Lanzhou bows to public opinion, will allow school to remain open
Print Edition
When pupils started their new semester yesterday, more than 670 primary students in Gansu Province got their school back after a local government made a u-turn over plans to tear it down.
The Lanzhou government on Saturday yielded to public pressure against the demolition of the century-old Lanyuan Primary School, promising to keep it and not demolish it to make way for a central business district development plan.
The official statement to keep the school in Chengguan District was announced by Yu Haiyan, Party chief of Lanzhou, who was under fire last weekend after media reports led to major public concern about the demolition plan.
Yu said the city government would draw a lesson from the case and listen to public opinion on urban construction projects concerning public facilities such as schools and hospitals.
The Chengguan district government apologized to the school and parents for the inconvenience the “poor demolition plan” had caused.
Previous to the turnaround, the government had maintained a hard-line stance about tearing down the school, a nearby gymnasium and a children’s center to make way for the CBD, which is listed as a major project.
In line with the development agenda, the local authority had given the school a deadline to send students and teachers to two other primary schools before the end of this week, as the demolition project was due to get under way soon.
“When students came back to register for the new semester last week, I felt so sad in telling them that it would be our last week in the school,” said Ma Yanping, headmaster of the Lanyuan Primary School.
Ma said the local authority had urged the school to disperse faculty and students to the other two schools. There was no plan to rebuild it.
The school, built in the 19th century, is one of the oldest in Gansu. It is still regarded as one of the best public schools in downtown Lanzhou.
A survey by the Gansu provincial education department in August found Chengguan district’s education resources as “desperately insufficient,” citing crowded schoolrooms where students have a per capita space of less than five square meters each.
An additional 26 primary schools and eight middle schools are needed in order to meet national and provincial standards on the allocation of resources according to the local population of school-age children, according to the survey.
The population in Chengguan increased about 38 percent to around 1.3 million in the past decade, but only three primary schools were built while more than 10 were closed down during the period.
“For Chengguan district, the primary task now is to build schools, not demolish them,” said Li Chunrui, education superintendent with the provincial government.
The rare victory for teachers and students underscored a dilemma for many local governments, where business has clashed with education and other public livelihood projects, sparking a growing number of protests over land seizures.
Real estate developers and local governments are eager to grab more land and build apartments, shopping malls or office buildings in a bid to cash in on rising property prices.
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