The Ministry of Education banned public schools running private schools affiliated to them last week to prevent public education resources from being exploited by individuals.

Another purpose of this move is to draw a clear demarcation line between public and private schools, so that the public schools can better assume their roles as providers of public goods.

If families cannot afford the private tuition, their children are destined to fall behind those of families who can. The schools therefore go against the principle of fairness in education based on merit-based admission.

That public schools were allowed to run private schools under them early this century was to meet the increasing education demands of the children of migrant workers in cities. However, the policy has been taken advantage of by some to open expensive private schools affiliated to prestigious public schools for the children of the rich.

These private schools have expanded fast in some places, and as long as the families can afford their high fees their children can access the education resources of the key public schools through their private branches.

That said, these private schools are just a pretense for the key public schools, if not some individuals in them, to capitalize on public education resources.

Over the past nearly two decades, some of these private schools have become as prestigious as the public schools they are affiliated to, and become cash cows for the schools, as the good teachers of the public schools are more prone to teach in the private branches for high returns.

Since the ban might prompt some of these teachers to quit their jobs in public schools to become full-time employees of the private schools, there should be more auxiliary policies to ensure the reform is carried out without weakening the public schools' ability to serve the public.

At the same time, the education authorities should probe how much profits these private schools have made by exploiting public educational resources for private gain over the years.

The government should further increase its input in public schools, and encourage the parallel development of private schools to meet the people's differentiated demands for education.