Education in Beijing is least satisfactory in the country as it fails to maintain fairness, according to a recent survey.

Ji'an in Jiangxi province ranks No. 1 in overall assessment of public education, followed by Hangzhou and Nanchang, said the recently-released 2009 Development report of China's Education.

Taiyuan, Kunming and Beijing figure on the bottom of the list.

The annual report, produced and released by the 21st Century Education Research Academy, has been evaluating public education satisfaction since 2003.

The survey, conducted late last year, covered 30 major cities in the country, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Hangzhou and Lanzhou.

About 6,000 local residents aged 18-60 years old were polled in each city, and asked questions on "general evaluation of public education, fairness, costs, education quality, students' burden and the quality of teachers".

"The government has promised to provide satisfactory education to its people, and we need to know how far it's going with its promise," said Professor Yang Dongping of the Beijing Institute of Technology, who led the survey.

"We found that the average point of public education satisfaction in 2008 was lower than that of the previous year," Yang said.

The average score of major cities nationwide on public education satisfaction last year was 3.0, while the figure in 2007 was 3.5.

The survey used a 5-point scale, with 5 meaning "very satisfied" and 1 meaning "very dissatisfied".

The survey found that Taiyuan, Beijing, Xi'an and Changchun failed to clear the No.2 - "dissatisfied" - category on education fairness, one of the most debated issues in the education system of the country.

"These cities are notorious for high-cost schools and lack of honest ethos in local education departments," Yang said.

Wu Mei, a mother of a 12-year-old boy in Beijing, said she has to pay 30,000 yuan a year for her son's education in a relatively better high school.

"Parents have to help their children find a better high school, using all connections, money and tricks, in this age of razor-sharp competition," Wu said.

Although the government has insisted on the policy of neighborhood admissions, supporting weak schools, and encouraging the development of non-public schools, selecting the best of schools is an "unavoidable concern" for parents, especially as the social gap widens, said Qin Hangyin, a researcher with the China National Institute for Educational Research.

Beijing, along with other nine cities including Xi'an, Chongqing and Harbin, also flunk in public satisfaction on cost of education.

(China Daily March 3, 2009)