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 China's sports system has been enormously successful since the
country returned to the Olympic fold in 1980, culminating with the
host nation topping the medals' table at the 2008 Beijing Olympics
with only a slight dip into second place behind the United States in
London four years later.
And yet, with the Rio de Janeiro Games less than three months away,
the system is beginning to break down due to the shifting
demographics of a more prosperous nation.
It poses a big challenge to the school's party committee secretary,
Huang Qin, whose institution is one of 2,183 around the country
producing 95 percent of the country's Olympians.
Fewer parents are willing to let their children endure gruelling
training routines from as young as six years of age, leading to a
fall in student numbers. Some schools have closed and others are
adjusting the way they work. The number of sport schools is down
from 3,687 in 1990, government numbers show.
"In the 1980s and 1990s, schools like ours were extremely
attractive," Huang said, recalling a time when families were poorer
and generous sports subsidies were more highly prized.
 The school's alumni include former Olympians such as hurdler Chen
Yanhao and female footballer Xie Huilin.
"(But) parents are less willing now to send their child to sports
schools if they perform fairly well in exams...The source of
students for sports schools has shrunk as society placed more
importance on cultural education."
EDUCATION STANDARDS
Debates about the continued relevance of the sports school system
began to emerge around the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Huang and other
schools said, as emerging tales of difficulties facing retired
athletes jarred against rising expectations of education standards
among China's booming middle-class.
The country's declining birth rate as a result of China's one-child
policy has not helped either, along with its cut-throat education
system, which sees Chinese students spend twice as much time on
homework a day compared to the global average.
Beijing responded to these concerns in 2010 by issuing a new policy,
known as document 23, ordering sport schools to improve teaching
standards and to give more support to retired athletes.
At the No.1 Children's Sports School Pudong New Area, Huang said it
had improved its teacher training. Three years ago, it also relaxed
a 40-year tradition of requiring its entire student cohort to study,
train and live full-time on campus.
Now, more than half of the school's 700 athletes study at other
schools. Of its remaining 300 or so full-time students, about 10
percent live off-campus.
Other schools like the Shanghai Yangpu Youth Amateur Athletic
School, are going into kindergartens to advertise gymnastics as an
after-school play time activity to parents. "We call it happy
gymnastics," said principal Zhu Zengxiang.
At Beijing's Shichahai, adorned with posters extolling the feats of
ex-students turned Olympic champions, vice-head Zhang Jing said the
school offered "comprehensive development" and equipped athletes
with the skills needed for life after sport.
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The Shanghai Sports School, whose alumni include former Olympic
swimming champion Liu Zige, began in 2012 to reject athletes that
did not pass its academic entrance exams, and tells parents it wants
to use sports training to educate rather than as an end-goal,
according to principal Sheng Maowu.
"A lot of sport schools are moving in this direction...but this is a
painful process," he said.
"At present the existing thought is that education and training are
two different routes -- if you want to be a world champion you
cannot study. This belief is wrong...and at the end of the day very
few become champions."
TALENT POOL
The government does not publish student enrolment at its sports
schools, but there are signs that the changing landscape has already
begun to impact China's pool of sporting talent.
In April, the China Sports Daily reported that the number of Chinese
athletes training to be table tennis players had fallen by almost a
quarter since 1987 to 23,266.
"In this changing situation, we must re-examine the traditional
training system and model for competitive sports," Liu Shaonong,
head of the table tennis and badminton centre of China's General
Administration of Sport, was quoted as saying.
Reform, however, is proving slow to take root.
In March, a government survey found that some schools inspected
across nine cities and provinces did not spend enough money on
education, and some local education departments paid little
attention to making improvements in line with document 23, according
to state media.
But athletes like Wang Linwen, a 25-year-old former professional
athlete who represented Shanxi province in wushu, a martial art,
said reforms, no matter how little, were crucial for those still
willing to enter sports schools.
For five years until she retired in 2009, her weekdays were spent
training with only the weekends for studying, she said.
"I lost a lot because I didn't experience the education system," she
said. "(Reform) is good, that way sports school students won't come
out knowing nothing."
(Additional Reporting by Anita Li and SHANGHAI Newsroom, Jessica
Macy Yu, Damir Sagoli and Sabrina Mao in BEIJING; Editing by Mark
Bendeich)
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