Responding to a proposal raised by a member of Guangzhou Municipal People's Congress, an official from Guangzhou’s Education Bureau said that the city has issued policies targeting schooling problems for the children of expat’s living in the city and would continue to offer greater resources and options in the future.
The Guangzhou Municipal People's Congress was held yesterday January 11, during which officials from various departments and bureaus addressed the concerns of the congress members.
[Photo provided to Newsgd.com]
“To develop innovative industries, high-end talent is now in great demand in Guangzhou’s Huangpu and the development district,” said Sun Zhiqiang, member of Municipal People's Congress and chairman of Risong Technology, “when considering the offers here, these individuals usually prioritize their children’s education issues. If we fail to solve these problems, it will have a knock on effect on the development of these industries.”
According to Sun, it takes an average of two months to half a year to bring in a talent. And it takes even longer to recruit overseas experts. He suggested that the city government should not only tackle children’s schooling problems, but also simplify the application procedures, making them less daunting in order that more people would be willing to relocate.
An official from Guangzhou’s Education Bureau said that expats’ children can now enter local schools in three major ways. Expats with talent ‘green cards’ enjoy a preferential policy whereby their children can enter schools as transient students. Other individuals can also apply for state schooling for children via the point-based policy.
“Especially in Huangpu and the development district, these issues have been given extra attention. The district has specific policies in place for overseas talent to apply for their children’s schooling,” said the official, “furthermore, Huangpu and the development district have been working very hard to bring high-quality educators to the area, including sino-foreign schools and dedicated school for expat children. Thus, there will be more options for overseas talent in the future.”
Reported by Jasmine Yin
Edited by Simon Haywood & Olivia Ouyang
