Five public primary and middle schools, three private schools and eight kindergartens in Longhua District will start taking in new students this fall semester in an effort to meet the demands of an increasing number of residents in the region. The five public schools are Gezhi Middle School, Hongshan Middle School, Gaoxin campus of Longhua District Foreign Language School, Longfei Primary School and Huayu Primary School. Pui Kiu College Xinyi School, Shenzhen Mingrui High School and Shenzhen Hankai Math and Science High School are the three private schools. Gezhi Middle School, a senior high school with a focus on math and science teaching, located near Hongshan Metro Station in Minzhi Subdistrict, will offer 1,800 seats in 36 classes. Hongshan Middle School, close to Metro Lines 4 and 6, will also offer 1,800 seats in 36 classes. The school will feature project-centered teaching and invite researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences to guide its students, who are encouraged to work in labs to facilitate learning. The Gaoxin campus of Longhua District Foreign Language School, aiming to train creative talents with high moral standards and interest in cultural learning, will offer 1,680 seats in 36 classes. Longfei Primary School, with a focus on art training, will have 24 classes, while Huayu Primary School will offer 1,620 seats in 36 classes. Pui Kiu College Xinyi School, co-founded by the Xinyi Group and Hong Kong-based Pui Kiu College, will provide high-quality education for Hong Kong children living in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The new school is conveniently located near the Shenzhen North Railway Station, which is a 19-minute high speed train journey from Kowloon Station in Hong Kong. The floor area and the construction area of the school are 42,500 square meters and 157,800 square meters respectively. The teaching model will be the same as the one adopted in Pui Kiu College in Hong Kong. Both schools will share the teaching materials and teaching quality control mechanisms. This project provides a platform for the interchange of students in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. The school offers about 3,000 seats in 108 classes for grades 1 to 12. Shenzhen Mingrui High School, offering quality education for arts students, will offer 735 seats in 21 classes, while Shenzhen Hankai Math and Science High School will offer 1,920 seats in 48 classes. In addition to the primary and middle schools, Longhua District will have eight new public kindergartens this September. Like other districts in Shenzhen, Longhua is in a citywide transitional campaign to turn private kindergartens into public ones, in an effort to offer quality affordable child-care services to young parents. (Debra Li) | 