While millions of rural laborers are moving to cities for work,
the education of their children has become a big problem.
Official statistics show the number of migrant workers has
soared from 2 million or so in 1980 to over 80 million in the early
1990s. Although the number has not risen sharply since then, more
rural people have moved to cities together with their spouses and
children.
According to a census conducted among the 2.3 million migrants
in Beijing in 1997, 32 percent of them were with families.
Despite migrant families' contribution to urban construction,
however, schooling for their children in cities receives little
attention, largely because of a lingering residency registration
system.
A report by the Ministry of Agriculture's Rural Economics
Research Center may shed some light on this issue. It is based on a
survey conducted in Beijing in 2000 among 619 migrant workers with
school-age children as well as case studies of 114 migrant-run
schools in the city.
Asked what is the biggest barrier to them settling down in
Beijing, 25 percent of respondents answered "the Beijing local
government's tight restriction and control over migrants" and about
10 percent mentioned the difficulty in their children's schooling
in the capital.
Only about 32 percent of the surveyed migrant workers had their
children with them in Beijing at the time of study, with the
remainder of children still living in their home villages.
The stiff residency registration system is a major barrier for
children living with their parents. Known as "Hukou" the system was
designed to curb the influx of rural citizens to cities by
requiring people to live in the places where they were born.
Although China's economic boom has stimulated the flow of the
labor force, the lingering "Hukou" system means migrant workers are
not recognized by the public services and welfare systems offered
to urban residents.
According to the survey, only about 14 percent of migrant
workers have managed to send their children to public schools in
Beijing. Almost 65 percent of migrant workers' children at school
age study in their home villages, about 11 percent attend the
shabby unregistered schools run by migrant workers themselves in
Beijing and about 2 percent are not attending school at all.
Migrant workers have to pay high prices to send their children
to public schools. Besides tuition fees levied on every local
pupil, migrant workers have to pay extra fees that run up to tens
of thousands yuan each semester, which is far too high for most
migrants.
Special migrant schools have mushroomed in Beijing since 1995.
Although not recognized by educational authorities, these schools
cater to migrant children's needs for schooling. By rough
reckoning, the number of such schools in Beijing had reached 200 by
1999.
The rapid growth of these schools reflects the huge educational
demand from migrant families and reveals the absence of the
government's education service in the area.
The investigation of 114 migrant-run schools has shown that the
size of them varies -- some have less than 10 pupils, while others
have hundreds or even thousands. The biggest had over 4,000 pupils
in 2002.
But more than half of these schools do not meet official
curricular standards. Most of them only provide maths and Chinese
language courses.
Nevertheless, they are receiving more and more students because
of their low charges. The average fees in some 101 selected migrant
schools are only 490 yuan (US$59) per semester. At the very least,
migrant children will be literate and numerate.
Like most modern governments, the Chinese Government lays great
store in education. China's legislation also stipulates that every
citizen has the right to receive nine years of education, covering
primary and junior middle schools.
However, the paradox between the mounting flow of migrant
families and the "Hukou" system have made it very difficult to
guarantee the educational rights of migrant kids.
In 1998, the Ministry of Education issued a policy requiring
schools to provide migrant children with opportunities for
education and for extra fees to be reduced. But the rule has been
pigeonholed in practice as many local educational authorities take
local children over migrant families not willing to pay extra.
Some schools even falsely hold that children from migrant
families, many of whom earn livings by selling vegetables or
working as grocers and construction workers, have negative
influences on urban children if they study together.
Addressing the question in the 2000 survey, "What are
determinants in the selection of your children's school?" some
respondents answered, "schools that do not have discriminative
attitudes towards our children."
They said the removal of the "Hukou" system means not only a
removal of additional fees charged by urban public schools, but
also a removal of the inequality between urban and rural
people.
Helping children of migrant workers study and live with their
parents in cities will not only benefit the families, but also help
foster a more harmonious society.
Obviously, the current educational institutions, which are
compatible to the household registration system, are at odds with
the fact that more migrants are seeking an education for their
children.
City governments should take bold steps to free public schools
from the "Hukou" red tape, and scrap extra charges to guarantee
that migrant and local kids have equal access to public
schooling.
Meanwhile, the large number of migrant-run schools should not be
neglected. Considering the huge demand for these informal schools
in the near term, the government can opt to help them improve their
standards of teaching rather than simply closing them down.
(China Daily December 9, 2003)