Offer rural students equal education rights Bao ChuanyouChina Daily Updated: 2005-10-13 05:55
The gap between China's urban and rural compulsory education systems can be
attributed to an unequal allocation of resources.
Educational inequality is systematic of China's dual social structure, as is
the two-speed development of the social security network.
Urban residents enjoy housing and unemployment subsidies and other forms of
social welfare, such as preferential medical, educational and transportation
services, while in rural areas farmers have to take responsibility for their
security and welfare.
With a low level of social provision, the school drop-out rate among poor
rural children has long been very high.
With strong economic growth in recent years, the social security system has
improved a lot, with some economically more developed provinces even
implementing an unprecedented unified welfare system in urban and rural areas.
The social security and assistance system has even been extended to remote rural
and township areas.
But in most underdeveloped provinces, rural areas are a long way behind urban
areas in terms of social services.
China's city-oriented education policies have caused and then aggravated
urban-rural differences.
National public education has always been seriously underfunded. Many
important indexes of educational spending have long been lower than the global
average, and even lower than those of many other developing countries.
A large part of the central government's fiscal budget for education has
flowed into higher education institutes, while local governments have become the
primary investors in compulsory education. In the vast rural areas, this
responsibility has come to weigh heavily on township budgets.
Given that most townships cannot provide enough cash for compulsory
education, schools have deteriorated and defaulting on teachers' payments has
become commonplace.
There are different pay scales for urban and rural teachers, leading many of
the young and talented into urban areas, where they know they will receive
better treatment.
The education gulf has already begun to threaten sustained and balanced
economic, educational and social development.
To narrow the gap, the government must make some profound policy changes.
The country should adopt an equitable and modern educational approach and a
scientific development perspective, while setting out a series of policy
concepts for unified and balanced urban-rural development.
Inequality of opportunities is the root of extreme poverty in some rural
regions.
The vast rural areas have not enjoyed the benefits of having a stable
investment source, and so the misuse, embezzlement or misappropriation of funds
have become part of everyday life.
We must have a law unambiguously regulating different educational investment
standards for different regions with different economic development levels.
Local governments that fail to meet such standards or misuse educational funds
must be relentlessly punished.
A new compulsory educational system should be set up to clearly state the
duties of the central and local governments. The central government's investment
in compulsory education, especially in underdeveloped areas, should be
increased.
Compulsory education should be free in the countryside, echoing many other
nations.
To bring rural education quality in line with that in urban areas, a special
fund should be established to encourage excellent teachers to devote themselves
to working in rural areas.
Narrowing the urban-rural education gap does not mean slowing the speed of
educational development in the cities. The government must offer the
marginalized rural population the same educational rights as their urban
counterparts.
(China Daily 10/13/2005 page4)
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