After a 2014 Ministry of Education document reinforced the system by which school places are allocated based on housing, parents once again heated up competition for homes near top schools to secure their kids a spot at the best institutions. Despite the efforts of government to cool the market, prices have skyrocketed in recent years.
Want to make sure your kid goes to one of Beijing's top schools? First, you must own a house. And your home in the capital must be as near to your target school as possible, as this is the main way in which schools select their students.
In April 2016, Beijing's different districts released new policies for primary and middle schools' admission procedures. Southern Weekly reported that these policies keep home ownership at the heart of the admission process.
Haidian district has formally adopted a "six years one seat" policy, which means that an address can only be used for one school admission registration every six years. And Xicheng district has stipulated that a hukou (housing registration) only grants a child a school seat if the family has been living in Xicheng for a certain number of years.
These new measures are even tougher on non-Beijing hukou holders. Shijingshan district has decided that "Beijing green card" holders no longer have the same rights to education as local Beijingers. In Fengtai district, families without local hukou must prove their employment and housing status before their children can go to one of the district's schools.
While other policies come and go, the only policy that is remaining a constant is the "vicinity" principle.
Property primacy
According to China Education Newspaper statistics, in 2015 about 160,000 kids registered at Beijing primary schools. Among them, about 100,000 were local Beijing residents and 60,000 were non-Beijing residents. The 25 top primary schools in Dongcheng, Xicheng and Haidian districts - the areas with the best educational resources - took in only about 5,000 students.
While the "vicinity" principle is common in education systems around the world. But in a megacity like Beijing in which supply and demand are extremely unbalanced both at the city and district level, it has created a situation in which a family's ability to buy an incredibly expensive house is the key determiner of whether they can get a place at a public-funded school.
A part-time school admission consultant who is well-known among Beijing parents, nicknamed Wuyan, told Southern Weekly that there have been two major reforms to Beijing's education system since the founding of New China - in 1997 and 2014.
Before 1997, there were few non-Beijing residents living in the city and most kids entered primary schools near the address on their hukou. To secure places at top schools, some parents moved their hukou to Haidian district where there was - and is - a high concentration of excellent schools near the city's universities.
Before 1997, children took an exam before entering middle school. Those who did exceptionally well were eligible to go to the city's most prestigious schools, while those who did less well would be assigned to the school nearest their home.
However, after 1997 the city phased out the exams and began its "mega lottery."
From then on, a computer program decided who went where and most students ended up at schools near their homes.
However, some parents still wanted to have a say in where their children were educated and some schools still wanted to ensure that they could take in as many outstanding students as possible. Therefore, some students were never entered the "mega lottery."
Wuyan said this created "gray channels" for school admissions. Some entered top schools through their relationship with school administrators; some got in because of their special talents, primary school recommendations or auditions; and some parents chose to pay an admission or sponsorship fee.
Many good schools operated under the system of "collectively trained students," whereby selected companies financially supported some good schools and their employees' children could then gain admission to the schools.
This continued until January 2014 when the Ministry of Education released a decree demanding that all school authorities implement a strict "vicinity admissions policy" during compulsory education.
Three months later, Beijing banned employers from paying their staff's school fees and placed limits on the number of students that schools could admit due to their "special talents," reasserting the primacy of housing in the admission process.
