Senior education in high demand

Wen Zhonggui has become accustomed to receiving a torrent of phone calls from seniors pleading for a spot at his school in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, as thousands of places periodically made available online are snapped up within seconds.

"We have more than 70 teachers and 7,000 students," said Wen, director of teaching affairs at the government-funded Shanxi Elderly University, "but supply falls far short of increasing demand".

University in this context refers to an education center catering to seniors without offering degrees.