It’s a familiar sight in Beijing these days: an abandoned school on the brink of collapse, overrun by weeds. The sight was still present on a recent trip to the city where the government is rapidly moving to demolish thousands of these “ghost schools” in an effort to improve the capital’s woefully inadequate education system. But unlike the rundown school in Jing Jia Xiang, many of Beijing’s decrepit schools were still intact and occupied. The difference was that the buildings weren’t empty — they were transformed into dormitories for local students. A man surveys an abandoned school as Beijing looks to alleviate overcrowded classes. Photo: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images Some Beijingers say the buildings should be torn down, but others are happy to see new residents moving into the dilapidated buildings, since it takes away the stigma that they’re eyesores. “Since it’s in a good neighborhood with so many people and businesses, these abandoned schools aren’t a bad thing,” one woman told Sixth Tone. “People are happy that the school is being used as a dorm, not that it’s being demolished.” The Chinese government has moved to improve the education system in Beijing, one of the largest cities in the world. Experts say the city’s schools have been struggling to meet the demands of China’s burgeoning urban population. About 5,400 primary schools were scheduled for closure this year, according to the education ministry. Meanwhile, about half of all students in Beijing have never attended school, according to the ministry, and the school-age population grew 11.8 percent between 2009 and 2013. But Beijing’s education system is not unique. Throughout the country, more and more classrooms are being closed and reallocated as education officials strive to improve facilities in cities and rural areas. A 2016 report from the Ministry of Education showed that about 10 percent of students in China are in danger of being cut from their schools because there is no space for them. According to a 2014 report from Chinese state media Xinhua, “many schools have been shut down because they were built in sparsely populated rural areas, in remote regions, or far from the urban center where most students live.” Photo: Zhou Dadi/VCG/VCG via Getty Images However, few abandoned schools have become dormitories in Beijing’s neighborhoods. As the report noted, some abandoned schools in the capital still have families living in them. “It’s no longer abandoned if there’s still someone living there,” Li, a 22-year-old from Dalian studying at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, told Sixth Tone. “There should be more abandoned schools being turned into apartments, and these apartments should be available to anyone.” A number of other Chinese cities have transformed their abandoned schools into apartments. During the past five years, more than 100 secondary schools in rural areas of Chongqing, Shandong province, and Shenzhen have been converted into student apartments, according to the education ministry. The apartments include a number of bedrooms, living rooms, and eating areas, as well as toilets and washrooms. Another reason the transformation of some abandoned schools into student dorms have been opposed in the past is because of the lack of public safety in some of these former schools. In 2013, 11 police officers were killed in a high-speed chase through a secondary school dormitory in Zhengzhou, central China’s Henan province, highlighting the lack of security at some of these facilities. However, the situation has changed considerably since the state-run Beijing Evening News reported that all major cities across China have begun a large-scale closure and rehabilitation of old schools, which is part of a nationwide plan announced by China’s central government in 2015. “The plan aims to provide quality education in urban areas so that students can enjoy more convenient access to better education and teachers can find their work more rewarding,” the Beijing Evening News reported in May 2017. These schools are set to be transformed into apartments, and local governments will provide affordable rent for the students. But the government has a long way to go before the country can be assured of a safe and happy education environment for all students. The government must address China’s overcrowded classrooms by improving the education system in the cities, and the central government must increase funding for public education, according to Zhu Danyu, a professor at Peking University’s School of Public Policy and Management. Zhu told Sixth Tone that with the country’s population set to top 1 billion by 2020, it is essential that urban schools are improved and more children are educated in the country’s cities. The government must also do more to prevent the demolition of buildings when people leave them, as in the case of the Jing Jia Xiang school, which once housed a kindergarten and was considered a valuable piece of real estate. “[Overcrowded] classes and bad schools aren’t the only issues facing students and teachers,” Zhu said. “The issue is that the government is turning its back on public buildings that have tremendous amounts of public good, whether it’s historical or architectural.” (Header image: A woman looks out a window of a dormitory at an abandoned school in Beijing, May 19, 2016. Yan Shuai/VCG/VCG via Getty Images/VCG)