This is interesting information on whether (or by what requirements) foreign kids could attend public schools in China.

We are expecting a baby in the spring, and already decided to opt out foreign (Finland) passport for the chilld.

One of the considerations was indeed how costly it would be to have basic education in China with foreign passport. KIA is way out of our budget (though there are other reasons too), and since I'm not employed in China, I could not acquire those company seals that Michael mentioned as requirements to apply for public schools.

Beyond basic education, another motivation to choose Chinese passport is that I am not from native English speaking country, and neither would our child be.

However, we expect our child to master English and Chinese, and with Chinese citizenship the kid would always have a backup career option to work as English teacher or some other job requiring English fluency in China, even if he/she would choose not to pursue any higher education. No work visa issues to deal with as Chinese national.

If the kid will learn also third language (Finnish), for the time being my country offers tuition-free university education in all uni's and programs given in that language, regardless of what your nationality is.

Hi JanJal,

Before you opt out of applying for a Finnish passport you should check if you can get your child onto your wife's Hukou, if you can't do that then your kid will be considered as an 'unregistered' citizen and wont get a place in a local school for free anyway or be able to apply for a Chinese passport.

Most people I know that are in your situation apply for the child's foreign passport, the child doesn't need a visa to live in China as the Chinese consider a child with at least one Chinese parents to be Chinese.

Each time you leave China you will need an exit permit for the kid which is easy and quick for your wife to apply for and is shown together with the foreign passport to leave and get back into China.

Parents of foreign kids that I know of pay about 20k rmb a year for a local school, but as your kid would be technically a Chinese citizen, even without a hukou it would probably be cheaper.

Ask your wife to check the cost at a local school near you for reference.

Yuantongsi: "should check if you can get your child onto your wife's Hukou"

I didn't know there is "if" to this - if foreign father's citizenship is not chosen, shouldn't the child automatically (or easily anyway) get on the mother's hukou? Provided that she has all required paperwork to have the baby to begin with.

In our case the issue is where that hukou is, as my wife does not have Kunming hukou.

Related to that (and off-topic but anyway), my wife renewed her Kunming temporary residence permit just this week (something she has had to do every year prior to me applying for new 1 year RP), and apparenty this has changed. If I understood correctly, it is no longer a Kunming city residence permit, but provincial Yunnan residence permit.

Thank you for all of the replies and apologies for not replying sooner. It was my first post here and I thought I'd get an email alert if anyone replied. I didn't get any so I just assumed no one had replied.
Based on our experience in Shijiazhuang:
In order to officially be able to enrol foreign students the school must be certified to be able to issue a JW202.
They are inspected to make sure that they have suitable facilities etc.

All of the universities have this certification but not so the schools.
As most foreign children are in China as dependents of a parent with a work permit the issue of getting a study visa for them is not encountered as they are not applying for a study visa; X1 or X2. They enter the school on a dependents visa which is not legal as the school should be JW202 certified but is seemingly accepted practice.
However in our case I was applying for an S1 or S2 visa which is to "accompany a relative who is working or studying in China"
So my visa was the reverse of the norm, the parent being effectively a dependent of the child.
This caused much consternation at immigration and (eventually) highlighted the schools need for this certification in order to get the study visa for the child.
I just wondered if anyone had entered a foreign child into a local school that they could recommend.
I shall be studying non-degree Chinese so shall look for a school near the university if possible. I will have an X1 visa so my daughter can be a dependent of mine so it should be less hassle this time round.