(Yicai) Jan. 5 -- A number of Chinese cities, including Hangzhou and Guangzhou, have warned about a lack of places for all students seeking entry into primary and secondary schools this year.

Of Hangzhou’s more than 800 public schools, 120 elementary and 38 middle schools cannot offer enough places for local school-age children this year, the city's government said on Jan. 3. Wenzhou in eastern Zhejiang province and Guangzhou in southern Guangdong province have issued similar warnings.

China rolled out a two-child policy in 2016, leading to small birth rate peaks that same year and in 2017, resulting in greater demand for school places last year and this year, an analyst pointed out. 

Population movements will also lead to a shortage of school places in some areas, the analyst added. Higher urbanization levels bring a large influx of young people into towns and cities and an imbalance in educational resources, leading to fewer school places in cities with high population inflows and schools with strong academic results, he said.

The adjustment and consolidation of rural educational institutions is a major trend, with changes in the demographic structure and a decline in student numbers, especially in rural areas and small towns, Dong Yuzheng, a population expert and the chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Sociology Association, told Yicai.

The number of newborns in China fell from 18.8 million in 2016 to 9.6 million in 2022, the first reading below 10 million since 1950. This will lead to kindergartens and primary schools having difficulty finding students and may lead to a future surplus of school places, the analyst pointed out.

Sichuan and Shandong provinces will strictly control preschool and early education majors, according to documents their education departments issued last year.

Primary and middle schools are also at risk of being overstaffed, according to a Mycos report. Qiao Jinzhong, an associate professor at Beijing Normal University, said there will be a surplus of about 1.5 million elementary school teachers and 370,000 middle school teachers by 2035, based on the current teacher-to-student ratio and his team’s research model.

Editor: Martin Kadiev