Dongfang Youbo, the online K-12 business owned by New Oriental’s Koolearn Technology, announced to suspend its academic tutoring services for K-12 students.

“In subject to recent regulations, Youbo decided to shut down the K-12 tutoring business, and we have already started to refund students and compensate for laid-off employees,” Zhu Yu, Koolearn Vice President and Dongfang Youbo CEO, said in a WeChat Moments post on Monday.

Koolearn, the online business under New Oriental, offers online courses covering three segments: college, K-12, and pre-school online education, with Dongfang Youbo the provider of the K-12 education part. 

The five-year-old company provides live small-group online courses to students in lower-tier cities, and has been the major revenue source of Koolearn. As of May 31, 2021, it has presence in 273 cities across 27 provinces in China.

Koolearn, which went public in Hong Kong in 2019, said earlier in its FY 2021 annual report that “In response to the changing landscape of the education industry in China and around the world, we have been shifting our strategic focus and adjusting our business lines and service offerings, moving away from traditional tutoring subjects and reorienting towards more innovative, quality-oriented and more holistic online after-school educational products and services.”