University problems

Although much of the discussion attributes nonresidents' eligibility to China's hukou system, a number of scholars point out that China's university recruitment system worsens the problem.

According to a handbook authorized by the Ministry of Education, China's universities can be divided by their administrative subordination into two categories: those managed by the ministry as well as other central agencies, and universities managed by provincial governments. There are about 2,000 universities in the country - more than 90 percent of them provincial institutions.

Every year, each university needs to submit a detailed recruitment quota plan to be approved by its supervision department. While central universities recruit students nationwide, provincial universities largely recruit students with hukou in that province.

There is no strict way to work out the student quota, as it usually depends on the university and local government's funding and the university's traditional source of students, said Xiong Bingqi, vice-president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute in Shanghai.

However, distribution of universities in China is extremely uneven. According to research by China Education Online, for every 10,000 exam candidates, there are 11 universities in Beijing and 10 in Shanghai. But the number drops to two in Hubei, Shandong and Shaanxi provinces and below two in Henan.

In 2011, Peking University admitted about 32 students for every 10,000 Beijing candidates but less than one in Henan, Hubei and Shandong provinces. That is to say, Beijing's exam candidates are 47 times more likely to be admitted than candidates from these three provinces.

Xiong said, "This province-based recruitment system is an unfair one to start with. It creates huge geographical discrepancies and relies heavily on local government's administration."

Because of this, many local residents fear their children's chances of being admitted to good universities will be diminished, Xiong said.

But Yang Dongping, the Beijing Institute of Technology professor, said metropolitan residents should not be too worried, because the number of university candidates has been declining. The geographical discrepancy in recruitment can be partially corrected by pushing the central universities to give a fairer quota to different provinces.

What really matters is the capacity of primary and secondary educational resources in mega-cities, Yang said.

He cites figures from Beijing's education commission, showing that by 2020, primary schools will need 300,000 more places, and middle schools 115,000,

"That's the case without lifting the hukou limits for nonresident students," Yang said.

It is hard to predict accurately how many more nonresident students Beijing will have, and therefore it is necessary for the government to be cautious and take time to monitor policy effects, Yang said. "It's easier to talk about constitutions than thinking about realistic questions," he said.

The question then comes down to an essential one: Do people only have one option between constitutional rights and population control?

"No, definitely not," Yang said.

Although issues like natural resources, traffic pressure and mega-cities' functions are all problems to tackle, they only demonstrate the degree of difficulty in addressing nonresident students' exam eligibility rather than serving as the basis for policymaking, Yang said.

"Attempting to control population by limiting education is never the way to go," he said.

Contact the writer at [email protected]

Click for more cover stories