Compulsory Education of Migrant Workers’ Children inChina

Compulsory Education of Migrant Workers’ Children inChina
From Deng Xiaoping’s “open reform”policy in 1978，People’s Republic of China （PRC）witnessed rapid social and economic development. Simultaneously，massive urbanization happened that rural farmers （or called peasant）flow to big cities like Beijing，Shanghai and Guangzhou seek for better job opportunities. According to the data of the Chinese national statistics bureau，the number of migrant workers across the country rises to 252，780 million in 2011 （NBOS，2011）. Therefore，education of migrant workers’children becomes a serious issue which includes two categories：one is the education of children who floated to urban with their parents，called ‘migrant children’，the other is the education of remained-home children （or called the ‘left-behind children’）. However，due to China’s restricted resident registrants （called Hukou in mandarin）system and many other political obstacles，the education of migrant workers’children faces certain difficulties. For deeper analysis and research，this paper will simply focus on the compulsory education of migrant children.
According to the Interim Measure of School Education for Temporary Migrant children （1998）issued by the SEC of
‘Migrant children’refers to children aged 6-14 years （or 7-15）years who temporarily flowed and lived with their parents or guardians as migrants for more than one and a half years. In addition，in the 5th Chinese national Census defined ‘Migrant children’as “youth under 18 years of age who have lived in a town/sub area for more than one and half a year and whose hukou is in another town/sub area”（Zhang and Zhao，2003）.
The 9-years compulsory education includes 6 years primary education and 3 years junior education. Compulsory education，one of the public products，plays very important role in improving the national quality of the whole society. Especially compulsory education for rural people，is the weakest link in the education field in China. So the development of rural compulsory education has become the key factor in promoting the development of Chinese education （Zhou，2012）.
From the 1970s，numerous rural people that are called migrant people （or ‘floating people’）flow to the city in China. Among the floating people，workers dominated a large
proportion that there are 158，630 thousands migrant workers. Migrant workers called Nongmingong in Mandarin which refers peasants who give up their own agriculture career then go to cities to be a worker in the process of China’s market reform （Zhou，2012）. Moreover，currently it is the trend that children followed their parents into the city. According to the statistics of the national bureau of statistics （NBOS）of PRC，family flow together dominates 24 million among the 252，780 million migrant workers （NBOS，2011）. Hence，the education of migrant children becomes a big problem in the national nine-year compulsory education strategy. 1. Barriers
1.1 Difficulty in enrollment
In China，people have two important documents：National ID and Hukou. Hukou is issued with people’s accommodation initially at birth. It means that citizen who born in the city is given an Urban Hukou whilst people born in rural area get a Rural Hukou. Moreover，the migration of resident will not change the statue of Hukou. Therefore，the
migrant-workers are working in urban but still holding a rural registered residence. So does their children. However，a person’s education，medical，housing subsidies and other
social welfares are closely connected with their hukou （Solinger，1999）. In the education field，China’s major EFA goal is nine-year compulsory education. It means a student could get free nine year compulsory education in the state school where their hukou registered. Obviously，migrant children could not benefit from it.
1.2 Difficulties in adapting
Due to the big gap of knowledge base，cultural background，learning ability and habits and psychological characteristics with urban children，migrant children is bound to encounter many difficulties in adapting to the school life of the city. According to Wang and Shao （2009）’s investigation of migrant students，40.9% of the students feel ‘learning pressure is too great’，47.7% of the students ‘Learning are difficult to keep up with’and 27.4% of students thought the learning is boring’（Wang and Shao，2009，p. 560）. Moreover，the migrant workers’education level is low that they could not help their children study. During Wang and Shao （2009）’s survey，there are 32.7% of migrant students said “parents don't have the ability for the auxiliary guide of their study” and 50.4% of parents said “Do not have the ability for counseling for children’s study” simultaneously.
Therefore，because of difficulties in enroll state school and get free compulsory educations，numerous migrant children have to choose private schools or migrant children’s schools （migrant school）. However，most migrant workers earn a low salary which is hard to afford the tuition fee. Also，due to the difficulties in adapting the study of urban school and lack of parents help，the drop out rate of migrant students is so high that already reached 9.3% in 2010 （Zhou，2012）. Moreover，even they are able to pay，the quality of education in private and migrant school is weak.
