Schools' discriminatory moves on poor students must be curbed

ON DEC 4, Shenzhen Luoling Foreign Language Experimental School posted a notice on its official website, dividing the families applying for their children to attend the school into groups depending on the size of the houses they own. Thepaper.cn comments:

According to the post, if a family lives in an apartment smaller than 30 square meters, the family must have owned the house for at least six years for the child to have a chance to attend the school. If the family owns an apartment that is larger than 50 square meters, the threshold becomes one year; for properties in between those two thresholds the family should have owned it for four years.

That policy aroused wide protest and criticism after being posted online, and it was then removed, reportedly at the instruction of the local education bureau.