How best to educate a mobile population

For various reasons, the school-age population of a school district in any given country is rarely stable. Population in some places grows unexpectedly, while in others it decreases, resulting in empty schools and wasted facilities. And since certain schools are more desired by teachers, parents and students than others, the problem of fair allocation of educational resources is aggravated further.

In China, the vast scale of rural-urban migration, economic inequality among different school districts and the relatively de-centralized methods of funding education exacerbate these problems.

A mobile population creates several types of educational problems in China. As parents from the countryside move to urban areas, cities grow and rural population shrinks. Rural schools lose students and become more expensive (per pupil) to maintain and, teachers, who want to raise their families in cities, try to shift from schools in remote rural areas to those in urban areas.