School place for migrant pupil sparks 'locust' row in Shanghai

Some Shanghai residents even accused six-year-old of wasting school resources

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Diao Qianwen, a six-year-old girl, lives with immigrant worker grandparents in a wet market in Shanghai. Photo: screenshot

Published: 12:23pm, 10 Sep 2013Updated: 4:16pm, 10 Sep 2013

Shanghai, a city constantly being compared with Hong Kong, last week experienced its own version of the “local schools for local children” controversy.

Shanghai residents, many of whom are also parents, were angered when Diao Qianwen, a six-year-old girl living with migrant worker grandparents in a wet market, was finally allowed to enroll in a local primary school after her plight was aired on a state TV news show.

Some angry Shanghainese even copied their Hong Kong counterparts and called Qianwen a little “locust”.

The girl, originally from Shandong, has been raised by her grandparents, who work as vegetable vendors in a local market. Her mother had abandoned her at birth and her father is serving a sentence in a Shandong jail, according to reports.

Diao had been turned down by local schools prior to the show. Besides lacking official papers to prove they were the girl's “legal guardians”, schools say the elderly couple had not been contributing to the city’s social security fund - a prerequisite for all new pupils. Her grandparents, after reaching a dead end, grew demoralised as the new semester approached.

The little girl's fate changed after a state TV reporter found her while visiting a market, and decided to report her story. This apparently worked miracles, allowing her grandparents to revisit schools and government offices-accompanied by the TV crew. People were now more sympathetic and the rules were bent. In the end, the six-year-old was told she could now attend the school.

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