Chinese student charged ‘pollution fee’ for smoking

A student at Yuying Middle School in northwest China’s Yan’an city has had to pay Yuan400 (about $62.7) for smoking on campus, according to a China Daily story citing the Xi’an-based China Business View.

A post circulated on Weibo, China’s twitter-like service, indicated that the payment was described as a ‘pollution fee’.

Some comments on the post expressed doubt over the school’s right to levy such a fee and questioned how the money would be used.

Zhang Bingke, head of the school’s administrative office, said the fee was introduced only this semester after previous measures aimed at stopping students from smoking had failed.

Zhang said the new measure was not backed by any official policy but that it had been effective.

Stressing the ‘educative meaning’ of such a measure, the school authority nevertheless promised to return all the fees to the parents of students.