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Chinese students have taken their anger to social media to protest what they called a rigid and universal restriction imposed by the university administration when classes resumed on campus last month.
Since schools reopened in late August, some 37 million college students have been taken into general custody of the campus due to the coronavirus pandemic.
For example, at Shanxi University in central China, students were placed under strict lockdown and security guards were dispatched to attend the school gates at all times to ensure that no student left campus without the approval of school administrators, according to student Zhang Li.
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The epidemic is under control in much of China, and in most cities the only new cases come from abroad.
According to the Chinese health commission, as of late Wednesday there were seven new cases of Covid-19 in the country. All were imported and there were no new local cases. There are a total of 167 confirmed active cases in China.
Restaurants and cinemas reopened, with social distancing and sanitation rules.
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Measures by mainland Chinese universities to close campuses and minimize the potential for Covid-19 to spread have fueled widespread discontent among students and faculty. The collective concern eventually resulted in the central government in Beijing ordering schools to relax restrictions.
Chinese college students expressed their anger on Weibo over the weekend. In China’s response to Twitter, there were heated ads on social media of students screaming in their dormitories for more than 30 minutes. A hashtag related to the topic was read more than 150 million times before being censored.
The strict exit controls coincided with the increase in food prices on campus and the reduction of the time of Internet use and the shower.
Also, the rules appeared to be directed at students only while faculty and staff were exempt. Zhang said he had seen teachers, construction workers and cafeteria staff come and go freely, without needing a permit.
“Many of our plans have been ruined by the closure, we couldn’t have part-time jobs, attend driver training or classes or take exams to get certificates,” Zhang said.
A student has a temperature check at the Minhang campus of East China Normal University in Shanghai, east China, on Sept. 13, 2020. Photo: Xinhua
The rules feel more like a formality to Chen Chen, a sophomore at the South China Agricultural University in the southern city of Guangzhou. When he returned to school on August 28, he went through several levels of temperature checks and registration. But this week, freshmen were receiving military training on campus and were not following strict social distancing rules, he said, defeating the purpose of the restrictions.
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It is not the first time that China’s rigid management style has made headlines on social media. In August, the Xinjiang government in western China relaxed lockdown rules after residents inundated Weibo with complaints about restrictions that had kept them trapped at home for more than a month.
There were also claims that people were forced to take traditional Chinese medicine, which has not been shown to alleviate Covid-19 symptoms.
In response to the latest wave of student objections, officials from the Ministry of Education’s epidemic prevention and control unit have urged local education authorities across the country to oversee the management of the campus.
Meanwhile, universities are also being asked to consider the views of students and faculty when it comes to campus management issues, according to a notice posted online by the Ministry of Education last week.
And the university administration has been asked to simplify the bureaucracy required for students seeking to leave campus for medical reasons or for an internship, job application or family visit.
