Many parents in China buy houses in catchment areas for good schools - "Xuequfang," or 'School-district-houses' in Chinese - in order to ensure a quality education. It's one of the main factors, according to many experts, behind the country's rocketing house prices.
To curb the rush to buy houses near schools, a researcher at Shanghai Institute of Finance and Law, Fu Weigang, proposed a new educational plan in Caixin Magazine. Instead of good schools concentrating in one geographical area, they could set up branches and share their resources with them, in a similar way to how private educational institutions such as the popular New Oriental often operate. This method would let students and teachers acquire better and more balanced educational resources without area limitations.
Fu gave the example of Zhejiang Province, where development in the city of Hangzhou had pushed most residents to the margins, while the best schools are concentrated in the heart of the old city. The local authorities have thus started to promote the development of schools as brands instead of as fixed locations, letting residents in the suburbs benefit from the higher-quality schools in the center of the city.
Fu said that the idea that this would result in the break-up of quality schools was mistaken, and instead schools could act as a headquarters for sharing resources and training with their branches. But she also mentioned that the incentives for schools and teachers needed to be improved as well.
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