The government cracks down on makeshift schools, but offers few viable alternatives
Noose on schools to tighten

By Chang Tianle, Shanghai Star. 2002-07-11
Migrant students play ping-pong on a makeshift concrete table.

Last year the central government made it clear that migrant children's education should be supervised by the government where they live

SCHOOLS for migrant children did not become subject to Shanghai government supervision until recently when a "social problem" began to be discerned, according to a local education officer.

After several years' study and management, the Shanghai authorities are drafting a rule to regulate such schools and protect the right of all children to an education.
A migrant child plays with an electronic musical instrument.

"We aim to place all these students in local public schools, and, in a limited number of places, in well-managed private schools," said Mao Fang, an official with the city's education commission, who deals with the education issues for children of the city's nearly 4 million floating population.

High fees

Since the first such school was set up in 1993 in Pudong to receive migrant children, prevented from attending public schools because of the high fees and lack of valid identification, the number of schools surged at an unexpected rate.

Official statistics show that last year about 120,000 students were studying in 519 private schools where only children of migrant workers are enrolled.

"Most of the founders of these schools are driven by the profit motive," said Mao. He prefers to call the founders of such schools bosses, instead of principals.

"What they really care about is the money they can make from the school, not the quality of education they provide," he said.

Providing only poor facilities and unqualified teachers, some schools can make 500,000 yuan (US$60,201) a year, he said.

For instance, a school with 1,000 pupils has some 30 teachers, and the principal can hardly write his name; 70 students around crowded and mismatched wooden desks in a classroom that used to be a pigsty; a group of students have no alternative after class but to play with mice along a foul-smelling creek.

To minimize costs, most schools rent abandoned premises in the suburbs and employ anyone who is willing to teach, no matter whether he is qualified, Mao said.

"They are endangering students' lives and future," he said.

Security issues

Private migrant schools are such a profitable business that a family opens 10 schools in Baoshan District. Another example is an Anhui migrant who sold some 10 schools at a price of over 1 million yuan (US$120,482) several years ago.

Some of these schools are licensed by their hometown's government according to 1998 regulation that the education of migrant children should mainly rely on State schools but can be supplemented by other forms of schools.

Last year the central government made it clear that migrant children's education should be supervised by the government where they live. Shanghai has attached great importance to the issue ever since. Mao said security tops the agenda.

Facing crackdown

Baoshan District, which is home to the largest number of such schools, has halved the number to 60 since last April.

Li Guohua, an education official in Baoshan, said the crackdown is necessary to protect children from dirty, unsafe school environments.

"By closing those poor ones, we hope to focus our efforts on well-managed private schools that offer quality education and a sound environment. We are also encouraging more public schools to accept these children," Mao told the Shanghai Star.

A drop in Shanghai's birth rate has left many schools with insufficient pupils. Enrolling migrant children means that the schools can be filled to capacity.

Shanghai has transformed eight public schools able to accept 10,000 migrant children with an acceptable charge and qualified education. More regular schools are open to these children as guest students, or separate classes are opened to them.

Of 240,000 migrant students studying in Shanghai, 100,000 have been accepted by public schools.

"We expect to see the proportion of public schools go up and eventually play a dominant role," Mao said. He and his colleagues met with officials from other government departments to work out a standard and affordable fee that schools should charge their students.

At the moment, he said the government cannot simply shut down all the poor quality schools, as the public sector cannot arrange for such a large number of children from outside China.

Unequal treatment

Mao said the government will give supportive measures to the good schools, including granting them legal status.

Xu Panzhong was happy about the news. Lack of government protection has left him reluctant to develop his school and to invest in it.

"The school's legal status has always been one of my biggest concerns. Without government support, we cannot compete with these trashy schools that only care about money," he said.

For scholars, legalizing migrant schools is not enough. What worries them more is the long-term negative impact if migrant workers' offspring don't have access to quality education and are segregated from their urban peers.

"As a new generation of migrants, they have an equal right to receive education and grow out of their slum culture," said Zhou Haiwang, an expert on the floating population with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. He is now leading a Ford Foundation-sponsored project on education of the floating population which kicked off earlier this year.

He argued that these children have different expectations and horizons from their parents. As they have long been on the fringes of society, they feel that they are not treated equally, and if such a mental state is allowed to continue, it will generate resistance to society.



Copyright by Shanghai Star.