File photo.
(ECNS) -- Prices of housing adjacent to many cities' top schools have been pushed up by a new policy issued by the country's Education Ministry, China National Radio (CNR) reported.
The ministry issued a notice Monday requiring 19 major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, to make sure that 90 percent of their middle schools enroll students in the surrounding areas by 2015.
In order to get their children enrolled in well-regarded schools, Chinese parents are rushing to buy expensive and unattractive apartments merely as an "admission ticket" to good schools.
Prices of new houses in neighborhoods near top schools in Tianjin’s Heping, Hexi and Nankai districts have increased by 20 percent, while second-hand houses are still sought-after despite high prices, CNR said.
For example, a 20-square-meter apartment on Machangdao Road in Hexi district is priced at 700,000 yuan ($114,910), it added.
Guo, a mother of three-year-old twins in Changchun, Jilin province, said: "It's worth it, as it saves me paying sponsorship fees and may be profitable because of the rocketing prices.”
A parent in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, held the same opinion, saying many parents plot and save to get their kids into the best possible schools.
