Education equality has always been a hot topic at the annual sessions of the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. This year is no exception, especially after the Ministry of Education said it would launch reforms to reduce the percentage of schools that can admit students solely on the basis of their academic records. But the reform is easier said than done.

From next year, at least 90 percent of students passing out of primary schools in 19 major cities can enrol in nearby junior middle schools, and by 2016 not more than 5 percent of them can be students with special talents in arts and sports. This means 10 percent of the key middle schools can decide which candidates to admit based on their academic scores in selective exams. The question is: How do we determine which schools will not follow the new regulation?

Key middle schools probably account for 10 percent of the total in big cities. And if they are excluded from the ministry's new regulation, there will not be much change in parents' craze for selecting "good" schools for their children. Since most of the middle schools that enrol students with special talents are considered good, parents are willing to spend huge amounts of money to put their children through all kinds of extracurricular courses to get them admitted to such schools through the special quota.