On the evening of June 3, thousands of students from the senior third grade of Shangyu School in Changning, Hunan, spontaneously held a shouting event on campus to relieve the pressure of the upcoming college entrance examination. After being reported by the school, the police entered the campus and arrested three students, sparking discontent among the students. The students formed a human wall and stood in front of the police cars demanding the release of the arrested students. Eventually, the police used force to push the students aside, and the three students were taken away.
Shangyu school senior student Wang Lei (pseudonym) told The Epoch Times, “We simply couldn’t bear the school’s actions. Last night, the senior students spontaneously held a shouting event. The school shouldn’t have called the police to take people away. We didn’t block the police cars. Later, when the police cars left the school, we dispersed.” “Shouting event doesn’t mean demanding a refund, we just gathered to sing and boost morale. The school is too overbearing. We organized an activity, and they just sent us in. Now the school’s official WeChat account issued a clarification about our incident, but it didn’t say anything.”
In the afternoon of June 4, the official WeChat account of Shangyu School explained the situation that occurred the previous night (June 3). On the morning of June 3, the school held a graduation ceremony and eighteen-year-old coming-of-age ceremony for the senior third grade. In the evening, without the school’s organization, some students spontaneously imitated the popular online “shouting show” between two teaching buildings, performing programs like “drumming” and “chorus,” attracting many students from other grades to come and watch. After failed attempts by duty teachers to persuade them, they decided to call the police, stating that they wouldn’t hold the students responsible.
Shangyu School sophomore student Li Hua (pseudonym) told The Epoch Times, “Yesterday was the coming-of-age ceremony for the senior third grade. In the evening, they organized their own shouting event, and as a result, people from Hengshui Group called the police. Three police cars and over ten police officers came and arrested three senior students, one of whom was playing the drums.” “Last night, everyone in the school came out, nearly three thousand people (this is only half of the total), blocked the police cars on campus for half an hour, demanding that they not take away the students. The money used for the drumming was donated, but the police even dragged away the drum set with their car.”
The reason people from Hengshui Group called the police to arrest students at the school is because on April 14 of this year, Shangyu High School in Changning City, Hengzhou High School in Hengyang City, and Hengshui Zhengxian Education Group held a collaboration in running the school. The purpose is to create a new model of private school management, with the core concept of “empowering well-known schools, sharing resources, and building characteristics together.” It aims to transform Shangyu and Hengzhou high schools into new benchmarks for basic education in the southern region of Hunan.
Li Hua said, “Starting next semester, our schedule will follow Hengshui’s. We have to wake up at 5:00 a.m., have 15 classes a day, and the entire school’s teachers and students are required to do morning exercises. Even the elderly teachers are asked to participate. The elderly teachers said they couldn’t run due to health reasons, and when asked who would be responsible if something happened, the response was simply ‘we are covered by insurance.’ Now, teachers from Hengshui are here managing the school, and it’s disgusting.” “Many teachers from Hengshui come every night to inspect the dormitories, with seven Hengshui teachers on each floor. Our dormitory has six floors, with over forty Hengshui teachers here. This is just the girls’ dormitory. We are all on the verge of collapsing. When the Hengshui teachers aren’t here, we only have one teacher checking the dormitories.”
“Since the Hengshui teachers came, last week the school no longer allows us to use air conditioning. It’s scorching hot, feels like we’re going to suffocate, but they still won’t turn on the air conditioning like before. The high school atmosphere is terrible. We’re asked to pay money in the middle of classes, with tuition fees of 11,000 yuan, adding up to nearly 17,000 yuan with other fees, and later they’ll scam us by saying it’s for additional document fees, the total being close to 20,000 yuan per semester.” “That’s why last night, students formed a human wall in front of the police cars to prevent them from leaving, chanting slogans like ‘drop out, refund’ and demanded the police release the arrested students. In the end, we could only watch as the three students were taken away,” Li Hua said.
In the afternoon of June 4, The Epoch Times contacted Shangyu School, and the school’s response by 9:00 pm was, “At that time, the school chose to call the police, disperse the crowd, and restore order. The students’ enthusiasm persisted, and some complained about the measures taken to stop the event. The school fully understands the students’ feelings, but we prioritize safety. The students who were taken away were brought back only 10 minutes later.”