School reports have been grabbing national attention recently.

Students from No 39 Middle School of Zaozhuang city, Shandong province, received three kinds of homework booklets with green, yellow and red covers according to their rank in the class. The bottom students can only get the red-cover booklets, the easiest one.

The First Experimental Elementary School of Weiyang district in Xi'an city, Shaanxi province, required students with poor performance to wear a green scarf, distinguishing them from their counterparts with good performance, who wear a red scarf, a symbol for the Young Pioneer organization.

The two schools share one thing in common, discrimination in education.

Elementary and middle school periods are an important time for children to develop personalities. Educators are supposed to be good at inspiring students to find their interests and explore their originality, rather than building up a hierarchical system in such an imposing manner.

Peer models are important. But it by no means justifies distinguishing model students at the cost of discriminating against the others. However excellent the top students are, education is a failure if students' confidence and interest in acquiring knowledge are dampened.

The purpose of examination is not to rank the students. When scores become the only criterion for school to judge students' performance, or even personalities, there must be something wrong with the basic education system.

Schools should be fair, open and forgiving, not partial, close and snobbish.

Children can no longer enjoy the exciting and rewarding feeling of acquiring skills and knowledge in such environment. Their potential and talents in many other fields are completely ignored and wasted, which is a waste for the whole nation.

Carrying different labels will shatter young people's sense of teamwork and ability to forge relations with others. It is more likely for red-scarf students to make friends with other students with red-scarves, rather than those with green ones.

Many questions remain for local education authorities, such as how many students with poor academic performance have been motivated to catch up with the top ones by these discriminatory actions and how they measure the possible harm that these actions may cause to students' psychology.

As more people are questioning why China cannot have its own Steve Jobs, questioning spirits and bold criticism should be encouraged among Chinese students to motivate their creativity and promote diversity at school and the educators should reflect on the way they are teaching.