Education authorities in south China's Shenzhen city have aborted a controversial policy which sought to give preferential treatment to children whose parents are executives in the financial services industry.

According to the Beijing Youth Daily, the policy has been in place for four years. It gave an additional 10 marks in the middle school entrance exams for children of financial executives. The beneficial policy was aimed to promote the city's financial industry and keep the executives in the city.

However it has raised an argument whether a local government can use the scores of mid-school entrance exams as ways to attract investment. The daily said as competition in the entrance exams of China's middle school is usually quite harsh, any extra score carries great value.

Some local governments therefore established similar policies to attract more people from the business world and other skills.

A spokesman from the Shenzhen Education Bureau said to date only 23 students have received such special advantage, which accounts for less than one in 10 thousand students sitting the entrance exams.

But the local authorities were still scolded by China's central education department.

The department said the decision by Shenzhen officials went against justice in the education world and the problem will be investigated.

He told the paper that school enrollments are of vital concern to the general public, and it should not be linked with economic factors.