Top universities to enroll more rural student

ON APRIL 15, four leading Beijing-based universities, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Beijing Normal University and Beihang University, released preferential recruitment plans to provide greater access to students from rural areas. Students with scores lower than the regular admission score could still be admitted as long as they meet requirements of the plans. Comments:

A preferential policy favoring students from poorer families is unlikely to serve as a fundamental cure for the wide education gap between the urban and rural areas of China, even if it is adopted by most universities and colleges nationwide. To enhance fairness in education, there needs to be more government expenditure on basic education in the less developed provinces, as much as that in urban areas.

Zheng Yuchuan, a guest commentator with rednet.cn, April 17