Chongqing Universities Pressure Students to Change their Hukou

By Zhang Xiaohui
Published: 2010-11-02

Economic Observer Online
November 2, 2010
Translated by Rose Scobie
Original Article:
[Chinese]

Chongqing launched a reform of its household registration system this past July aiming to change the registration of rural residents to urban. Recently universities have been pressuring rural students to give up their rural residency. Many students are hesitant to do so because the reform stipulates that they must give up their rights to their farm land in order to become urban residents.

According to an anonymous source from the Chongqing Municipal Education Committee, the office of the work group responsible for household registration reform (heron referred to as the Reform Office) has put pressure on the Education Committee to meet registration reform targets through the use of universities.

According to a source, since July 28 when Chongqing launched the reform of its household registration system, the reform targets have not met expectations. According to information published by the Chongqing government, 10 million rural residents will obtain urban registration through the reform. The government yearly transformation target is 3 million, meaning 10,000 people a day must have their registration altered.

Official figures released by the Reform Office earlier this September show that only a thousand farmers are altering their residence registration per day in Chongqing.

The task of altering rural household registration has fallen to various vocational universities; schools have a large population and students are easy to manage and mobilize. The exposure of the scandalous compulsory nature of universities altering the registration of students is related to the pressure placed on universities by the Chongqing Education Committee and the Reform Office.

In a report given to the Reform Office, the Chongqing Education Committee has set the target of registering 660 thousand college students from rural areas as urban residents by the end of 2011, 460 thousand by the end of 2010, and 200 thousand in 2011, meaning that Chongqing Universities need to shoulder 30 percent (150 thousand) of the Chongqing’s household registration reform duties.

According to the anonymous source, it is practically impossible for the Education Committee and the Universities to meet the reform targets.

Photo Credit: China Media Project