Chinese school rewards top academic students with ‘ultimate prize’ – pork chops

Students that achieve top academic marks at one Chinese middle school are reaping the rewards, not in prize money or extra stationery – but pork chops, mainland media reports.

At the start of the new school semester last Friday the 45 most successful students in last semester’s exams at Shiqiaotou Town Middle School, in Wenling in the eastern province of Zhejiang, were presented with cuts of the meat, the Qianjiang Evening News reported.

A 2.5kg joint of pork was presented to students achieving the highest marks, and a 1.5kg of pork chops to those ranked among the second tier of marks.

The practice of presenting pork to successful students in the city, which lies in a prosperous area of the country close to Shanghai, had started three years, headmaster Wu Guanghui said.

He believed this kind of reward was beneficial because it was something that could be shared by the child’s entire family, which would bring them even greater satisfaction.

Wu said three years ago, when he had tried to think of a special reward that could be shared between a student and other family members, he had chosen pork meat because it was “so down-to-earth”.