The new government policy of scrapping school fees for school
kids in rural areas has received widespread support but there are
calls for children of migrant workers based in cities to receive
similar allowances.
Children who are brought to the cities by their parents seeking
employment are still subject to school fees unlike their former
neighbors who remain in rural areas for their compulsory
education.
He Xiaoming, a kid at the Xingzhi experimentary primary school
in western Haidian district in the national capital, said Wednesday
that he hoped to stay in Beijing and continue studying in a middle
school for local children.
"It is good news that my previous classmates in my hometown will
be able to enjoy free education, but my parents cannot afford the
tuition because Beijing-based schools charge a lot for those people
who have not registered as permanent residents," said He, who
achieved excellent marks at school.
He's parents come from east China's agricultural province of
Anhui and are working as vegetable peddlers in the city.
Fu Zhiming, a teacher at the school, said, "Local students in
the city will be able to enjoy free education almost at the same
time as students in rural areas, but how about kids from families
of the migrant workers?
"It is not fair for this group of students," Fu said, calling
for policies providing free education for children of the migrant
workers.
According to Yi Benyao, principal of the primary school, the
school authority has made maximum efforts to help the rural
students from migrant workers' families receive better education
since it was established in 1994.
Currently, there are more than 3,000 students from some 24
provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities studying in the
school.
Education of the huge population in the countryside, which is
now home to some 900 million people, has remained a hard nut to
crack for Chinese leaders since ancient times.
Ancient philosopher Confucius (551-479 BC), now widely regarded
and revered as China's No.1 professional teacher, initiated a model
that was followed for more than 2,000 years. He opened a private
school in his hometown, the small Kingdom of Lu, and enrolled some
3,000 students, charging each a symbolic "tuition fee" of "10
strips of jerked meat."
Since modern education was introduced to China about one century
ago, government-funded, completely-free compulsory education for
every citizen has become a long-aspired yet unattainable goal for
Chinese educators, who were frequently upset by a lack of funding
and government support due to wars, conflicts and other social and
economic problems.
In 1986, China promulgated the law on compulsory education,
which stipulates that the state should provide a nine-year
compulsory education "free of tuition fees" for all primary and
junior middle school students.
However, the law has failed to guarantee the funding of
compulsory education, thus obliging many schools, particularly
those in the impoverished rural regions, to either go on collecting
the tuition fees or charge various "miscellaneous fees" on their
students in the name of "voluntary donations," "fund-raising for
school construction" or "after-school tutoring fees".
Recent surveys conducted by sociologists in several rural areas
show that currently the Chinese farmers, whose annual per-capita
net income stood at a mere 3,200 yuan (US$400) in 2005, have to pay
about 800 yuan (US$100) a year for a kid's education in the
elementary and secondary stage.
But the new law on free education for rural school children has
been welcomed by migrant workers in the cities, who have labeled it
"a milestone event".
"The policy is closely related to our life, future and fate,"
said Yan Guifa, a migrant worker in Beijing, whose son Yan Tianci
is a student of the Xingzhi Experimental School.
Premier Wen
Jiabao on March 5 pledged that his government would eliminate
tuition fees for rural students receiving a nine-year compulsory
education before the end of 2007.
The new policy, resulting from the central leadership's latest
call to build a "new socialist countryside," will benefit some 160
million school children in the vast rural region, who make up
nearly 80 percent of the country's primary and junior middle school
students.
On the Children's Day of 2004, Wen joined a celebration of some
126 students from families of migrant workers, including Yan
Tianci, and conveyed sincere concerns over the rural children.
"We migrant workers were so moved by the Premier's actions and
inspired our children to study hard in school," Yan Guifa said,
adding that the new policy doubles their happiness.
"We had never dreamed of free education," he said, "the policy
means that the problems with our kids' education will be solved
thanks to the government's efforts."
(Xinhua News Agency March 9, 2006)