For 10-year-old student Xie Xiaoyuan, just getting to school is an ordeal. On a recent day, her frostbitten ears are testament to just how difficult the trip is.

“I get up at five o’clock,” she says, “then I comb my hair and start walking.”

Xie navigates a mountain path in China’s remote Shaanxi province in the dark, trudging through snowstorms and mudslides. Then she has to get a bus for about 10 miles. She hasn’t time to eat breakfast.

“For lunch, I spend 15 cents on two pieces of bread and a drink,” she says.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch — or so the economic theory goes. But that’s no longer the case for Xie and the 25,000 poverty-stricken children in China who now receive a free meal, thanks to the “Free Lunch for Children” charity campaign set up by a Chinese journalist.

Indirectly, his efforts have led to the government announcing it will provide nutritional support for 26 million of China’s poorest children every day.

While childhood obesity expands in China’s cities, China Daily reported last year on “chronically underfed” children in poor rural areas. One post at Ministry of Tofu showed a group of rural children on their long and perilous daily trudge to fetch water in drought-hit Sichuan, while another used images of empty chairs to vividly illustrate the lives of families split by economic migration.

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Post tags: food supply, nutrition, poverty, poverty alleviation, rural children, rural education, schools, Shaanxi
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The schools often have the names of Chinese cigarette brands, such as Zhongnanhai or Liqun, over their gates and in some cases have promotional slogans in the playground.

”Talent comes from hard work – Tobacco helps you become talented,” says one slogan, in foot-high gilt letters, on the front of the Sichuan Tobacco Hope Primary School.

[...] ”It is not just primary schools, they also fund secondary schools and universities. But it is difficult to count them, because the Ministry of Education would not help us,” said Wu Yiqun at the Think Tank Research Centre for Health Development.

”We know there are definitely more than 100 primary schools though.”

There are 16 million smokers under the age of 15 in China, 6.3 per cent of the youth population, according to the Chinese government.

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Post tags: schools, smoking, tobacco industry
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Though the quality of education they offer may be questionable, private schools like Red Star are often the only option for the children of low-skilled migrant laborers, who for the most part are ineligible for the free public education available to legal Beijing residents. Known derisively as “waidi ren,” or outsiders, the migrants are the cut-rate muscle that makes it eminently affordable for better-off Chinese to dine out, hire full-time nannies and ride new subway lines in places like Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen ….

To manage the huge population flows — and its own fears — the government relies on an internal passport and registration system dating from the Mao years that ties access to education, health care and pensions to the birthplace of a person’s parent. The hukou system, as it is called, has created a two-tiered population in many Chinese cities: those with legal residency and those without.

Though urbanization is a central tenet of the party’s latest five-year economic plan for the country, Mr. Chan says, the 250 million rural migrants who are expected to move to cities in the next 15 years could become a source of social unrest unless the hukou system is reformed. “Having that many second-class citizens in Chinese cities is dangerous,” he said ….

Resistance [to reform] comes from factory owners who want migrant laborers to remain insecure and cheap to exploit, and from urban elites who fear an even greater deluge of migrants from the countryside if it becomes easier to live in the city. But the most formidable opposition may be that of local governments, which worry about paying for the health care, education and other benefits that migrants and their children would qualify for as legal residents.

Meanwhile, Caixin reported that education spending in Beijing is soaring, with some middle schools charging up to 87,000 RMB a year, and parents spending an additional 30-80,000 RMB on private tutoring.

For more on the migrant schooling issue, see ‘Migrant School Demolished, Parents Furious‘ and ‘Yu Jianrong on Closing of Migrant Schools‘, via CDT. Internet cafés have become an unlikely alternative source of childcare for migrant workers, while also providing some opportunities for informal education: see Tricia Wang’s presentation ‘Sleeping in Internet Cafes: The Next 300 Million Chinese Users‘, also via CDT.

Yesterday it was reported that a staff member at a daycare centre for children of migrant workers in Shanghai had attacked eight children with a boxcutter.

