Students take the annual college entrance exam or "gaokao" in China. (Photo : Getty Images)
Many Chinese parents protested a new directive from the Ministry of Education that aims to accommodate more students from poor and less developed regions.
According to China Daily, the new rules on the gaokao or the Chinese national higher education entrance examination stipulate that provinces with greater resources will be accommodating more students from less developed regions.
This will provide a more equal chance of getting tertiary education for poor students, an earlier report from the state-run Xinhua News Agency stated.
The Reform
The Ministry of Education said that the reform will require higher education providers such as universities and colleges in richer regions to accommodate more students from less privileged provinces.
Among the affected provinces mentioned in the China Daily report are Jiangsu and Hubei Province, which will accommodate 38,000 and 40,000 students, respectively.
These students would reportedly come from Tibet and Xinjiang. The students are still required to take and pass the gaokao for them to be able to qualify.
The ministry told China Daily that the reform should not affect local students since there had been fewer enrollees from the localities anyway, citing Jiangsu's gaokao record.
Last year, 390,000 students from Jiangsu registered to take the gaokao with an 89 percent passing rate. This year, registration was 30,000 less, which led the ministry to believe that the province can accommodate more students from poorer localities.
Parents' Protests
While the new rules on higher education provide better opportunities for the less privileged, it is believed to be one that could hinder the current benefits of those from affluent provinces.
In fact, thousands of parents rallied on the streets of Wuhan and Nanjing on Saturday to protest the new directive.
In a report from the South China Morning Post, the protesters expressed their grievances and worries about the upcoming entrance examinations next month.
Jiangsu Province resident Zhang Wei told the outlet how he worries about the effects of the new directive to his son who is set to take the gaokao in June.
Even though he did not join the demonstrations, he expressed his full support for the cause.
"Our dissatisfaction with the unfair college enrollment policies, which always put local students in Jiangsu at a disadvantage, has accumulated for years and the admission quota issue is just the last straw," he stated.
Analysts believed that the cause of discontent was not the directive itself but the failure of the government to tackle the root of the problem.
"Apparently, authorities are not very sensitive and have failed to solicit public opinion before announcing such a change," 21st Century Education Research Institute deputy director Xiong Bingqi explained.
