"Family with two children, two children are in two schools, and it is difficult for one mother to pick up and drop off"... Due to the "multi-school division" admissions policy, multiple children of the same family may attend different schools, which is making multi-child families facing difficulties in picking up and dropping off. .
In this regard, Chengdu, Sichuan introduced the policy of "Long and Young Learn Along", allowing brothers and sisters to study in the same school, in order to reduce the burden of parenting for families with multiple children.
How effective is this policy?
Picking up multiple children is no longer a problem
"If a family of 3 children is drawn to 3 different schools, and the parents have three heads and six arms, they cannot pick them up at the same time. This will undoubtedly increase the family's pick-up burden. How can we encourage childbirth?" Policies must simultaneously reduce the cost of childbirth, parenting and education for families.
In January 2021, the Chengdu Education Bureau issued a new policy to implement multiple children's enrollment.
It is clarified that parents can voluntarily apply for "double (multiple) twins binding" computer random admission. If the lottery results in multiple children who may attend different schools, they can also apply for other children to attend the same school as their enrolled children.
At present, Chengdu has placed 1,525 children with multiple children to study in the same school, and implemented 2,335 pairs of multiple (twin) twins to study in the same school, providing convenient pick-up and drop-off for nearly 4,000 families.
Tang Xiaohua, the parent of a student at the Junior High School of Chengdu Shishi Middle School (Qinglong Campus), raised a pair of sisters who were more than a year apart by herself and was the first beneficiary of the new policy.
"I'm so lucky, the operation process is very simple, just fill in a form." Tang Xiaohua said that if the two children are not in the same school, pick-up and drop-off will become an "impossible task".
Admissions Fairness Unshakable
To satisfy multiple children's admission to the same school means changing the existing admissions policy.
In this process, disputes and contradictions are inevitable.
Some people have made a special call to the Chengdu Education Bureau, questioning whether families with many children will crowd out places from families who do not enjoy the policy, especially in hot schools where places are tight; others worry about whether there is a speculative loophole in the policy.
Shi Bin, director of the General Education Division of the Chengdu Education Bureau, said that in order to ensure fairness, the Chengdu Education Bureau has conducted many investigations and demonstrations.
From the collection of questions, the investigation and discussion, to the formulation and improvement of the plan, the citizens participated in the whole process.
For example, the Chengdu Municipal Education Bureau stipulates that if the elder brother and sister are admitted to the non-policy policy, such as admission for special reasons, the younger brother and sister cannot enjoy this preferential policy.
School districts with a tight supply of places may implement a set of houses to give priority to the enrollment of school-age children with household registration in one family.
In practice, policies are constantly being improved to close loopholes as much as possible.
According to a staff member of the General Education Office of the Chengdu Education Bureau, there have been twin parents who had given two children a lottery before, in an attempt to choose the best school based on the lottery results.
Such operations are also considered invalid.
If parents want two children to be bound for admission, they need to apply for a binding lottery at the time of registration.
A high-quality balanced side is the long-term solution
The problem of multiple children in different schools stems from "multi-school zoning", and "multi-school zoning" stems from the imbalance of education levels among schools.
Experts believe that in the long run, it is still necessary to promote the high-quality and balanced development of compulsory education, and to run schools at every door.
In 2014, Chengdu launched the pilot work of the construction of the compulsory education school district system, coordinating the educational facilities, equipment and venues in the school district, and realizing the sharing of software and hardware facilities among the schools in the school district; promoting the reform of the personnel system of "county management and school employment", and encouraging the school district as a unit to organize Carry out cross-school competition for teachers; encourage teachers of music, sports and beauty and other in-demand subjects to teach in the school district.
Shi Bin said that it is precisely because Chengdu has made unremitting efforts to promote the high-quality and balanced development of compulsory education in recent years, that this multi-child enrollment policy has been recognized by parents and implemented smoothly.
At present, Chengdu is promoting the "High Quality Multiplication Project". It is planned that by 2025, the coverage rate of high-quality schools in the city's primary and secondary schools will reach more than 70%, so that more children can receive better education.
Xiong Bingqi believes that when all schools in the school district have similar school conditions and quality, it is possible to explore the implementation of single-school divisional admissions to further eliminate school selection anxiety.
To do this, it is necessary to effectively narrow the gap in school quality between schools within a school district and between school districts while implementing a multi-school zoning admission policy.
This requires local governments to continue to allocate resources for compulsory education in a balanced manner and to improve the conditions for running schools in weak schools.
Ban Yue Tan reporter Yuan Qiuyue