Students and parents are busy doing the preparatory work for the new semester as the summer vacation is nearing the end. At the same time, highway and railway transportation is bracing for the peak of the travel rush as students are getting back to school campus.
Bookstores across Jiangsu have reported brisk business as the new semester is approaching. Xinhua bookstores in Suzhou and other places saw the sales of tutorial books more than doubled last week with some hot ones selling out of stock, obliging the bookstores to make supplementary ordering over the night. The sales of stationery, school bags and other school supplies are also gathering momentum.
Right before the start of the new semester, more students are visiting hospitals due to their deteriorating eyesight. The Fourth People's Hospital of Zhenjiang City received more than 200 ophthalmic patients a day over the past week, a five-fold increase from normal days. These students are suffering from myopia due to their excessive use of eyes while watching TV and using mobile phones and other electronic products for a long period of time every day. Doctors said that myopia has inflicted more students of lower ages and parents must let the children develop good habits with their use of eyes.
The home rental market is also being heated up in response to the approaching new semester. More letting agencies have reported an increasingly large number of inquires made by parents over renting a home near the schools their children attend. Some parents placed their orders for apartments near the schools well in advance, for example, in mid-July, making it almost impossible for parents to rent such kind of apartments at present. The rent for the school district apartments has also shot up by 15% on the average.
With the summer vacation nearing its end, many students have begun to set foot on the journey back to school, as is evidenced by the peak flow of student passengers on highways.
In order to facilitate students’ travel, Yancheng Bus Terminal opened direct bus services to the college campuses in Nanjing, Zhenjiang and Yangzhou. The Bus Terminal in Wujiang district, Suzhou city, has started to sell tickets to the college towns in Xianlin of Nanjing and Taizhou to enable the students to get back to school without making transfers.
The railway is also witnessing rising passenger flow, as is evidenced by the dispatch of 161100 passengers by Suzhou railway station on Wednesday. Local railway authorities have also increased additional train sets to meet the needs of passengers.
