carried out for the whale Squadron, but the procedural and large-scale refund has not yet been started.

"There are special regulatory measures for the leaders and funds of the whale squadron. They can't run away." Liu Lin, President of China Private Education Association, told reporters. A special working group has been set up between the association and the whale class. In addition to holding regular meetings at 10:30 every night, the association can communicate with the new situation and new issues at any time.

The rescue of whale squad has become the first in-depth "rescue" case of regulatory authorities since the "double reduction". Under the guidance of government departments, China Private Education Association recently set up a pre Litigation Mediation Center for conflicts and disputes in off campus training. Whale class became the first party to mediate disputes.

The 21st century economic reporter also learned that the Beijing Municipal Education Commission has been deeply involved in the dispute mediation and transformation of the whale class.

In a very passive situation, the whale class began to transform. The measure is to launch live teaching for domestic and foreign teachers. According to the filing information in June 2020, the number of foreign teachers in the whale class is 785. The number of domestic and foreign teachers is far from meeting the demand. According to people familiar with the situation, under the coordination of the competent authorities, more than 100 foreign teachers entered the country to teach in an emergency manner.

The whale class previously used the original version of the national geographic learning press's reach textbook. In order to meet the requirement of "strictly forbidding the provision of overseas education courses" in the "double reduction" policy, self-developed courses were urgently launched.

Another compliance measure is the price. English is recognized as a subject training, and the government guided price will be implemented in the future. At present, the unit price of 200 yuan will be greatly reduced. The unit price of the new course is 35 yuan.

However, in the case of mine explosion, the one-time payment has been unable to adhere to. According to the introduction of parents, users agree that after the transfer of classes, there are 120, 240 classes in the new class package, which exceed the specified specifications, and can purchase more than one copy at a time.

Under the coordination of China Private Education Association, XRS, ape tutoring, walnut programming, Netease Youdao and other institutions have carried out public welfare mutual aid for whale classes. Users can transfer the remaining tuition fees into the courses of these institutions. For preschool users, they can change courses with offline institutions such as Libu and Qinhan Hutong.

As of September 1, 17000 people had exchanged courses, according to officials. According to people familiar with the situation, two thirds of them chose the new course of whale class.

Some parents are still dissatisfied with the change of classes. Wu Chong told the 21st century economic reporter, "some of the courses that can be exchanged need to make up for the price difference, some have a very short validity period, some need to make up a certain number of people to start classes, some are higher than the market price, and some are not high quality AI courses."

"When I change classes, I feel forced to buy and sell. For example, I went to customize a high-end home appliance and paid all the money. Then the seller broke the contract and gave me a bunch of small goods presented by other stores. The value was low and did not match my needs." Wu Chong said.

Can the product meet the demand

The compliant live teaching of domestic and foreign teachers is the future of whale class, and the whole industry is watching this product.

The newly launched live class for domestic and foreign teachers is difficult to be satisfactory soon“ The new course is a 1-on-6 model. There is no interaction between teachers and students in a class of 30 minutes. If the signal is not unstable, I would think it is a recording class. " Li Yi, a user who chose to change classes, said.

Li Yi told reporters, "the biggest feeling is that the progress is fast, some knowledge points have not been explained clearly on the next content, children listen to the clouds."

In fact, the teaching and research personnel of the whale class "Lurk" in some parents' rights groups, and the complaints in the group become the channels for them to listen to product feedback, and then quickly transform them into improvement plans. Compared with 1-to-2, the 1-to-6 class mode requires higher requirements for teaching research and courseware.

Domestic and foreign teachers live class is actually just a response to the pressure of compliance, whether it meets the needs of users has not been verified. Up to now, the new course has not been sold, only for old users to change courses.

An industry source told the 21st century economic report that the traditional 1-on-1 course for foreign teachers directly meets the needs of users to practice spoken English. If there is no interaction, domestic and foreign teachers will have no core advantages over Chinese teachers.

However, under the "double reduction" policy, the traditional one-on-one curriculum for foreign teachers has been unable to continue: either large-scale introduction of domestic and foreign teachers, or unable to reduce the price.

According to the source, after the transformation, online foreign teachers institutions are facing the contradiction between user needs and business models. On the premise of compliance, I am afraid that they will still take the form of live classes for domestic and foreign teachers, and then form matrix products with foreign teachers' 1-on-1 guidance, AI exercises and other services to meet users' oral needs.

The crisis caused by the explosion of thunder is trying to calm down. It is reported that at present, the number of users who go to whale small class company to protect their rights every day has been reduced from dozens to individuals. However, the dark cloud covering the whole online foreign teachers industry has not disappeared.