Pupils read from textbooks at a rural elementary
school in the outskirt of southwest China's Chongqing municipality
February 28, 2007. [Reuters]
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ZHUANGZITOU, China - Xiao Wei's family is struggling to ensure their
little girl will have more than a primary education, but in the villages of
northwestern China, the odds are stacked against her.
It's children like 10-year-old Xiao Wei, one of dozens of kids tearing around
a dusty village schoolyard, who are being left behind by China's economic boom
as hidden costs, long distances to secondary schools and family needs mean a
yawning gap in education opportunities for rural and urban children.
After years of focus on urban schools and higher education, basic schooling
in rural areas has finally become a priority for a government trying to address
a rural-urban wealth gap in China that is contributing to social unrest.
China's annual parliament session, which opens on March 5, is expected to
pledge more funding for rural schools as the leadership under President Hu
Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao attempts to correct disparities between booming
cities and the impoverished hinterland.
In earshot of local officials, teachers and students at the school in
Zhuangzitou village repeat the government line that all children receive nine
years of free compulsory schooling.
But when Xiao Wei is asked why her father went away to work as a migrant
laborer, her answer is typical.
"He went away so me and my older brother could go to school," she explains.
Analysts say being in school is only half the battle for poor regions like
hers that lack resources, infrastructure and the ability to attract top
teachers.
"It's not only about access, but about the effectiveness and the efficiency
of the education," said Fumi Sugeno, an education consultant for the
non-governmental organization Plan China.
"HUGE BURDEN"
Instructors at Xiao Wei's primary school, which has three teachers for its 78
students, say less than half will study past middle school, though some will go
on to vocational colleges.
Village students in this part of rural Shaanxi, the arid, yellow-earth region
that was the heart of ancient China, must travel to the township center for
junior middle school, and then farther afield to the county center for high
school.
The centralization of secondary education is part of a government effort to
use scarce resources in rural areas more effectively. But the upshot is that
village students must board during the week, often at their own expense.
"The government may provide tuition, but families provide the boarding-school
fee. This is a huge burden for them," said Gao Guangshen, the Rural Education
Programme Manager at Plan China.
Even nominal fees can take a large chunk of salaries in a region where annual
per capita income is about 1,000 yuan (US$129).
Those in boarding schools also suffer from cramped conditions and poorer
nutrition and hygiene. And some families are reluctant to send their children,
especially daughters, so far from home.
Before 2005, the central government provided money in rural areas only to
support teachers' salaries. The rest was to come from local authorities, which
in some areas is so cash-strapped they already owe their teachers billions of
yuan in back pay.
Under a five-year plan that began in 2006, the government pledged to raise
spending on education to 4 percent of gross domestic product, but expenditures
have yet to reach that level.
SPENDING BOOST
Gao says the government is likely to pledge an increase in spending on basic
education during the parliament session, with a focus on the infrastructure of
school buildings and boarding schools that lag their urban counterparts.
He talks of urban schools outfitted with computer labs, offering instruction
in foreign languages and extra-curricular activities such as music and arts. In
contrast, rural schools get by with barely enough teachers to cover the basics.
The few rural schools lucky enough to have a computer often find they have no
staff trained to use the device and can't afford the electricity needed to run
the computer.
Finding qualified teachers for the poor, remote areas is also a challenge.
Xiao Wei's teacher, surnamed Bai, lives on-site in a small room decorated
with pictures of Mao, Lenin, Marx and Engels, and big enough for a desk, a coal
stove and a bed.
She leaves her 9-year-old daughter in the township center with the child's
grandparents, a personal sacrifice that illustrate why the best quality teachers
are often reluctant to work in poor areas.
"They spoil her and never discipline her," she says. "So when I go home on
the weekends I try to impose some discipline and as a result, she doesn't like
being with me."
After school, while her counterparts in the city are likely to be playing or
doing their homework, Xiao Wei works in her family's fruit orchards.
Despite the obstacles, she hopes to get the kind of education that will allow
her to move beyond the poverty of village life.
"I want to be a teacher," she says.