Only when one’s own job is at risk,
real change will be made
The issue of middle school entrance exam segregation has been called for for so many years, and it is unshakeable.
But just now, Shengsi County, an island county in Zhejiang, has canceled the function of the middle school entrance exam selection, ensuring that 100% of the graduates of junior high schools with local household registration and eligible children of migrant workers can be admitted to ordinary high schools!
Is the middle school entrance exam segregation a national policy? Why did it suddenly change?
It turns out that in the 2025 academic year, only 266 junior high school graduates in the county applied for general high schools.
And the number of general high school enrollments in Shengsi County was about 360 at its peak.
In other words, there’s no one left, so why are you still picking?
And the enrollment of Shengsi County Vocational and Technical Education Training Center, which is vocational high school, has decreased from 53 in 2018 to 32 in 2021.
Now that it has been changed like this, this vocational high school is equivalent to being shut down.
If we still implement the segregation of general and vocational schools now, it’s like no one is having babies, and we are still shouting family planning slogans.
Of course, it’s not just the island county. Even in the dazzling city of Hangzhou, the enrollment rate of the key high school international program in 2025 has risen from 50-66% in previous years to almost 100%!
A few days ago, I consulted the international department of a public high school about whether children who transferred from other provinces could be admitted, and the answer was that they could be admitted if they were assessed to be able to keep up…
Including large cities like Hangzhou and Hong Kong, they have been competing for students in recent years.
According to official distribution, in 2023, the number of new primary school students in Hangzhou reached 154,500, while 6 years ago, in 2017, only 86,600 people were born in Hangzhou, indicating that the new primary school students from outside almost accounted for half!
And in Shengsi County, it also includes eligible children of migrant workers.
How many years of calls for educational equity, suddenly realized overnight!
As for Hong Kong, due to many middle-class families taking their children away from Hong Kong, a large number of school places have been vacated. In the past two years, they have opened up immigration to mainland entrepreneurs and professionals, but they still cannot cover it. At the end of 2025, they simply launched the “direct subsidy expansion” in the middle school stage, and 78 schools provide relevant school places.
The tuition fee is about 120,000-130,000 yuan per year, which is cheaper than the international schools in the mainland that cost more than 300,000 yuan per year.
In addition, about half of the students have the opportunity to live in the on-campus dormitory, which costs about 30,000-80,000 yuan per year; if they choose to rent off-campus, the monthly rent is between 6,000-15,000 yuan.
Faced with this situation, Shengsi County is the first in the country to admit all students to general high schools, realizing “willing to read, read all”, but it is only facing the current situation and preserving the jobs in the education sector.
Of course, in the propaganda, this is still an innovation of high-quality development, and it is a deep transformation of basic education from “selection competition” to “all-round education”…
If we don’t “innovate” anymore, those full-time mothers who are obsessed with their children will not only find it ridiculous, but even educating themselves will be ridiculous.
Starting from the peak of the population birth in the new century in 2016, with 18 million people, 2022 is the peak of primary school first-grade students.
Four years later, in 2020, only 12 million babies were born, which means that the number of school places in 2026 will be reduced by 1/3 compared to 2022.
And in 5 years, by 2025, the number of babies born will be less than 8 million, less than half of 2016, which means that by 2031, the education resources will be over half of 2022!
Junior high school, 6 years later than primary school.
Now look at the deserted obstetrics and gynecology departments, as well as the closed kindergartens, the education sector really needs to find a way to protect their food.
As for high school, in the current market, its importance in changing the family’s destiny has greatly decreased. If we continue to implement the middle school entrance exam segregation, it is very likely that they will not go to high school after graduating from junior high school. “12.22 million more graduates, the most tragic employment season is coming! Instead of desperately pursuing further education, it is better to socialize and change blood“
Doctors are indeed more knowledgeable than undergraduates, they see this future, so many doctoral students no longer regard universities as the first choice for employment.
Only undergraduates are still desperately trying to get teacher qualification certificates.
Sometimes everyone feels ridiculous, but everyone does it, so let’s do it, one day at a time.
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