Chinese cities to relax school entry for rural migrants

BEIJING | Sun Dec 30, 2012 10:25am EST

BEIJING (Reuters) - Three populous Chinese regions plan to relax restrictions on the children of workers from rural areas trying to enter university-track high schools, China National Radio reported on Sunday, in an apparent response to protests over discriminatory practices.

The planned changes come too late to help a teenager whose plight has become a cause célèbre among activists pressing for reform of China's household registration, or hukou, regime.

Chinese high school students can only take university entrance exams where they are registered, a stipulation that effectively locks out the children of migrant workers in cities.

Hundreds of millions of Chinese have moved to cities from rural areas over the past three decades, but most migrants are still treated as second-class citizens without the same access to education, housing or health insurance as registered urban residents.

Reformists had seized on the case of Zhan Haite, 15, the daughter of migrants who had been raised in Shanghai but was ineligible to attend a university-track high school there. Her case triggered protests in Beijing and Shanghai this month, while her father was detained for several days for campaigning to secure education rights in Shanghai.

The rules as announced still do not treat the children of migrants as equals of city residents with legal registration.

"It's not ideal. They have just made the regulations more detailed, not changed the underlying situation," Zhan said from her home in Shanghai. The new criteria were so strict that she, and others like her, would still be ineligible, she said.

"I bet only 5 percent of the kids would meet the new requirements."

Beijing and Shanghai as well as Guangdong Province, whose Pearl River Delta factories are a magnet for migrants, will phase in access to the higher-education exams for students living within their borders, China National Radio reported.

But in practice, academically gifted migrant children will still face discrimination.

From 2016, Guangdong will allow migrant children to sit the exams and apply to university on an equal footing with legal residents.

Beijing and Shanghai plan to relax admission rules for vocational-track schools and in some cases open the door to university education to students who have first graduated from a vocational school program.

Migrant children may take the university exam in Beijing from 2013 and in Shanghai from 2014, but their university applications will still be processed in their legal hometown.

The children of migrants long resident in Beijing already have some rights to attend elementary school, but in practice they are often kept out by high fees, red tape and complicated admission procedures.

(Reporting by Lucy Hornby and Sabrina Mao; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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Idaho, California cities deemed best in U.S. for men

The Golden Gate Bridge is reflected onto a puddle from the early morning rain in San Francisco, California, November 28, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Beck Diefenbach

NEW YORK | Fri Dec 21, 2012 11:41am EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. men looking for the best place to find happiness, health and a good quality of life might consider heading to Boise, Idaho, or San Jose and San Francisco in northern California.

The three western U.S. cities top the list of the 100 best towns for men in a new ranking compiled by Men's Health magazine, while Charleston, West Virginia, Philadelphia and Birmingham, Alabama are considered the worst.

"Anytime we do a best and worst city ranking and a city comes in at the very top like this, it immediately says to us they were consistently strong across the board in pretty much all of the 38 criteria that we looked at," Men's Health Executive Editor Matt Marion said.

Boise, which jumped from fifth place last year, scored high marks for the physical and mental health of its residents, its low crime rate and short commuting times - an average of just 18 minutes.

"Boise finishing number one was interesting to us because it is a city that would have finished in the top 20, but to come in right at the top is impressive," Marion said.

San Francisco, which consistently ranks high in the annual list, impressed with its small percentage of obese people, low number of smokers and highly educated and generally fit population.

San Jose had very low death rates from cancer and heart disease, the lowest percentage of smokers in any of the 100 cities in the ranking, and not much crime.

Plano, in Texas and Seattle rounded out the top five, followed by Burlington, Vermont, which dropped from the top spot last year.

At the opposite end of the list, high cancer rates, violent crime and poor fitness levels assured Birmingham last place. In addition to Philadelphia and Charleston, West Virginia, the bottom five included Toledo, Ohio and St. Louis, Missouri.

New York ranked 33rd and Los Angeles was in the middle of the ranking.

The magazine compiled the list, now in its 12th year, by ranking the cities on criteria ranging from the cost of living, number of jobless, obesity, crime and death rates, to air quality and the ratio of men to women.

It used data from various sources including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the National Center for Health Statistics, state cancer registries and federal crime statistics.

"The things that we do focus on ultimately are the ones that will make a difference in terms of whether or not you will be happy and healthy," Marion said.

The full list can be found here

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Paul Casciato and Leslie Gevirtz)

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