For fairness in education

Equal opportunities for education, compulsory education in particular, are an important part of social fairness. But this is no easy task since some officials with power in hand use their clout to send their children to the best schools, while wealthy families tend to do the same using money.

Leaving no room or as little room as possible for those with power or other social resources to send their children to the better public schools by abnormal means is urgently needed to ensure fairness in education.

The Ministry of Education has tried to do the right thing. It issued a notice on Monday requiring 19 major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, to make sure that 90 percent of their middle schools enroll students in their catchment areas by the year 2015, rising to 95 percent by 2017.