Home Is Where the School Is

by Xuan Hai

Lulus life just reached the 18-month mark， but her mother already started preparing the family for her primary education months ago. Her first step was searching for housing in districts with a “proper”school before her daughter reaches school age. She hopes that her early efforts will help her daughter be admitted smoothly to a decent school four years and a half later.

Today， most large cities in China have adopted the policy of “entering a neighborhood school without taking entrance examinations” for primary education. According to the rule， children over the age of six are allowed to enter a primary school in their “pian，” a specially divided area around the school. A pian is analogous to a school district. The scope of a school district is usually decided by local educational departments or even individual schools. Many parents worry that they wont be satisfied with the designated school， or that the school they want wont fall in theirschool district. School district lines are so rigid that children living in two adjacent buildings may go to different schools.

Not willing to settle for the designated school， many parents like Lulus consider purchasing an apartment near the school they want. Lulu lives in Chaoyang District in eastern Beijing， but since Xicheng and Haidian districts in the western part of the city enjoy a better reputation for education， Lulus mother is looking at housing there.

It may seem too early for Lulus mother to worry so much about schooling for her infant daughter， but some of the better primary schools in Beijing require residents to live in the district for at least three years before their children can enter the school. Also， she expects housing prices to continue rising. So， she has tirelessly continued visiting real estate agencies since the turn of 2013.

As she predicted， she found very few available choices. According to statistics from the market research department of a large Beijing-based real estate agency， the supply and demand in the market sat at a ratio of 1：3.3 in early December 2012， and reached as high as 1：4.5 by the end of the year. Even worse， demand for “school district housing” was higher than ordinary property. Prices saw a large jump at the end of 2012. Winter begins peak season for“school district housing，” which stretches from February to June before each new semester starts. Due to the increasing demand， owners seemed motivated to hang on to their property.

About 150，000 children entered Beijings primary schools in 2012. A conservative forecast estimates that the number of children entering primary schools will average 180，000 annually from 2013 to 2017， making the problem even more challenging.

Professor Cheng Fangping at the School of Education， Renmin University of China， explained why parents worry and feel helpless about their childrens early education， causing such high demand for school district housing. According to Cheng， the “attending the neighborhood school” policy currently practiced in Beijing has deviated from the original institution in which children happening to live within a certain radius around the school were all allowed to enroll. But in actuality， only the children living in a small designated slice of the circle can attend. So， children living nearby may not necessarily attend the same school. This has caused many problems including the rise in housing prices in certain school districts.

The situation was certainly not optimistic， but due to a wide range of areas Lulus mother would accept， the agents found her several apartments to choose from. In mid-January， Lulus mother successfully bought an apartment with years of savings and additional loans. She spent 3.1 million yuan （US$500，000） on the 56.7-squaremeter apartment， but it is located in the designated district of a reputable primary school in Haidian District.

Originally， the division of school districts was carried out by the government in hopes of allocating educational resources fairly to achieve relatively equal education chances for all. However， it also has problems， like higher demand within certain districts. While the high housing prices make many ordinary families recoil， the wealthy can wield their economic advantage to ensure better educational resources.

The relative concentration and lack of the educational resources have resulted in rocketing prices of school district housing. The Ministry of Education set a goal to reach relatively balanced compulsory development in the country by 2020 in its Promotion of Balanced Development of Compulsory Education Memo issued at the end of 2011. In the memo， Beijing promised to realize the goal by 2015.

Things are slowly changing in Beijing. In September 2012 when a new semester began， four educational groups were established in Beijing with four elite schools in Xicheng District including No. 4 and No. 8 middle schools， No.2 Experimental Primary School and Beijing Primary School as leaders of each. The groups will enable the 15 member schools to share quality educational resources. This was the first attempt the city made to better share its educational resources and relieve the stress of finding a quality primary school.