Beijing enrollment reform improves equality

Beijing is to cancel its "standby candidates" system for high school enrollment in order to realize fair enrollments and eliminate under-table dealing.

The "standby candidates" refers to students who have not attained the high school's required enrollment score but can still enroll by paying higher tuition, usually 30,000 yuan ($4,940) per year at most. "Standby candidates" should account for no more than 18 percent of a school's total recruitment, and their scores should be no more than 20 points lower than the school's recruitment level.

Also starting this year, a total of 83 high-qualified high schools in the city will allocate 30 percent of their enrollments to middle schools. This is to make sure middle school students have the chance to get into high-qualified high schools if their score is ranked top at their own school.

The 83 high-qualified schools plan to recruit 24,604 students this year, of which, 7,384 will come via this way of recruitment.

Li Yi, spokesperson for the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education, said the policy change will give a better chance to those who study at middle schools that are comparatively weak in teaching. It also aims to moderate the fierce competition among primary school students to get into good middle schools.