Race still tough to enroll kids in best schools

Freshmen from Tunxi No 1 Middle School in Huangshan city, East China's Anhui province, take military training on Aug 25, 2015. [Photo/CFP]

RECENTLY GUANGZHOU, capital of South China's Guangdong province, released information on middle school admission in fall 2017. Many public schools are reopening their junior high sections and some private schools are planning to welcome more students, so the number of good-quality schooling facilities available will increase. Beijing News commented on Tuesday:

A shortage of excellent educational resources has been a lasting problem due to the relatively limited seats available in public schools. This in turn has led to issues such as the booming of substitute extracurricular classes, young kids "parachuted" overseas and the soaring house prices in the catchment areas for the best schools.

The simplest way to solve the problem is to increase the number of students enrolled. From the point of view of parents who want to get their children into the best schools, the extra places will be good news. But some may be disappointed.

And many Chinese parents have become irrational about their children's education, and the newly added resources may or may not be acceptable to them, since it will be difficult for the necessary facilities and quality teaching staff to be put in place overnight.

Of course, while not all parents insist on sending their children to the "super" schools, the more places there are available in the top public schools, the more parents there will be who want to get their children enrolled. As the seats are limited, the pressure remains on the kids to succeed in the competition to get admitted to such schools.