China, host to the Miss World pageant for two years in a row, has called a halt to beauty contests in schools, Xinhua news agency says, suggesting more tasteful pastimes for children. Communist China, which once considered make-up and beauty contests as bourgeois, has increasingly latched onto pageants and last month staged its first Miss Artificial Beauty contest for women who have undergone plastic surgery.

But the Ministry of Education “explicitly opposes holding beauty contests in primary and high schools”, Xinhua quoted a ministry spokesman as saying yesterday. “Such contests were sometimes sponsored by a small number of students who had misunderstandings in aesthetic judgment,” the spokesman was quoted as saying. “We should positively guide students to improve their taste.” The ministry had ordered education authorities and schools across the country to launch “healthy and invigorating campus activities” to enrich the lives of students.