Sources:

China Takes Aim at Rural Influx – NYTimes.com
Survey: Beijing Middle School Education Spending Soars – Caixin online

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Post tags: hukou, migrant education, schools, urban rural divide
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Parents of migrant students were dismayed to find that over ten of the school’s buildings had been razed to the ground on August 15, only three days before the New Hope School for migrant children in northwest Beijing was set to start classes. The parents were not informed prior to the event.The local authorities demolished the school after its contracts allegedly expired. A school official said that some buildings had already been razed while the government had not yet notified them about some others. There was no time to inform parents before the destruction, the school representative said. The school has over 790 students, and parents are worried about how to keep their students in school, since enrolling at public schools is complicated, difficult, and even impossible for some parents due to stringent regulations. The New Hope School had specifically served the children of migrant laborers, who historically have not been allowed to attend schools in Beijing because it is not their official residence.

The Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin notes that many other migrant school demolitions loom, and that proposed alternatives are inaccessible and inadequate:

Around 30 private schools, set up to provide a basic education for the children of migrant workers in Beijing, have been ordered to close, leaving nearly 30,000 students with an uncertain future as the new school year begins, the Beijing News reported today.

The affected schools are all located in the outlying districts of Daxing, Chaoyang and Haidian that have been home to migrant worker families for many years, even decades, but are now under increasing pressure from property developers as the city expands ever outward.

Most of the district government closure orders issued in June cited illegal construction, illegal operation and safety concerns as the reasons for closure, although many schools had been operating technically illegally for many years without any government intervention.

For context, see Millions of Chinese rural migrants denied education for their children, from The Guardian last year:

Despite spending more than half his life in Beijing, Hu does not enjoy the same access to health, education and social services as his neighbours. And because the hukou – registration – is inherited, neither do his children.

“I wish my kids could go to a state school,” says Hu. “Parents always wish their children could receive a better education.”

The contradictions of the hukou system, designed for a 1950s planned economy, become more painful with every year of China’s development. About 140 million rural migrants are now working in the cities, where average incomes are more than three times than those of the countryside. Migrants have fuelled the country’s spectacular growth but not reaped the benefits. And once they become parents, they face an unpalatable choice.

Fifty-eight million children are left behind in the countryside by parents who hope that relatives will raise them lovingly. Another 19 million remain in the cities – where they are, in effect, second-class citizens. Both groups have poorer academic performance and more behavioural problems than their peers.

Sources:

Migrant School Demolished, Parents Furious – Caixin online
Nearly 30 migrant schools in Beijing ordered to close – China Labour Bulletin
Millions of Chinese rural migrants denied education for their children – The Guardian

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Post tags: demolition, hukou, migrant education, schools
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In theory, Beijing public schools report to Beijing’s education bureau, which then reports to the Ministry of Education. In practice, each public school is an independent kingdom that pays nominal deference to education authorities. To understand this relationship, think of Beijing’s education bureau as the United Nations: It has neither financial nor political control over schools, so it projects the illusion of authority by issuing meaningless proclamations and convening boring conferences.

It’s taken for granted that Peking University High School, because of its affiliation with China’s intellectual centre, does whatever it wants. But each of Beijing’s top 43 public schools is fiercely independent.

Take, for example, Number 101 High School, which our school’s administration toured last week. Founded in 1946, 101 is a sprawling campus of 200,000 square metres with the Old Summer Palace as its backyard. Their alumni include Zeng Qinghong and other powerful politicians, and they draw their students from Beijing military and political families. Their annual budget is more than that of most Chinese counties, and their school leadership has been in place for over a decade. The meeting room that hosted us had the year before hosted Kai-Fu Lee, the founder of Google China, and a visiting delegation of leading American journalists and writers.

The problem with Beijing is that there’s so much power – whether it be political, military, economic, financial, technological, education, or cultural – concentrated in the city, which in turns forces everyone to focus on cultivating and managing guanxi. The prevailing attitude in Beijing, from corporate honchos to the lowest government clerk, is that as long as you maintain well your network of relationships or guanxiwang you can do whatever you want.

That’s why Beijing high school principals concern themselves primarily with student recruitment and admission. Their power derives from their gatekeeper status, and they use admittance tickets to build up their guanxiwang and extract political favours – like getting an international division approved.

