China’s schools are facing intensifying public calls to install air conditioning units in their classrooms as an unseasonal heat wave disrupts the start of the academic year.

Temperatures in many parts of China are still above 35 degrees Celsius, but large numbers of primary and middle school classrooms rely only on ceiling fans for ventilation.

With class sizes often exceeding 40 students, the heat can be intolerable, forcing schools to take a range of emergency measures, from delaying classes to asking parents to donate AC units and giant blocks of ice.

But these calls for donations are also sparking controversy. In central China’s Hunan province, one primary school has faced accusations of trying to get parents pay for AC to be installed in each of its classrooms.

The school issued a donation form to parents, asking them to agree which families would pay for installing new AC units, sockets, and wiring in each classroom. The document even specified which brand of air conditioning the parents should purchase.

Though local officials stressed that the donations were purely voluntary, the incident quickly went viral on Chinese social media, sparking a wave of public criticism. Local education authorities issued a statement later last week, confirming the school had been ordered to reimburse the parents.

In the past, many schools in China didn’t deem air conditioning in classrooms a necessity, given that students are typically on vacation during the hottest and coldest months of the year.

But that is changing as periods of extreme weather become more frequent and intense. This year, longer-than-expected heat waves have caught schools across the country off guard.

Regions including Chongqing and Sichuan province in southwestern China, as well as the eastern Jiangxi province, have postponed the start of the fall semester due to the heat.

While not yet a mandatory nationwide requirement from authorities, air conditioning is becoming increasingly common in some primary and junior high schools.

Cities like Wanning in the southern Hainan province, as well as Yangzhou and Changzhou in the eastern Jiangsu province, have equipped all public primary and junior high schools with AC. In 2022, Shanghai issued guidelines for improving public school facilities, specifically requiring all classrooms in the city’s primary and junior high schools to be equipped with air conditioning.

However, despite these measures and the sky-high temperatures, some local authorities still appear reluctant to fund the installation of more air conditioning. Education bureaus have cited a range of concerns, from overstretched budgets to the spread of respiratory diseases among students.

One education authority in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, argued that installing AC in every local classroom was impossible due to financial constraints and limited electricity capacity.

But parents argue that the health of their children should come first. Lin Yujun, the father of a junior high school student in the southern Guangdong province, said that local adults can’t stand the heat without air conditioning, let alone children.

“Without air conditioning, it would be challenging to concentrate on studying,” he said.

With temperatures in Guangdong already above 35 degrees and getting hotter, Lin said he worried that the situation in crowded classrooms could get worse.

(Header image: VCG)