Zhong Yijun (china.news.chengdu.cn): Girls' schools are paid more attention to in developed countries. Historically, China has also had very successful schools of this kind, such as the very famous Shanghai Third Middle School.

Girls' schools are able to design special courses based on the characteristics of women to make up for weaknesses in traditional education and are better for girls to take advantage of their inherent strengths. As long as these schools are well directed, they will uncover women's greatest potential and cultivate outstanding women.

Wang Jiaye (zhuhai.gmw.cn): In intelligence and emotional development, boys and girls have their respective features. Tailoring education specifically to girls is the essential purpose of girls' schools.

Girls' schools today don't go back to the closeted education of the past and they don't just add some courses for women. Instead, the Zhuhai Girls' Middle School has made it very clear from the beginning that it will teach students based on gender. Teaching methods for some courses such as mathematics, physics and chemistry, would be specially designed for girls. At the same time, classes will be offered by the school based on young women's advantages in imaginative thinking, appreciation of art and literature, and foreign language learning.

The Zhuhai Girls' Middle School said it would put greater emphasis on enlarging students' international perspective and improving their individual cultivation. Students have to pass four examinations for admission to the school. Besides the compulsory basic courses, the school offers special courses such as training in thinking, studies of China's ancient civilization, housekeeping and investment finance. Also, courses aiming at cultivating girls' specialties have been designed, such as art appreciation and ballet. For extracurricular activities, there are yoga and physical exercise and it's guaranteed these will be carried out at set times.

Regressive

Xiao Cao Gen Xin Jiao Yu (blog.sina.com.cn): In my opinion, the true purposes of setting up Zhuhai Girls' Middle School are: first, the use of the establishment as a brand to attract students from wealthier families; second, they want to restrain impulses of youth, which is just suppressing their emotional needs and is bad for their growth.

China used to have many girls' schools but most of them were shut down along with the progress of society. In ancient times, girls didn't have the right to go to school for education, and some were even dressed as boys to sneak into schools in pursuit of knowledge. Girls' schools appeared later as a demonstration of giving them the right to education.

But girls' schools have many disadvantages, and the most important one is that it isolates girls and is bad for their emotional development. That's why there are now few girls' schools in China. Setting up girls' schools is regressive rather than progressive.

Wen Xianliang (www.zhjy.net): Separating boys and girls and giving them different education is regressive.

A girls' school is not good for the equal rights of men and women, neither is it good for good communication between these two groups in the future.

What's worse, it's not good for the development of children's gender identities. Separating boys and girls to avoid puppy love is a negative behavior. Cultivating gender identities from an early age is in accordance with the development trends of society.

Wu Zhongkui (www.chinadaily.com.cn): A girls' middle school is not a good choice. It's very important for girls at this age to maintain contact with boys. It's a very significant phase of life and isolating girls during this period is harmful to their emotional development since the society is mixed and there are two genders. These girls will have difficulties or psychological problems in society in dealing with boys in the future.

As a transition, girls' schools may be OK for girls to stay for one or two years, but staying there too long is definitely not good.