Some primary schools in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, are asking parents to submit family planning certificates, including proof of contraceptive ring implementation, as prerequisite for their children to enlist in the first grade, the Global Times reported.
This was confirmed on May 28, Thursday, when a Global Times reporter posed as a parent and was told by a teacher from Jiahe Primary School in Baiyun district in Guangzhou that applicants have to submit the family planning certificate "by regulation." The teacher said that the practice of asking for the certificate has been done for years.
According to the website of Huangbian Primary School in Baiyun district, the family planning certificate was listed as one of the seven requirements for admission of the school. It was reportedly one way for the school to check if the parents had followed the family planning policy, a teacher from the school told China National Radio (CNR).
The report said that it was not the first time that admission requirement in Guangzhou has attracted attention, as authorities in Guangdong Province had issued an urgent notice in July 2014, a month after local media reported the issue, informing the schools that requiring the certificate violated the country's Compulsory Education Law and should be banned as a practice.
An official from a local education commission in Guangzhou said in an interview with CNR on May 27, Wednesday, that schools should admit students for enrolment even without the certificate, since a student should receive compulsory education, which is irrelevant with how well his or her parents have followed the family planning policy.
"Requiring the certificate is just another way adopted by local government to control its population, as many non-Guangzhou applicants have to travel to their hometowns to apply for lots of documents that are difficult to get," Huang Wenzheng, a former Harvard University assistant professor, told the Global Times.
Data showed that Guangzhou's migrant population reached 8.5 million in 2013, while Guangzhou residents only account for 8.4 million.