Guangdong’s Huazhou City has been experiencing consecutive days of high temperatures, yet the classrooms at Zhongdong Middle School in Huazhou City only have fans, leaving students sweating profusely and at risk of heatstroke. In response to parents’ complaints, teachers explained that they couldn’t afford to turn on the air conditioning. The reality is that many middle schools in Huazhou City are facing the same financial constraints.
According to a report by “Yangcheng Evening News,” on May 28th, parents of students at Huazhou Zhongdong Middle School in Guangdong complained that the school had air conditioning but refused to use it. With temperatures in Huazhou City hovering around 34°C for the past seven days, with lows of around 26°C, children were on the verge of heat exhaustion.
Parents revealed that in previous years, the school charged a fee for air conditioning usage. However, after some parents reported this practice last year, the school decided not to turn on the air conditioning this year and waived the fee. Some parents purchased small fans for their children to stay cool, but the effectiveness of the fans was limited given the intense heat.
A teacher at Zhongdong Middle School stated that the air conditioning system did not belong to the school. Originally, the school did not have air conditioning. However, as one of the examination centers for important tests, such as the high school placement exam and the college entrance exam, the school was required to have air conditioning. Despite this, the school did not receive funding from higher authorities. As a result, the school had to seek a third-party company to install the air conditioning system, for which they had to pay a fee whenever it was used. The school wanted to use air conditioning but couldn’t afford it. Being a public school, they couldn’t charge students for air conditioning usage, and their budget couldn’t cover the cost for the entire school. The third-party company previously charged parents for air conditioning under the guise of a “service fee,” but after parents complained, they ceased operating the air conditioning system.
The teacher also mentioned that with no air conditioning running recently, students would rush to the offices after class because they had air conditioning there and wouldn’t be chased out, saying, “The weather is really hot, and the students are struggling.”
The teacher indicated that aside from Zhongdong Middle School, several other middle schools in Huazhou City were also facing similar situations.
On May 28th, Chinese media outlets discovered in a report from the Huazhou City Education Bureau dated May 7th that out of seven reports concerning middle schools in Huazhou City, five mentioned issues related to air conditioning fees and involved third-party charges.
This incident has sparked attention and discussion among netizens.
User “Zhit’yi” commented: “The landscape lights are on every night, but the school can’t afford air conditioning electricity fees?”
User “Xiao Xiao Ge de Ge” commented: “In some people’s eyes, education is just a business.”
A post by blogger “Anqi Shen Network Technology WH” expressed that this is a classic case of a “blind spot in the system” leading to bizarre consequences. The necessity for air conditioning at examination centers for important tests was a strict requirement without an allocation for accompanying construction costs. This is tantamount to shifting the responsibility of providing public services to the schools while restricting them from charging fees, leading them down a dead-end path of resorting to social capital and setting a time bomb for themselves.
The article emphasized that when complaints about fees arose, everyone chose to protect themselves: schools were afraid to charge fees, third-party companies refused to operate, ultimately leaving students to suffer in the heat and abide by the “politically correct” rules. Such a one-size-fits-all approach is essentially lazy governance.
In recent days, Guangdong has been experiencing a heatwave, with temperatures feeling over 40°C in many areas on the afternoon of May 28th, exceeding 43°C in some cases. For example, Jieyang recorded a temperature of 37.9°C with 50% humidity, resulting in a perceived temperature of 43.6°C, while Guangzhou recorded 35.6°C with 53% humidity, feeling like 41.1°C.