Guangdong to add over 1 million regular high school seats in 5 years

Recently, a set of data on regular senior high school places in Guangdong disclosed in a report by Xinhua Daily Telegraph has drawn public attention: it is estimated that more than 260,000 new regular senior high school places will be added this year, and more than 1 million are expected to be added in the next five years. Behind such a large-scale public service expansion effort lies the "Guangdong challenge" hidden in changes in the school-age population: statistics show that Guangdong has a permanent resident population of 127 million, with more than 150 million people present in the province in real time, and the nine cities of the Pearl River Delta gather nearly 80 million permanent residents, accounting for more than 60 percent of the province's total permanent resident population. The number of births has ranked first in the country for eight consecutive years, with more than 1 million newborns each year. The accumulation of births after the implementation of the "two-child" and "three-child" policies has pushed Guangdong's school enrollment peak from primary school to junior high and senior high school stages. Among them, some areas in populous cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan and Foshan have repeatedly issued school place warnings. A vertical comparison also shows that Guangdong's school-age population has grown rapidly. In 2019, the number of primary school students in Guangdong surpassed Henan, making it the highest in the country; in 2025, the number of junior high school students in Guangdong surpassed Henan, making it the highest in the country. As the peak transmits, it is only a matter of time before Guangdong's number of regular senior high school students becomes the highest in the country.