Warning over commercial activities on school grounds

School and kindergartens nationwide have been ordered to stay away from any form of commercial advertisements and activities, the Ministry of Education said on Friday.

The comment came after an incident in Heze, Shandong province, where students at a primary school were handed yellow caps and Young Pioneers' red scarves carrying ads for a shopping mall during an activity to promote traffic safety.

The ministry said the incident was "very bad in nature". It urged local authorities to draw lessons from it and take measures to prevent such ads and activities from entering schools and kindergartens.

It also called on local education departments to carry out inspections at schools and kindergartens to check for ads on students' textbooks, stationery, school buses and other objects.

The authorities should also set up systems that record and examine activities that allow organizations into schools, collecting information on the activity's subject, organizer and participants, and stopping those that are not related to the schools' educational functions, the ministry said.