Fifteen-year-old Chen Jun will be a Junior Three student in a private middle school after the summer vacation. His parents worry about his entering senior high school every day.

The family, which moved from Fujian and settled in Shenzhen in 1999, does not have the "significant" Shenzhen hukou, just as more than 10 million temporary residents in the city.

Chen will be categorized as a "type D" student according to the education bureau's student status classification system, which is based on differences in registered residence. Those belonging to the D category are not eligible for places at most public high schools in Shenzhen.

Although Chen has transferred to different schools several times due to his hukou problem and financial reasons, he has managed to stay in the top 10 in his school grade. He said his dream for the future was to become an astronomer, and his short-term goal was to enter Shenzhen Middle School, one of the city's best schools.

However, it would be unlikely that he could get a proper education in Shenzhen where his parents have worked for six years.

"This is unfair. We've paid taxes to the city for six years, and worked diligently as people with a Shenzhen hukou, but our child is not qualified to go to school," said Chen's mother Cai Aiping, an accountant with a private company.

But the education bureau didn't think this was unfair. "We have only 51 high schools. Each school recruits a little more than 100 students every year. Surely we will give precedence to students with hukou," said a lady with the bureau responsible for consultancy.

However, most people without hukou will not agree with her. Shenzhen has 161 junior middle schools. Parents of children who don't have a hukou are forking out big sums every term for compulsory middle school education -- despite the fact that their children do not have Shenzhen high schools to go to after their graduation.

"Why won't the government appropriate money to build more schools for the children? This is discrimination and an indication of a city's selfishness," said Cai.

Cai said she wouldn't like her son to go back to their hometown for schooling, as Fujian has a different education system from Guangdong, which would make it harder for Chen to progress in his studies, never mind the fact that he would have to live away from his parents.

Chen, who is visiting Tsinghua University during his summer vacation, plans to call the mayor's hotline or write to the premier to fight for his right to go to school.

Hukou for family members suspended

THE Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau announced Monday that it would stop granting hukou to family members of Shenzhen permanent residents until December.

The bureau said it would resume family member hukou applications Jan. 1, 2006.

Up to late July, the bureau had received 24,000 applications for family members, far exceeding the quota of 11,000 for the whole year.

It was hoped the move would ease the ballooning number of hukou being issued, and would allow the bureau more time to clear its backlog of existing applications.

The hukou quota for family members is limited and decided at the beginning of every year; those who fail to get their hukou within the year will have their applications postponed to the following year.

As Shenzhen's population growth has accelerated in recent years, it is now taking family members longer to obtain their hukou.

Meanwhile, the government will continue working on the present hukou regulations, in an effort to make the system more effective and systematic, the bureau said.

(Shenzhen Daily August 5, 2005)