China's Ministry of Education on Monday ordered the temporary removal of homework help apps that allow students to take pictures of their homework and search for answers online, citing the apps' impact on students' independent thinking ability, in another move aimed at strengthening regulation of China's online after-school tutoring sector.
Until local educational authorities complete reviews of primary and secondary online tutoring schools that teach curriculum subjects and give approval for their operations, the filing work of online tutoring apps will be suspended, and those that have already filed will be taken down from app platforms, the ministry said in a statement.
The homework help apps, which provide services such as solving homework questions by uploading a photo, will be removed temporarily, because these apps may make students "lazy," affect their independent thinking and give bad learning habits by violating the law of education and teaching, read the statement.
By the end of 2019, about 8.6 billion searches had taken place on question search app Xiaoyuan Souti, which included nearly 200 million questions. It solved at least 23.47 million questions each day.