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Post tags: Beijing, education, schools
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China’s Ministry of Public Security on Saturday ordered police to add patrols around schools, supply schools with alarms and other protective equipment, and supervise establishments near schools such as Internet cafés, entertainment venues and short-term rental apartments, which pose a potential threat to public order.

While the targeting of children, some as young as 3, has garnered universal condemnation, many see the spate of attacks as a symptom of greater social ills that cannot be deterred simply by heavier punishment. The attacks are a stark contrast to the optimistic image of China’s rising wealth and influence, most recently presented by the extravagant Expo 2010 in Shanghai that opened this weekend.

China’s remarkable economic growth over the past three decades, while bringing hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, has been accompanied by the emergence of complex problems that tend to undermine the ideals of a “harmonious society,” which Beijing sees as necessary to maintaining the legitimacy of the ruling Communist Party. Official corruption, rising income inequality and a frayed social-security system are among the most pressing issues, and now violent crime may be added to the mix.

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Post tags: school shootings, schools, violence
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Eight students died and 26 were injured during a trampling accident at a private school in Xiangtan city, central China’s Hunan province on Monday night, Xinhua reported.

A local publicity official said the tragedy happened at around 21:00 pm when students finished night self-study course and left classrooms. One student fell off on the stairway and caused the panic, leaving 8 dead and 26 injured, according to the official.

See also a report from AP.

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The Ministry of Education report is a rare government admission of substandard school construction. The issue has been a delicate one since the earthquake, which killed 88,000 people, many of them children crushed in shoddily built schools.

The report called on the central government to finance the reconstruction of vulnerable schools quickly, especially those in rural areas and western parts of China that are seismically unstable. Speaking about the report, Lu Yongxiang, vice chairman of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, said in an interview with the China News Service that Beijing would increase construction subsidies by 25 percent to 150 percent, depending on the region.

Mr. Lu was quoted as saying that nearly 2.5 percent of all primary and middle schools in China have structural problems, on a built area equal to 360 million square feet.

The NPC has also recently passed legislation setting stricter standards for school construction.

In related news, a teenager from Sichuan who raised money for earthquake survivors has been invited to attend President-elect Obama’s inauguration in Washington next month. From AP:

Li Zizi, 16, is making the trip because she participated in the Global Young Leaders Conference in New York and Washington this past summer. The program, run by a U.S.-based nonprofit, invites alumni to attend the presidential inauguration every four years.

Li moved in August to Sichuan province, which was rocked by a 7.9-magnitude earthquake in May that left nearly 90,000 people dead or missing. She now attends the Chengdu Experimental Foreign Language School, which is close to many of the hardest-hit areas.

Her family is from Sichuan, but she was born and raised in Japan and living there when the quake hit.

“I was so worried, we were on the phone and on the computer dialing away and we couldn’t get through to anyone because all the phone connections were down,” she said in a phone interview Monday. “I couldn’t wait to get back and start volunteering for stuff and fundraising.”

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Post tags: construction, School Collapse, schools
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China’s top legislature has set stricter construction standards for schools after thousands of poorly built classrooms collapsed in May’s massive earthquake, killing many students, state media reported.

The new law passed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress says that all schools must now be built to higher earthquake standards than other public buildings, Xinhua News Agency reported late Saturday.

School safety has become a major concern in China after May’s 7.9-magnitude quake killed nearly 70,000 people in Sichuan province and brought down 7,000 schools. Often schools were the only buildings in the area to fully collapse.

The new law — which takes effect next May — also requires schools to teach students about earthquake safety and response, Xinhua said. The report did not say what penalties would be imposed if the laws were broken.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: legislation, School Collapse, schools
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China has further tightened smoking restrictions — targeting schools and day care centres — as it extends a crackdown linked to its pledge to hold a smoke-free Olympics.

Last month, Beijing formally pledged to restrict smoking in most public venues in the city, including government offices and public transport, beginning on May 1.

In a separate move reported on Wednesday, China ordered primary schools, secondary schools and day care centres across the country to prohibit even designated smoking zones, an effort to promote ‘non-smoking campuses’ ahead of the Games.

Read also China to implement complete smoking ban in schools by Xinhua.

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