BEIJING, Aug. 31-- Even as the city is gripped by summer heatwaves, Shenzhen's English training market seems to be in the middle of winter. Since the second half of last year, the market has seen a big drop in both enrollment and profit. Most training institutions are struggling to survive and some have even been forced to close.

The slump is especially apparent in high-end English training institutions, which target white-collar consumers with high-quality but expensive services. Cursor-Media Group, better known for its training brand COM-COM, and a forerunner in the high-end English training field, has much fewer students this year.

According to an insider, the enrollment of COM-COM might be down at least 50 percent from early last year, and the floor space of the company's training base in Futian District has been cut by one-third to save costs. Its business strategies have been adjusted, and courses targeting middle school students at much lower prices will soon be released.

The situation for mid-range and low-end English training institutions are similar.

Summer camps have suffered from this stagnant market as well. The Oxford English summer camps in Shenzhen had 500 students this year, less than half the expected 1,200.

"We lost much money this year, even though the camps were successful," said Nie Xin-chun, head of Oxford English in Shenzhen. Overseas study tours to such countries as Australia, the United States and Britain, which were avidly sought last year, have seen a decline in registration.

The English training market has seen rapid growth in recent years in Shenzhen and has a market value of at least 200 million yuan(US$25 million) each year, according to Xiang Hengjun, manager of Shenzhen New World training center, who has been working in Shenzhen's English training field for the past 15 years.

"A market survey we made last year showed that the people receiving English training each year were around 200,000 person-times. So the market size might be even higher," said Xiang.

There are many reasons for the slump, but Guo Wei, head of New Oriental school in Shenzhen, attributed it to the oversupply of training services."The entry requirement for training institutions is too low. Hence the supply actually exceeds the market needs," he said.

Liao Yanyuan, manager of the training section of the advertisement department at the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Daily, agreed with Guo's comment."The phenomenon of oversupply is true at least in high-end training. When COM-COM came in, it was a sweeping success as the first high-end trainer.

But later on, several other organizations offering similar services appeared and now they have to share a limited market," said Liao. He recalled that he had too many English training ads to handle two or three years ago."But there are fewer and fewer ads for English training courses now."

For COM-COM, the present situation may be only temporary, as the market appears to be undergoing adjustment."A lot of our target customers get trained in a boom in the past two years. Another wave of enthusiasm toward high-end English training is yet to rise up, as we need time to cultivate the market," said Chen Yongquan, general manager of COM-COM.

Industry insiders agree that the market is poorly managed and not properly controlled. Many training institutions are driven by monetary interests and neglect the quality of training, which has had a negative influence on the market. The influx of disqualified teachers, including foreign teachers, is a problem pervading the industry. Some institutions have greatly exaggerated their promotions and actually misguided English pupils, who later feel disappointed.

"It takes a long time to learn English well. Some organizations are not responsible at all when they say one can learn perfect English from them in merely several months," commented Xiang Hengjun of New World.

Xiang criticized the lack of innovation in English teaching by many training institutions, which he regarded as one of the causes of the market slump.

He said that it was a pity that the educational bureau of the city did not organize any routine training for English teachers, and did not provide any information about teaching innovations. He hoped that the government would pay more attention to managing the training market, to make it fair and healthy.

Xiang said there were still several other causes for the slump in the training market. There is a relatively small proportion of permanent residents in the total population of the city, and most migrant workers have little need for English.

Despite all these difficulties, many training institutions are still confident about the market. COM-COM has just opened a new center in Bao'an District."The market is still not good enough, but we are determined to go on our way," said general manager Chen Yongquan.

New Oriental's Guo also said that they would strengthen internal management and optimize their marketing strategies."We think the situation will be better next year. We will stick to the market in Shenzhen, no matter how long this 'wintertime' would be," he said.

(Source: Shenzhen Daily)