DUE to a policy change that allows Shenzhen schools to enroll Shenzhen students with Hong Kong ID, a lot of schools in Hong Kong have seen fewer cross-border students registering for the new school year, according to Hong Kong media. The Hong Kong reports said that some schools in Hong Kong even had a student withdrawal rate of 72 percent. The Shenzhen authority rolled out policies this year that allow local public schools to accept students from Hong Kong and Macao, which is a benefit to the students who live in Shenzhen but have to cross the border to go to school in Hong Kong. Cross-border school children, as they are known, are kids who were born in Hong Kong and have a Hong Kong ID, but live in Shenzhen as both of their parents are mainlanders. In previous years, they had to get up early in the morning and would return home late at night due to the hours spent commuting. Since the policy change, an increasing number of parents of cross-border students have given up on Hong Kong schools and instead apply to local schools. A Shenzhen child surnamed Zhao is one of the cross-border students who chose to attend a local public school this September. Zhao, now a Grade-3 student, had commuted from his home in Nanshan to Hong Kong via Shenzhen Bay Checkpoint every day since kindergarten. Zhao was born in Hong Kong, but both of his parents are Shenzhen residents. Zhao’s mother said it was such a relief to have her child attending to a nearby school in Nanshan as it was very exhausting to commute between Shenzhen and Hong Kong on a daily basis. According to hket.com, one primary school in Hong Kong expected to see 488 Grade-1 registered students on the first day of school. However, 355 students did not appear at the school on the first day, 120 of whom were cross-border students. The school principal responded that the school lost over half of its students because of the policy change in Shenzhen and some local students who transferred to other schools in areas closer to their homes in Hong Kong. A report on Takungpao.com disclosed that according to a bus company that serves cross-border students, at least 400 to 500 students have chosen to attend schools in Shenzhen. Another school principal in Hong Kong said that the quality of schools on the mainland had been improving in recent years, leading some local Hong Kong students to choose to study on the mainland. (Zhang Qian)