BEIJING: Chinese universities have staggered their winter vacation times to prevent concentrated mass movement of students traveling home for Spring Festival.
The Ministry of Education has asked local education authorities and universities to adjust winter vacation schedules to make sure students at different universities leave campus in different time slots, it said in a notice.
Local education authorities should also make sure universities stagger the opening dates for spring semester and make sure they do not coincide with the Spring Festival travel rush for migrant workers.
Zhou Jiaxin, a graduate student at Communication University of China in Beijing, said the university had an early start to its winter vacation last Friday, and all students must leave the campus by this Friday.
Students at the university will have a two-month winter vacation this year, longer than the approximately 40 days in previous years, she said. Spring semester will start on Feb 28.
Lu Mingjiang, a graduate student at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said it will begin its winter vacation on Monday and the spring semester will start on Feb 21.
The university has placed restrictions on students leaving campus since Dec 28 after the capital started reporting new COVID-19 cases, he said.
Both students said their universities had told students to avoid unnecessary travel during the winter vacation and report their health conditions to the universities each day.
– The Daily Mail-China Daily News exchange item
