The city's middle schools should not be offering classes for students who want to continue their studies overseas, said a senior educator.

Ji Zhiwei, secretary of the Party committee at the Beijing Film Academy, made the suggestion at the Fourth Session of the 11th Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

"Too many elite students are flooding to overseas universities at their own expense and most of them stay there," Ji said. "Our education policy should not encourage this trend."

Because of the growing preference for an overseas university education over a domestic one, middle schools in the capital have been holding special classes for students who have their sights set on going abroad.

Beijing Youth Daily reported that the number of students who went overseas in 2010 had doubled in comparison to 2009. The exodus came largely from middle schools such as the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China and Beijing No 4 High School.

"The public education resource should be used for the public, not for a few elite students only," said Ji, who is also a member of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CPPCC.

Ji said education resources should be allocated to cater to the majority. He said it is the role of private educational organizations to focus on such things as helping students get into foreign universities.

It was not the first time Ji had made the suggestion. He also did so at the committee meeting last year and several high schools responded to his comments. He said their replies failed to satisfy him.

Ji said one of their reasons they gave for continuing to hold the special classes was that the main student body would be adversely affected if they stopped teaching the classes because of the disruption it would cause.

Ji said he believed the opposite to be true.

"The existence of these special classes will negatively impact the other students," Ji said.

He suggested that regular students are envious of the students in the special classes and try to emulate them.

"I refute their reasons in my new proposal this year and expect a solution," Ji said.

However, he did admit that overseas universities were attractive for local students because of their superior level of education.

"Basically, domestic universities should improve their competitiveness and then more students will stay in China," Ji said.

According to the 2007 Global Political and Security Report by the Chinese Academy of Social Science, China loses most of its high-end talents to other countries.