Red flags all over...

Checking our son's birth certificate, the only reference to a government office is "National Health and Family Planning Commission of the PRC".

Assuming your child was born in Kunming, Google search for local office of same nature brings up "Kunming City Maternal and Child Health Hospital" at 5 Huashan West Rd, Kunming.

It is also listed as "Kunming Municipal Service Center for Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning". They should at least know where to go, if cannot handle your case themselves.

Somewhat related recent development - starting this semester, public schools are banned from teaching English in grades 1 and 2.

Noticed this thread, and want to update some details based on my experience in 2022.

I do not have permanent residency, but due to uncommon employment situation the district's work permit bureau essentially required me to subscribe to the local social security scheme. So I do not think that permanent residency is required.

I also got the health insurance card, with added complication that they could not write it for foreign name, so I had to invent myself a Chinese name on the spot. I'm sure that should I ever need to use it, questions will arise because obviously I don't have the same name on my passport.

About the pension part of social security, I was warned that I will hit 60 years before the 15 years of payments is full, so I will have to make payments after retiring also, before I could get the retirement benefits.

Bumping this thread again because new school semester is just beginning, as reference of recent experience for any families in similar situation - specifically about the choice between public vs private schools.

We live in northern Kunming, but much of this applies elsewhere as well.

Our son is treated as Chinese national, so last spring we went through the standard preregistration process for primary schools. Essentially the local education bureau then informs you which public (government funded, and therefore the cheapest) schools you could choose from.

Parent's of foreign children would skip this, and ask directly from schools.

Because we have not bought property here, we were only given a public school choice outside the city, one that caters to nearby villagers, and were told to seek a private school if such suits us better.

Situation may be different for foreigners who have bought property in the area.

Related to private schools, at least in our area lot of primary schools that were originally started as private schools have changed into public schools in last few years. This was bit of a downer, because in our immediate surroundings there are several primary schools, and all of our son's friends in the neighborhood go to one of those.

The one private school we found around here, and the one our son will attend, is Haibei Chinese-English Primary School, which is located close to Yunnan Wildlife Park. They have campuses elsewhere in Kunming too. It's about 3x more expensive than the public schools around here, and teach normal Chinese curriculum with some added emphasis on English language.