It's the recruiting season for
primary and middle schools again. It's also a vexing time for
parents of primary school graduates. Since the cancellation of
middle school matriculation exams, middle schools have been
selecting enrollees at random with the help of computer programs.
Students' scholastic aptitude no longer counts in the selection
process. Despite this, three options are open to children, and
their parents, being eager to attend a better middle school: one,
using connections, two, a multiplicity of certificates (subject to
the schools' recognition), and third, money.
Many "connection-free" families live
frugal lives and even borrow money in order to send their children
to better middle schools. The majority of graduates from so-called
"key primary schools" elude the electronic selection process and
later attend better schools thanks to their parents' connections
and money. Many of the less fortunate pupils are dispatched to
ordinary schools by computer. These students and their parents are
unsurprisingly disheartened but don't give up and never stop, or
their parents, looking for better schools. Although the tuition
(nicknamed: "school selection fee") usually amounts to tens of
thousands of yuan (8.27 yuan=US$1), which is ten times the tuition
of an ordinary school, parents scramble for admission tickets.
The headmaster of a middle school
affiliated to a prestigious university once received one kilo of
informal letters asking him for "convenient" admission to his
school.
A Beijing high school publicized
market price for its enrollment: for those students whose scores
below the normal admission score, 10,000 yuan (US$1,209.61) for one
point. So far the record for this year's "school selection fee" has
been 120,000 yuan (US$14,515.4). A municipal-level "key middle
school" registered a "school selection fee" of 100,000 yuan
(US$12,096.1) and the average price for district-level "key middle
schools" is around 50,000-60,000 yuan (US$6,048.07-7,257.68).
A prestigious Beijing school, known
as "cultivating 'high quality' children from the cradle," requires
their "applicants" to register as soon as they are born, and the
school will further serve them as their nursery, middle school, and
preparatory school for studying abroad. For sure the tuition is
considerable: students' parents have to pay at least 30,000-40,000
yuan (US$3,628.84-4,838.46) annually from their childhood, which
will eventually total about 400,000 yuan (US$48,384.6) upon their
graduation from the school.
The deal is acceptable and
satisfactory to both sides, middle school headmasters say.
Wei Yahua, an economic observer,
said that middle schooling is a lucrative field producing
staggering profits. "Their tuition of 50,000-100,000 yuan
(US$6,048.07-12,096.1) has far surpassed the record set by the
'noble schools' that were very popular years before."
Wei said that the tuition increase
by middle schools is unjustified but it won't fade as long as
scarcity of very good middle schooling resources exists.
(China.org.cn by Chen Chao, July 21,
2003)