New Oriental

New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc.
Public
Founded 1993
Headquarters No.6 Haidian Zhongjie, Haidian District, Beijing (100080)
Key people
Yu Minhong (俞敏洪; also known as "Michael Yu")
Number of employees
over 17,700 (2016)[1]
Website www.neworiental.org

New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. (Simplified Chinese 新东方教育科技集团, NYSE: EDU), more commonly New Oriental (Simplified Chinese 新东方), is a provider of private educational services in China. The headquarters of New Oriental is located in the Haidian district of Beijing. It is currently the largest comprehensive private educational company in China based on the number of program offerings, total student enrollments, and geographic presence.[2] The business of New Oriental includes pre-school education, general courses for students of various age levels, online education, overseas study consulting, and textbook publishing. New Oriental was the first Chinese educational institution to enter the New York Stock Exchange in the United States, holding its IPO in 2006.[3] As of 2016, New Oriental has built 64 short-time language educational schools, 23 book stores, 727 learning centers, and more than 5,000 third-party bookstores in 54 cities in China. 24.2 million students had studied in New Oriental by 2015.[4] The company's market capitalization was approximately USD 6.2 billion.[5]

In recent years, New Oriental's revenue is mostly driven by K-12 tutoring services for elementary school and middle-to high-school students. In addition, the company has been investing heavily in online education since 2015.[6]

History

Beijing New Oriental School was established on November 16, 1993, by Yu Minhong, an English teacher at Peking University. During the company's initial years, Yu Minhong and three of his classmates who were preparing to study in America encountered unfortunate problems with their VISA applications. A few years later his classmates were finally able to travel to America but Yu Minhong delayed his education and stayed behind in Beijing which led him to start New Oriental. He began focusing on students that planned on studying abroad in America while teaching them about the TOEFL and GRE exams which he previously prepared for. After his classmates finished their college education in America, he partnered with them, and expanded the company to provide services for various other exams and fields as well. The school is now one of the largest companies in China, and on September 7, 2006, New Oriental was listed on New York Stock Exchange.[7]

The company

As of 2016 there are over 50 schools, learning centers, vocational training centers and offices all over Mainland China. The North America Department and United Kingdom Department are the company's main source of revenue, which focuses on preparing students for the TOEFL, SAT, ACT GRE, GMAT, IELTS and LSAT. The company also offers many other services including preparing students for the National English Graduate Exam, Teenage English Courses, Pop English (Kindergarten and Primary School English), consultation on preparing for interviews, consultation on preparing admission letters, and training centers for culinary art. Future possibilities include expansion of services for MCAT and USMLE.

New Oriental Head Quarters
South Offices

Key people

Yu Minhong (b. October 15, 1962; also known as "Michael Yu") was appointed CEO and Chairman of the company, starting in 1993. He started his career at Peking University in 1985. He founded New Oriental in 1993 after he left Peking University. He is vice chairman of Beijing Young Entrepreneurs Association.[8]

Louis Hsieh served as New Oriental's Chief Financial Officer from 2005 to 2015, and President from 2009 to 2016.[9]

Legal conflicts with ETS

In 2001, the US Educational Testing Service sent a public letter to US universities, reminding them to pay special attention to Chinese students' GRE scores. In this letter, ETS hinted that New Oriental used their past exam questions in teaching without authorization.

In January, 2001, New Oriental was sued by the ETS for illegally copying, publishing, and selling its testing questions for examinations for non-English-speaking students since 1997. On September 27, 2003, the First Intermediate People's Court of Beijing made a ruling during the first trial, ordering the Chinese school to pay over 10 million yuan (about 1.2 million US dollars) to the ETS in compensation for the infringement.

The Higher People's Court of Beijing maintained that the Beijing-based New Oriental School (NOS) should pay compensation to the ETS, for the infringement of copy and trademark rights. However, the higher court reduced the sum of compensation by over 6 million yuan (about 722,000 US dollars) to 3,740,186.2 yuan (about 450,624 US dollars) plus 22,000 yuan (about 2,650 US dollars) for court charges.[10]

See also

References

External links

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