Driving school fees go up in Beijing, Shanghai

Driving school fees in Shanghai and Beijing went up with the release of the newly revised driver's license test, which took effect on Jan 1.

The new test has received complaints for being so difficult that a lot of applicants have failed.

The low pass rate gave the driving schools an excuse to raise their fees for teaching applicants how to pass the test.

Haibo Driving, a Shanghai-based driving school, told China Daily on Thursday that the school has adjusted the training fee from 6,000 yuan ($963) to the current 7,500 yuan.

According to Xiaoxiang Morning Herald, the price for learning at a driving school in Shanghai has increased to an average of 7,000 yuan from last November's 4,500 to 5,000 yuan.

The fee in Beijing also increased slightly to more than 5,000 yuan this January from an average of 4,000 in 2010.

"The price went up soon after the launch of the new test. It makes perfect sense - the pass rate reached new lows therefore we have to extend our students' learning period," said the insider from the school who wouldn't give his name.

"It used to be two months, but now it's three months," he said.

Hua Hanmin, a senior driving instructor at Wuxi Driving School in Jiangsu province, believed that an extension of training is needed, since only 20 out of 100 students at the school passed the writing test on Jan 9.

"It's because the pool of exam questions has been updated and the answers are no longer available on the Internet," he said.

Also, now nobody is allowed to attend the driving skill test until he or she has been at the driving school for more than a month, he said.

Such a policy didn't exist before, as driving school students may join the test in 20 days or even sooner after attending the driving school, he said.

"The pass rate for the driving skill test is now only 30 to 40 percent, and a total of five video cameras were installed in the car to make sure nobody is cheating (it's common in China that the driving skill test examiner accepts bribes from students)," Hua said.

The increased price at driving schools has been criticized, as some netizens called for canceling the rule that driver's license applicants must go to a driving school before taking the test.

Shi Jing contributed to the story