Government and Policy

China hits hard on charging school enrollment fees

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-11-02 21:56

BEIJING - China has taken harsh measures to eliminate the phenomenon of charging enrollment fees by schools with better teaching resources, a move seen as a "heavy blow" to the education sector.

The measures, announced in a statement by the Ministry of Education on Monday, require all public primary and junior high schools to standardize enrollment procedures and improve enrollment policies.

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According to China's Compulsory Education Law, Chinese children are entitled to nine years of free education, covering primary and junior high schools. However, some schools often charged various fees to seek profits.

The ministry statement reads, due to the difference in quality among schools and a shortage of excellent schools as compared to actual demand, the problem of "enrollment fees" has been found to be widespread, particularly in big cities.

The education ministry said it would "tackle the problem in the next three to five years."

According to the measures, public schools will not be permitted to use "experimental classes" as an enrollment lure or organize special training courses to select students.

"This will help prevent the attempt by some schools to collect illegal charges," said Xiong Bingqi, an educational expert and deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, a Beijing-based private non-profit organization on educational policy research.

The ministry also ordered local authorities to "equally allocate educational resources," including excellent teachers.

"Schools must be open in enrollment information," it said.

It added that efforts should be made to "narrow the gap between excellent and average schools, reasonably deploy teaching resources and share excellent educational resources."

Under the new measures, local authorities will be required to support the development of private schools on the precondition that the supply of public schools was ensured, it said, adding that the sound development of private schools could "satisfy various demands of students."

The ministry said these measures were conducive to ensuring school-aged children have access to quality compulsory education, which was part of the country's educational target by 2020, as announced in July.

Xiong noted that enhancing the quality of compulsory education would help put an end to charging school enrollment fees.

He also pointed out a profit chain behind school enrollment fees. Some local governments try to save educational funds for other uses by encouraging schools to charge extra fees, so strict monitoring and inspection should be launched.

The National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planner, issued a circular in September which ordered the monitoring of education charges across the country.

The educational ministry has vowed to reinforce the monitoring system and "severely punish those involved in illegal charging fees."

The ministry also reminded parents not to "blindly select schools for children," which, however, was a serious problem in China where parents willingly paid to secure seats for children in excellent schools.

Chi Hong, the mother of an 11-year-old boy in Beijing, said, "Considering the imbalanced teaching resources, I had to follow the trend and pay for a space in a good school for my son."