As CRI's Li Dong reports, the system has been put in place to try to break away from the rules surrounding the household registration system, or Hukou.

 

　　In China, pulbic schools are established to accommodate children with local residency registration, known as Hukou. However, as the population becomes much more mobile now, in big cities like Shenzhen, there is a huge number of people from other parts of China working and living there. And it's very hard for them to get local Hukou, which means their children face a lot of difficulties in getting into local public schools. Now the Shenzhen trial makes Hukou only one of a number factors deciding whether a child could go to public schools.

 

　　Local Hukou, whether the family has its own housing, how many years they've lived at the property and other conditions like the number of years they've contributed to their social security are all counted.

 

　　The rating system seems to stay away from the old practice favoring people with local Hukous. However, many people question whether the new rating system is an unfair mechanism tailored for wealthy property owners.

 

　　A woman surnamed Jiang is one of those who has Shenzhen Hukou but doesn't have property. She says she feels hopeless for her kids.

 

　　"All my family has Shenzhen Hukou. This gives us 14 points. But taking the property into consideration, we just rented an apartment for two years. We can only get eight points for two years of rental. We get full score for the rest of the category. Altogether we have 53 points. But compared to those without a Shenzhen Hukou, but have property, they get 70 points at minimum, and some even get 95. How can our kids get the chance to go to good schools on our points? It's 53 vs. 95!"

 

　　Another woman worries that this policy will trigger another round of property price hikes which counters the government's intention to curb the over-heated property market.

 

　　"The government still says it wants to adjust the property market. But the new admission qualification rating system is actually boosting the property prices."

 

　　Also, different districts in Shenzhen give different points to the family with property.

 

　　The new admission policy is mainly based on the contribution the parents make to Shenzhen's economic development. But Zhu Keheng, a member of Shenzhen's Political Consultative Conference says property should not be the sole standard for evaluating their contribution and there should be diversified standards for the rating system.

 

　　"For instance, parents' contribution to cultural and technological development in Shenzhen should be taken into consideration. The standards should be comprehensive. An over emphasis on whether someone bought property may definitely lead to chaos in the compulsory education school admission system. The fact may be that wealthy people can buy their children chances to go to good schools."

 

　　The local education authority of Nanshan district in Shenzhen says this phenomenon actually exists. That's why they revised the policy and allocated more points for long term renters.

 

　　For CRI, I am Li Dong.