WANG Yulan is struggling mightily these days over the prospect of sending her 12-year-old daughter back to her hometown for middle school.

“The current regulations don’t allow children from outside the city to take local high school and college entrance examinations, which means they cannot enter local high school,” says the 43-year-old from Anhui Province, who’s working as an ayi (domestic helper) in Shanghai.

There are exceptions if the parents meet certain requirements, such as holding special Shanghai residence permit for imported professionals, high school or university teachers, researchers or business investors.

“This is rather a torture for my child,” says Wang, whose daughter now studies at a local primary school in Shanghai.

“I am thinking of sending her back to Anhui for middle school,” Wang says. “Because she can’t sit for the college entrance examination in Shanghai, it is better for her to go back earlier to get accustomed to the environment there.

“I am so reluctant to let her go, because she will be in her rebellious phase in puberty. I am afraid that my mother can’t deal with her,” Wang adds. “Also she is accustomed to the life in Shanghai, and all her friends are here. Sometimes how I wish that I could have been born locally so that my daughter would have an easier life.”

In China, many children of migrant workers are left behind while their parents seek opportunity in big cities to earn more money for the family. These children form the so-called left-behind generation. Some live in their hometown with their grandparents, while others stay with their parents to receive the nine years of compulsory education in the city where the parents work.

But due to strict regulations on household registration, or hukou, these “temporary city students” are forced to return to their hometowns for high school, as they are not permitted to take local high school or college entrance exams because they don’t have the local hukou.

But change is coming. More provinces and cities have announced education reforms that would allow children of migrant workers to enter senior high schools and take college entrance exams locally.

Shandong and Guangdong provinces have announced such policies for migrant children, but major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are hesitating to work out a plan.

The high school entrance exam falls on June 21-22, while Shanghai’s college entrance exam will be held on June 7-8.

“Usually the tests in those densely populated regions are more difficult, so the students there need to work much harder to obtain an opportunity to squeeze into the ‘gate’ of the universities,” says Liu Minglan, a 30-year-old Chinese teacher at a Shanghai primary school.

“I have two students in my class whose parents are migrant workers. The children seem to be more mature than their peers. They are really working harder, as they are often told by their parents that ‘going to university’ is the only way to changing their fate,” she says.

Lin Xiaowei, a 12-year-old boy from Anhui Province studying at a local primary school, tells Shanghai Daily, “I am feeling inferior to other classmates. When they are talking about the games on iPad, I feel like an idiot. So I am working hard to gain my confidence in the class. I haven’t thought of going back for senior high school, because my mother and teacher told me that the education policy might be changed in the future.”

But for some local parents, the prospect of migrant children sitting for the college entrance exams with their children is a “nightmare.”

“I fully understand the concept of fair education, but do you think Shanghai is ready to receive so many outsiders in every area?” asks Lily Song, a 38-year-old white-collar worker with a 10-year-old son. “Can’t you see the current conflicts between doctors and patients and incredibly high housing prices in neighborhoods with good schools?

“Shanghai doesn’t have abundant sources ready for the whole country,” she says. “If such admission is allowed, all local parents will go mad. The reason is simple: The competition of college entrance exam in Shanghai will be more ferocious when more students apply.”

Yu Wenyin, a stay-at-home mother of a 7-year-old daughter, shares the same view.

“In the past, the educational environment in Shanghai was quite relaxed. There were not so many training courses outside schools,” she says. “But with the coming of more outsiders, the burden on the local students becomes heavier. Competition already starts earlier, even in kindergarten.

“In my eyes, the basic thing is not to permit the children of migrant workers to sit local college entrance exams, but to narrow the gap between the urban and rural areas in China.”

Of course these opinions from local parents are rejected by migrant parents.

“Fair competition is for everyone, I don’t see anything wrong with that,” says Li Yonggui, a 40-something shoe repairman who has a small shop. “Shanghai people are already privileged. They have their own apartments and some of their children could study at very good schools. My life is ruined, and I don’t want to see my son be a shoe repairman as well.”

How to balance this conflict will test the wisdom of the government, as any small change seems likely to result in tension between urban and rural groups. “This is not a simple solution of whether to permit the children of migrant workers to sit local high school or college entrance exams,” says a staffer working in the admissions office at a local university who refused to be identified.

“It’s more about allocating the quota for universities. For example, if more students take the college entrance exams in Shanghai, say for Fudan University, then apparently the number of students admitted to Fudan University should be increased and the number in other regions would be lowered. Yet the allocation in different regions has to be worked out much earlier. It is rather difficult to estimate the big flowing population in a city.

“The subject is too sensitive, and it is very hard to meet the needs of both sides,” he acknowledges.

Nevertheless, fair education is the right of each person in the country, and the government has urged each province and city to work out a plan regarding the issue.

This year Fudan University devised a new scheme called “Flying Plan” that would give bonus points to 300 students from poverty-stricken areas of the country.

“A slight move on one part may affect the situation as a whole,” the admissions official says, noting that many issues need to be resolved, including an imbalance in quality universities around the country, along with different quota systems.

“After all, Rome was not built in a day,” he says. “It requires a certain amount of time and patience, the understanding of the public and of course the wisdom of the government.”