Student Protests: Beijing School Students Stage Collective Walkout Over Influx of Teachers From Shan

In recent days, student protests have broken out at several middle and high schools across China, with students challenging school administrators over teaching quality, disciplinary policies, and holiday arrangements.

One of the most prominent incidents reportedly occurred at the Pufang Campus of Beijing No. 18 High School, where students staged a collective class boycott after growing frustrated with changes in school leadership and teaching staff.

Videos and accounts circulating on Chinese social media and X indicate that students gathered on campus to confront administrators, while some reportedly refused to attend classes. The protest followed complaints that a newly appointed principal and a large number of teachers brought in from Shandong Province had disrupted classes and imposed increasingly strict management policies.

The accounts and allegations circulating online could not be independently verified.

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Students challenge school administrators in Beijing

On Sept. 25, X user “Aimo” posted videos and screenshots purporting to show students at Beijing No. 18 High School’s Pufang Campus taking part in a class boycott.

According to the posts, the unrest began on Sept. 23 and became serious enough that officials from Beijing’s Fengtai District were called to the campus.

Students alleged that the school had recently appointed a principal from Shandong and replaced many teachers in the upper grades with educators from the same province. Some students complained that the teachers spoke with strong Shandong accents that made lessons difficult to follow and accused the new staff of unnecessarily expanding or complicating the curriculum.

Video footage circulating online showed hallways crowded with students. In one clip, a male student wearing glasses could be seen holding a microphone and confronting a man who appeared to be a school administrator as other students applauded, shouted, and laughed.

The student appeared to question the administration about conditions at the school and what students described as unfair treatment.

Online posts attributed to students and parents also accused the administration of enforcing unusually rigid rules governing absences. Students reportedly claimed that leave requests could be rejected even in cases involving injuries, family requests, or menstrual symptoms, and that students seeking medical leave were sometimes required to provide documentation from a high-level hospital.

For students preparing for China’s highly competitive national college entrance examination, or gaokao, the dispute over teaching quality appears to have been particularly sensitive.

According to the online accounts, some parents contacted China’s 12345 government service hotline to complain about the newly assigned teachers. Students alleged that the complaints produced little change and that some families ultimately turned to private tutoring because they felt classroom instruction was inadequate.

One account alleged that during a parent-teacher meeting, the new principal dismissed complaints and told parents that they could report him but would be unable to remove him because he had “connections at the top.”

“Later, when parents filed a complaint with the Education Bureau, nothing was resolved,” one person claiming knowledge of the dispute wrote online.

There is no independent confirmation of the alleged remarks.

Students also reportedly began organizing among themselves before the demonstration. According to one account, a sophomore student wrote a publication called the “Pufang Commentary,” which students secretly distributed among classmates to air grievances about school management.

Three issues were reportedly circulated.

During the Sept. 23 protest, sophomore students were said to have taken the lead, with students from other grades later joining them. Videos circulating online appeared to show large numbers of students gathering outside school buildings and surrounding administrators while demanding answers.

Some students reportedly livestreamed portions of the confrontation and uploaded videos to Douyin, China’s domestic version of TikTok.

The footage prompted a wave of reaction on X, where commenters praised the students for openly challenging school administrators.

“The students’ concerns were ignored for so long—it’s unbelievable that they finally stood up,” one commenter wrote.

Another remarked, “Students are waking up early these days.”

Student protests reported at schools in Sichuan and Shanxi

The Beijing dispute came amid reports of similar student protests elsewhere in China.

At Anyue Middle School in Anyue County, Sichuan Province, students reportedly staged a mass protest on the evening of Sept. 23 after learning that they would receive only one day off for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

According to videos and accounts posted by the China-focused protest-monitoring account “YesterdayBigcat,” students gathered around the dormitory area, shouting between buildings and expressing anger over the shortened holiday.

At one point, a student representative reportedly left the school grounds and delivered a speech outside the campus, drawing cheers from other students.

Online reports also claimed that some students discussed damaging the school cafeteria as part of a planned escalation of the protest, although there was no indication that such an incident ultimately took place.

The school administration reportedly changed course on Sept. 24 and restored the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday to three days.

A separate protest was reported the following day at Kangjie Middle School in Yuncheng, Shanxi Province.

Students there were reportedly dissatisfied with Principal Yan Zongmin’s strict management policies and posted handwritten slogans around the campus.

Photographs circulating online showed messages including “Yan Zongmin oppresses students” and “Struggle for human rights.”

Student unrest reflects broader tensions over school management

The demonstrations follow a series of other reported student protests in China this year.

On May 29, students at Yangxin County Experimental High School in Hubei Province reportedly protested what they described as excessive restrictions imposed by school administrators.

From May 26 to 27, students at Guangxi Sports College and Guilin University of Aerospace Technology reportedly sang and shouted late into the night to protest prolonged power outages.

Earlier, on May 16, more than 2,000 students at Wenshang County No. 1 High School in Jining, Shandong Province, reportedly protested after administrators delayed their dismissal from school.

While the circumstances vary from school to school, many of the protests appear to share common complaints: rigid administrative controls, demanding academic schedules, limited avenues for students to raise grievances, and intense pressure surrounding examinations.

China’s education system is highly competitive, particularly at the high-school level, where performance on the gaokao can have a major impact on students’ university and career opportunities.

Critics of the system have long argued that the emphasis on exam results, discipline, and administrative control can come at the expense of students’ individual needs and ability to challenge school authorities.

The recent demonstrations suggest that some students are increasingly willing to make those grievances public.

At the Beijing school, the protest was notable not only because students refused to attend classes, but because they openly confronted administrators, circulated their own written commentary, and used social media to document the dispute.