Primary school in China retracts ‘parents must be graduates’ admission rule after outcry
Private school in Guangzhou has been forced to take in pupils even if their parents don’t have tertiary education
A private primary school in Guangzhou had been requiring prospective pupils’ parents to hold university degrees as a condition for their admission.
Beijing Youth Daily reported on Tuesday that the school confirmed it used to have such a requirement for parents, but had scrapped the policy after the local education bureau demanded it.
The requirement for parents was first exposed on the messaging platform WeChat. Users widely shared a picture of a notice at the school, which read: “This school only accept parents who have a bachelor’s degree qualification or above.”
The school was widely criticised on social media, with some calling the policy discriminatory. A Weibo user wrote: “Degrees do not really stand for anything. This is discrimination in disguise.”
But some expressed sympathy for the school. Another Weibo user wrote: “It is a private school, for crying out loud. It is their own business how they want to set up the rules. It doesn’t matter how we view it.”
