Beijing's market regulator has fined three tutoring firms for acts such as false advertising, running unlicensed schools and illegal pricing, the Beijing Youth Daily reported on Monday.

The three firms – Xueda Education, ABC Foreign Language School and 51talk – were fined a total of 1.92 million yuan ($297,000). 51talk is also known as China Online Education Group. The three firms did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

China issued sweeping rules last month to regulate its after-school tutoring industry worth billions of dollars, aiming to further improve schools' educational and teaching quality, effectively reduce students' burden from after-school tutoring as well as lower education costs.

The new rules would prevent firms teaching school curriculum from making a profit, raising capital or going public.

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China bans tutoring institutions in core school subjects from IPO, foreign M&A

Relevant departments from all regions in China will no longer approve the establishment of tutoring institutions in core school subjects for students in the compulsory education phase, and existing institutions will be registered as non-profit institutions, the rules said.

The new rules triggered a heavy sell off in the shares of tutoring companies when they were first announced.

Read more: Chinese tutoring firms' shares tank after regulatory crackdown

The country now has 24 listed education companies on different stock markets on the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and the U.S., with latest capitalization in total topping 150 billion yuan ($23.14 billion) as of July.

The newspaper also said that Beijing's market regulators have to date inspected 956 online education and training institutions, filed 528 cases and punished 139 of these.

(With input from Reuters)