Opinion

Wuchuan schools ask parents to buy desks and chairs for children

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Desks at the Zhenwen Central Primary School with their owners' names etched onto the front. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Ernest Kao was a reporter at the Post until 2019, covering environment, energy, science and urban planning and development issues.

Published: 12:44pm, 2 Jan 2013Updated: 1:16pm, 2 Jan 2013

Students at primary and secondary schools in Guangdong province's Wuchuan city are being forced to buy their own desks and chairs for class, a Chinese newspaper reported on Tuesday.

For about 110 yuan (HK$125), parents of children at Wuchuan Chuanxi Middle School may buy used metal-wood desk-and-chair sets at the furniture store conveniently located next to the school. And that’s a good deal, because the ones the school provides to its student base of 1,200 are "worn".

For rural families in a country where about 150 million people still live under US$1.25 per day, a whole set would amount to days of wages.

Some Wuchuan parents interviewed by the Nanfang Farmer News newspaper said nine years of compulsory education was a big enough burden and that it was the schools' responsibility to provide chairs and desks for students.

Most parents, however, who struggle to even secure places for their children at schools, are afraid to “offend the school” and reluctantly comply, the newspaper reported.

Chen Kanghua, principal at Huangpo Central Primary School, said that because the school has recurring financial problems and “more than 600,000 yuan of external debt”, it simply could not afford anything more than its day-to-day expenses under the compulsory nine-year education system.