As Chinese school year starts, some Beijing residents find their kids can't get admission

People watch from a street a ceremony marking the start of the school year held at a school in Beijing, China September 1, 2018. Zhao Rong/Qianlong.com via REUTERS

BEIJING (Reuters) - As China's school year kicks off, some longtime Beijing residents are being forced by restrictive residency rules to send their children to distant schools, with some unlucky few packing their bags for places as far south as Shenzhen.

In the past year, Beijing has evicted a legion of status-less migrant workers and relocated hundreds of factories to cut down on what it calls an "urban disease" of over-population. Its number of registered residents saw a rare, albeit small, decline last year to 21.7 million.