New Oriental

Why do we have chosen this company?

We have decided to choose a Chinese company as we had the opportunity to be an international team. New oriental appeared to us as a dreaming company. We also thought that it was interesting to illustrate an ethical and profitable Chinese company to go against stereotypes.

a) The main facts about the activities of the company.

New oriental is a company, which is providing help to students who want to have a competitive advantage for their future. In fact, the company has been starting with teaching English language but it has been growing since the creation in 1993 by Mr Michael M Yu. They have now a wide range of educational programs as POP kids program and summer camps for the children who are more than 3 years old within English, Chinese, math, music and art. In addition, the company offers tutoring courses, for the older children from twelve to eighteen years old, in English, Chinese, maths, physics, chemistry, biology, politics, geography and history. Furthermore, students can take entrance exam preparation for the college, or prepare exam like TOEFL, TOIC or the SAT. They have also trainings for the adults, with the overseas tests, domestic tests, other languages (Japanese, German, etc. even French), Adult English and Vocational training. New oriental teach also on the Internet, it is a very modern company, always looking for the success of students.

They have created since 2002 a private school in Beijing, which has the capacity of 4000 students and also a pre-school. They wanted to make an elite school for the most motivated students, to offer them the possibility to go in the best universities in China, and overall in the world.

b) The ethical challenges this company is addressing.

New oriental has to face many ethical challenges.
Indeed, in 2001, Educational Testing Service (ETS) sued New Oriental for illegally reproducing, using and selling their past exam questions in teaching since 1997. The way New Oriental reacts was proactive. They decided to face the problem as well as supporting the policy process. Therefore they recognized the fact that they wanted to provide the best tests for their native students, and offering the same high level as abroad. This explains their behaviour to select the most relevant test questions from a foreign educational testing basis. New oriental paid the fine without loosing credibility according to its clients. This had a positive effect on New oriental company which saw an internal motivation growing to achieve an even higher level for the students. They improved their organizational and operational process.
Another ethical challenge concerns the employments that it generates. The number of teachers is in constant growth.
As Chinese are more and more competing with the students of abroad, this for the admission in excellent universities for example, New Oriental?s challenge is to provide as easily as possible full-time education beyond the traditional one available in China. The demand is therefore growing as quickly as the demographic grows. One of the rule and strong value of the company is to keep quality in their service. They have the challenge to attract each time more effective teachers and parental support. More they will have demand more they will be able to ask for more funding support and offer a wider range of education and teaching.
The company has many ethical values related first to education. Everyone is in right to be taught and that is why they develop more schools and libraries around the country. Each tutoring or learning session is not just for one test preparation but is also of respect and share of values.
In order to provide the best and cheapest books and educational materials, some partnerships have been established between them and Cambridge University Press. Indeed, they develop and distribute localized versions of selected educational materials in China bearing both their logo and the one of New Oriental. By continuing in this way they will help Chinese social integration in the world and avoid as much as possible social and educational exclusion beyond students.

c) What makes you believe this company is really ethical and why you trust it.

There are several reasons that make us believe NEW ORIENTAL is really ethical.
Firstly, the product that New Oriental provides, is a comprehensive range of educational services, this is an ethical business as it helps help a lot of people in China to have access to education and to open on the world and have good teachings. They help Chinese to realize their dreams.
Secondly, as a public company, New Oriental shows a strong responsibility in the education of Chinese students, this by denoting millions of money to help people, by building schools and teaching centres as well as providing books and other educational materials, especially those students from poor families.
Thirdly, NEW ORIENTAL is a listed company with opening account; this makes the company more or less transparent concerning its finances. We can affirm that it is a healthy company not only by helping people and being ethical but also by being profitable. This creates beyond the company a climate of confidence between its employees and itself, but also with the clients and students? families. We do trust therefore the company.
To start with, it has a very good brand image what makes this company a success is also his CEO. This is one reason it make us trust New Oriental. He is indeed a symbol of the Chinese dream and remains a model for them. We also trust this company as we can observe the concrete actions that they do since its creation. They started with just one centre of education and now they spread out in China, also in countryside in order to give an access for education even for poor people.
In every centre and school, we also appreciate the fact that the company kept the traditional Chinese educational values even if they met an important growth and development on a short period of time.

d) The possible challenges facing the company in the future and how you think this company may improve.

One main challenge is to maintain their leadership position in education and internalization of the Chinese. This population is indeed in a demographic growth as well as the country?s economy. Therefore the students must be continuously more aware in foreign languages and education to open them to the world, and enter the international market. This is also in order to impact directly on their social and ethical issues that persist in China.
Moreover, in the future one challenge could be to enrich the content of these books through additional partnerships. In this way they are ethical by not either paying, nor selling the books to the students in China and guarantee a good quality of teaching. The company also need to continue maximizing the life cycle of their educational materials.
In the future, the objective of the company is to extend its centres in more places over China. We hope that the company will keep the same convictions and values.