China is framing tough new rules to clamp down on a booming private tutoring industry, aiming both to ease pressure on school children and boost the country's birth rate by lowering family living costs, sources told Reuters.

The clampdown will also have the effect of cooling China's cutthroat tutoring market for kindergarten through to the 12th grade, or K-12 pupils, which has grown exponentially in recent years to around RM495 billion.

At least one major company providing tutoring services has put a...