Parents protest school policy

Nearly 50 parents protested outside the Tongzhou district education bureau, asking for equal rights for their children to attend a public school.

The parents, whose children do not have a Beijing hukou or resident's permit, submitted an application to the bureau early this week and were informed they would receive the final decision yesterday. The parents stood outside the bureau with a banner saying "firmly requesting equal rights for students' access to free compulsory education." However, their request was turned down.

"We're really disappointed with their decision. We were told that it is impossible for the bureau to allocate a school place to our children this year," a woman surnamed Xu, who has a 13-year-old son, said yesterday.

According to Beijing's education enrolment policy amended in 2010, primary and secondary school students without a Beijing hukou have the same education rights as Beijing residents.

However, Changping and Tongzhou districts are exempt from the policy, so parents still have to contact primary or high schools themselves and reportedly pay tens of thousands of yuan in "sponsorship" fees to enroll their children, parents claimed.

Responding to the parents' protest, Tongzhou education bureau said that the number of school-age children from outside Beijing eligible for free education in the district had now surpassed that of students with a Beijing hukou, and the bureau has had to take measures to ensure students with a Beijing hukou were equally protected.

"The first step is for parents to choose a school and then ask if there is a vacancy. If they fail to find a school, parents who have the required five permits can come here to register, and we will help those students enroll in a school we choose for him," the director of the administration office, surnamed Jia, told the Global Times yesterday.

A child is eligible to study in the capital for free as long as the parents have five certificates, including a temporary residence permit, employment certificate and a certificate proving the child does not have a guardian in the hometown.

Some parents claim the obstacles facing their children are a kind of education discrimination.

"Children are naturally divided into two kinds, local students and students from other places, and this impacts them negatively. My daughter feels inferior to her classmates," said a mother at yesterday's protest.

Only a month before his son's primary school graduation exams, Fang Xing's (pseudonym) foremost concern is not his son's grades, but whether he will find a high school place.

"I've been to several schools to ask them to admit my son, but I was told that they are full or they can't accept students without a Beijing hukou. Although my son has good grades, I'm still afraid that he can't go to high school this year," Fang said.

Fang is just one of a huge number of parents who have struggled to register a child at school for lack of a hukou.

Statistics from the municipal education bureau show there were 478,000 students without a Beijing hukou by the autumn semester of 2011, an increase of 44,000 over the same period of 2010. Around 70 percent were studying in public schools.

"Some parents are only street vendors, so it's difficult for them to get all the required certificates," Xu said.

Although Tongzhou education bureau promised that every child eligible for compulsory education in its district can go to school, they did not clarify how students whose parents cannot provide the certificates can be admitted.

Chu Zhaohui, a researcher with the China National Institute for Educational Research, said the problem is not caused by a lack of school places.

"As far as I know, there is extra student capacity in Tongzhou. For example, the classes in Liyuan High School have fewer than 40 students in them," Chu said.

"The local government should be blamed for failing to carry out policies from the government," he said.