大学生非法同居要被开除？校方回应来了丨Should universities ban student intimacy?
A strict regulation on intimate interactions between male and female university students in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province has incurred backlash from the public, which, in turn, pushed the school to adjust its management in accordance with the law.
Students from Qiqihar Institute of Engineering shared a screenshot of the regulation on China's Twitter-like Weibo on March 21, showing harsh restrictions on communication between students in love.
According to the university's disciplinary regulations published on its official website:
►Students who display intimate behavior in public areas, including talks in the hallways, will receive a warning.
►Students who engage in illicit cohabitation or sexual relationships will be expelled from the school.
"Hand-holding has been classified as a negative influence (on others)," an anonymous student told ThePaper.
The reports ignited online criticism of the university and its strict regulations.
On March 22, Qiqihar Institute of Engineering released a public notice on all of its social media platforms acknowledging the outcry and promised to reflect on the drawbacks of its education management while fully checking its rules and regulations in accordance with national law.
We highly value the public's concern. We're fully investigating the rules and regulations on student management.
We will conduct a systematic research on the nation's Education Law and revise the unqualified requirements, making sure our regulations are fully in accordance with national law.
The latest university regulations released by China's Ministry of Education in 2017 didn't mention a ban on students having intimate relationships. In fact, many colleges in China changed details of their regulations as early as 2005 to make these regulations less stringent.
Fudan University, one of the top universities in China, is open-minded about students' intimate interactions, and softened its rule in 2017 from expelling students who had sex before marriage to giving them warnings depending on the severity of the case.
Chinese views on sex, relationships and marriage have changed in recent decades.
A marriage and relationship report released in 2016 by Peking University and dating website Baihe showed Chinese people born after 1995 had their first sexual encounter at 17 on average, four-and-a-half years earlier than people born in the 1980s.
Should universities ban student intimacy?
Editors: 焦洁 Jiao Jie, 林雨亭 Lin Yuting (intern)
Sources: The Paper, CGTN
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玩抖音被甩飞？少年，你可长点儿心吧！丨Don't try this at home