Education reform needs a clear timetable

A number of students who don't have Beijing residence permits, or hukou, have registered for the next year's annual college entrance exams, or gaokao, in Beijing.

The Beijing Education Examination Authority said yesterday that this does not necessarily mean that these students are qualified to take the exams.

With the commencement of the registration process for next year's exams, there has been an unprecedented level of debate on whether students should be able to take exams in places where they don't have a hukou.

A middle school girl who does not have a Shanghai hukou, was disqualified for taking high school entrance exams in Shanghai recently. She fiercely debated the issue with Shanghai locals online, after she was labeled a "benefit-taker." This provoked intense discussion.

This issue touches on the distribution of education resources and conflicts of interest among local and non-local students. This is particularly the case in metropolises such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

The government has not found a perfect solution to this problem, and can only strive to seek a balance among different opinions and between the direction of reform and the reality.

The general trend is for all students to have equal rights. The education resources in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou should belong to students across the country.

However, if this redistribution process is implemented too hastily, it would prove unbearable for big cities and be greeted with objections from local students and their parents. The process must be a gradual one.

Currently, the driving forces pushing the process mainly come from the media and the Internet. Few students and parents in big cities believe such reform will come soon. If the reform is indeed underway, more people will speak out and conflicts between different interest groups may occur.

Reforms to the distribution of education resources should not merely target the current resources, but also involve new resources. These reforms, which are to achieve fairness in education, may be a process of narrowing down the discrepancies among different regions. The current unfairness will be eliminated partly through reforms and partly through development.

The places which have rich education resources are the most developed. Their economic and social development has attracted more education investment and elite facilities as well as students.

The country's development may be the final factor that solves the unfairness in higher education. Meanwhile, reforms should also continue.

If China's growth cannot match the country's democratic transition process, it will mean trouble. We will not just see conflict in the education sector, but also disputes among other interest groups. Many developing countries have seen the collapse of their nation's ability to solve problems as their development lagged behind democratic demands.

We suggest that cities experiencing fierce competition for college admissions to draft a road map and timetable regarding reforms for non-local residents participating in local gaokao. This will help solve the issue, and also maintain the pace of the reform.