1.3 Management barriers
However，there are many difficulties for schools to accept these migrant students as well. The most difficult things are the management of these migrant students. In China，the management of students is based on their enrollment status as students （called Xueji in Maderin）. And students need to offer the Hukou when students enrolled in schools. However，certain migrant students enrolled in schools but frequently do not enroll out when they left school. Hence，the frequent circulation of migrant students caused problems of schools to manage their Xueji. The second barrier is the performance of migrant students. Generally，the average
performance of migrant students is much lower than urban students （Wang and Shao，2009）. For academic side，their learning and understanding ability is low. They seem lack of interests in class and easily distracted. More seriously，certain migrant students skip classes. From the behavior side，the frequency of problem behavior occurs among migrant children is much higher than urban children （Wang，Wu &Shen，2005）. For instance，some of them are disrespectful to teachers. Therefore，teachers held the opinion that migrant students disturbed the atmosphere of schools.
Hence，recently，from in the central leadership to the ordinary people，migrant children's education problem has drawn high attention. In the political level，the PRC’s government has issued certain regulations to guarantee the educational right of migrant children. For instance，the Ministry of Education （MOE）of the PRC issued 流动儿童少年就学暂行办法（Temporary Solution to the Educational Problem of Migrant Children）in 1998 indicate that local government should be responsible for migrant children and state schools should accept migrant children unconditionally （Liu，2003）And 关于进一步做好进城务工就业农民子女义务教育意见（the further solution to the Educational Problem
of Migrant Children）addressed in 2003 （MOE，2003）cleared the procedure how migrant students enrolled in state schools. Unfortunately，these two regulations do not solve the problem and the article will explain the reasons later.
2. The recommendations
According to the eighth term of China’s Compulsory Education Law，“compulsory education is under the leadership of the state council，but is responsible to local places by hierarchical management”（PRC，1998，p. 58）. It means local governments are responsible for the compulsory education of registered citizens. Therefore，migrant students could be ignored by local government of their destination cities. Hence，for the author’s recommendation，the first step to solve the problem is to specific the legal responsibility of local governments for migrant students and do not only inflexibly base on Hukou system. The Compulsory Education Law needs modification as it is already 15 years past that many new problems such as this migration children issue have come out.
Moreover，it could be argued supervision is extremely significant. According to the funding issue，first of all is to supervise the process schools not to collect of other fees by themselves，especially the expensive zanzhu fei. For instance，
Although Beijing in 2004 already issued provision of forbade schools charging zanzhu fei，still like other regulations schools do not implement it without any supervision from government. Therefore，If not to do so，no matter how much the government aids the migrant students，the money will flow to schools’pocket. Simultaneously，the supervision of migrant students is also important. As Wang （2007）mentioned the migrant students frequently leaving schools without roll-out that disturbed the school’s routine management of Xueji，the regulation of migrant children is necessary as well.
Besides supervising the public schools to not charge an extra fee，the Chinese government may provide support （teacher，staff and funding）for public schools that enrolled migrant schools （Chen and Yang，2010）. Because one of the reasons why public schools charges extra fees is the burden of receiving migrant students without any financial supports from local governments. For migrant schools，governments may offer support for licensed migrant schools and encouraged
non-licensed migrant schools to transform to licensed migrant schools. It is better to provide certain months for unlicensed schools to get official license or finding other schools for students who are studying in these schools.
Furthermore，the development of migrant workers’educational level is significant since Liang and Chen （2007）found that it is the vital factor of their children’s enrollment. The low level of education attained is the major factor leading to the migrant workers’thought of it is useless for their children to go to school （Liu，2003）. Especially young workers whose ages are under 30 are the most potential group to develop their educational level. Their children are at the closest age of attending primary school that their decision is important. Therefore，local government and the enterprises they are working for may offer education and training opportunities that increase the literacy level for migrant workers. However，it would be difficult for the government to meet the demands immediately since if the government of receiving start responsible for the migrant children’education that they will not have more money for migrant workers’education. Also，it is tough for enterprises because they only need migrant workers as lowest and cheapest workers that they will not train them to a higher position. Instead，they will choose to train university graduates or higher educational level people. Hence，how to improve and who to take responsibility to train migrant workers may need further research
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