Breaking | Thousands of Chinese parents take to the streets to protest university admission quotas
Move to open top universities to students from poor areas has parents fearing locals will suffer
Thousands of parents staged demonstrations in the capital cities of Hubei and Jiangsu provinces on Saturday, protesting over a change to university admission quotas which they say puts their children at a disadvantage.
Under the new scheme, leading universities across the country must admit a greater number of non-local students, which the parents fear will make it more difficult for their children to find a place at schools close to home.
Demographers said the protests highlighted the unfairness of a college admission system that was based on household registration, or hukou.
As part of their protest, the parents gathered in front of provincial government buildings in Wuhan and Nanjing, and handed in petitions outlining their concerns at local education bureau offices. Some demonstrators clashed with police and were detained, video posted on mainland social media showed.
The Ministry of Education and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly announced the plan early this month to adjust enrolment quotas in an attempt to make admission to top universities more equitable, and reduce the pressure students faced from the college admission test.
The central authorities required universities in 14 developed provinces such as Hubei and Jiangsu, and big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, to admit a total of 210,000 students from poorer inland provinces – like Henan, Guangxi, Guizhou and Gansu. Under the plan, universities in Hubei and Jiangsu must offer nearly 80,000 seats to outside students.