Parents enraged over policies favoring western regions
Education authorities have reassured parents in Jiangsu and Hubei provinces that the university admission rate will not be lowered for their children after protests broke out in several cities demanding an end to affirmative action policies that sharply cut the two provinces' enrollment quota to increase the chances of students in western regions getting into better institutions.
The protest, which started on Wednesday, came on the heels of a college admission scheme where universities in 11 Chinese provinces plus Shanghai, including in Jiangsu and Hubei provinces, announced plans to enroll a greater number of non-local students from provinces with less favorable education resources.
Parents complained that the scheme, revealed one month before the fiercely competitive college entrance exam, or gaokao, will put their children at a further disadvantage. But the Ministry of Education (MOE) said Saturday that the policy was based on the prerequisite that college admission rates for local students in the regions concerned will not be lower than last year.
The MOE said that the admission rate in Jiangsu and Hubei is expected to be higher than last year, and ministry spokeswoman Xu Mei told news outlet ifeng.com on Saturday that the MOE is working out a solution in the face of the urgent situation [of protest].
Chinese universities, in conjunction with local education authorities, reserve a certain number of places for students from within the same province, and will then allocate a certain number of places to students from all other Chinese provinces. Students are allocated points, derived from factors such as ethnic minority, and this determines what level of institution in which province will offer them a place.
The admission rate in Jiangsu for local students rose from 85.8 percent to 88.8 percent from 2013 to 2015, and from 80.4 percent to 87.0 percent in Hubei from 2013 to 2015, according to the MOE.
Separately, the heads of the provincial education departments in the two provinces said the total college admission quota in those areas actually increased from last year and the number of students taking gaokao has decreased prominently.
Among the 12 regions, Jiangsu and Hubei are to contribute 38,000 and 40,000 non-local college places, respectively, according to the plan circulated by the MOE and National Development and Reform Commission on April 22.
Affirmative action opposed
Despite the assurances, parents continued to vent their outrage Sunday, protesting with banners outside local education authority offices in a number of cities across both Jiangsu and Hubei, including in the capitals Nanjing and Wuhan.
The parents claim that the quota allocated to other provinces will diminish their child's chance of acceptance at a top institution.
"We are not opposed to China offering more chances for children in poor areas, but please don't take away the chance from our own children, it's unfair," a father from Changzhou in Jiangsu, whose child will take this year's gaokao, told the Global Times on Sunday.
The protests have been particularly vehement in Hubei and Jiangsu as these provinces strictly carried out China's family planning policies, and parents do not believe they have been rewarded for doing this, the direct cause of the decrease in the number of gaokao-takers. This should have opened up more college places for local students, they said.
Some are also angry that ethnic minorities in western regions benefit from affirmative education polices and they usually can have more children than the majority Han. For example, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, densely populated by the Muslim Hui minority, ranks only after Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai in terms of its first-tier university enrollment rate in recent years.
"Students in poverty-stricken areas are being taken care of by preferential education policies, such as additional quotas and extra points for the gaokao if they are from an ethnic minority, but the students in Jiangsu are struggling to get into top universities," said one parent in Yancheng, Jiangsu.
Some parents said they are annoyed that Beijing and Tianjin are not allocating their enrollment quotas to poorer regions even though they have the highest university enrollment rate, especially for first-tier universities.
The enrollment rate for first-tier universities in Jiangsu is about 10 percent, which is less than half of the rate in Beijing, even though the province is well known for its quality education. Nanjing and Wuhan, the two provincial capitals, boast some of China's top universities.
Social mobility
Parents and children have a lot riding on the gaokao results, since it has become a way to move up to a higher social class, said Xiong Bingqi, vice president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute in Beijing.
Any gaokao reform concerns a complicated reallocation of interests, which needs more caution so that any new policy is fair, clearly explained and justly implemented, said experts.
"Policymakers should find the right approach to interact with the public, and the right time to announce changes amid the diverse voices from different interest groups, especially at a time when citizens' awareness of their rights is growing, a People's Daily commentary said Sunday.
