Getting students through school quicker could help young people adapt to society and reduce the number of singles, a Guangdong lawmaker has asserted. Huang Yanru, a member of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, said one of the major reasons there are so many “leftover” men and women, is the time it takes people to complete their studies, Guangzhou Daily reported yesterday.

Huang Yanru giving an earlier speech in Nanjing, via Google Images

In his proposal to the Second Session of the 11th Guangdong Provincial Committee of the CPPCC that opens today, Huang suggested shortening primary school to five years from the current six, and junior and senior high school to two years each from the current three years each. He asserted that the current system is “wasting both students’ and society’s time.”

“Chinese people usually begin to work at about the age of 22 when they have graduated from college, and that is too late for them to enter society,” said Huang, who is also political commissar of the General Hospital of Guangzhou Military Command of the People’s Liberation Army.

“Many people have become leftovers and find it hard to find the right person after they finally have stable employment or build a decent career,” Huang said.

“Shortening the school system would certainly help reduce the number of leftover men and women when young people begin to work and plan their future lives three years earlier,” he told media.

Zhang Yiri, an associate professor at Guangzhou City Polytechnic, agreed that reducing students’ school years could allow schools to cut a lot of dead wood out of curricula. However, he was quoted in China Daily as saying there was a major flaw in Huang’s proposal.

“The country’s employment pressure will grow greatly when people can begin to work three years earlier,” Zhang told China Daily. “And the country, which has a population of more than 1.3 billion, might be considering extending the ages for retirement,” Zhang said.

Also, is being single such a bad thing that governments need to legislate against it?