Educational opportunities open up for migrant population in Shanghai

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, January 09, 2004

Educational opportunities open up for migrant population in Shanghai

Chen Yougen is extremely excited these days as he was finally able to find a school for his 9-year-old son near Yuyuan Garden in Huangpu District.

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Chen Yougen is extremely excited these days as he was finally able to find a school for his 9-year-old son near Yuyuan Garden in Huangpu District.

Sponsored by the Shanghai Yuxing Training School, the Yuxing Primary School is the only migrant primary school in the city set up by a social organization.

"I was quite happy to study in Yuxing because all of my classmates there are from other provinces in the country," said Chen's son Chen Ming.

Just over 500 students between the ages of 6 and 13 study at the school, with most of them hailing from Sichuan, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, they are instructed by 34 teachers, many of whom are retired or couldn't find work at local public schools, and use the same textbooks as most local students around the city.

They can also sit the same high-school entrance exams as their local peers, according to Shi Hongmei, the school's headmaster. But as there are few high schools in the city for migrant children, not many continue their education after grade nine.

That solved the biggest headache of Chen, who moved to the city from his home in Anhui Province about three years ago and found that looking for an affordable, decent school for his 9-year-old son was much more daunting task than securing a good job.

"It never occurred to me that we would have no where to send my son and we faced the threat of him dropping out of school at that time," Chen said.

Chen's situation is far from unique.

Currently, there are some 320,000 migrant children between the ages of 6 and 15 living in the city, but few can afford regular schools in the city and many of the special schools set up for migrants are unlicensed, with poorly trained teachers holding classes in spare warehouses or apartments.

Even those special schools are too expensive for many migrant families in the city, meaning a large number of migrant children simply drop out and spend their days helping mom or dad with their work.

"Almost all of the local public schools I contacted rejected my son immediately," Chen said.

Most spaces at local public schools are reserved for children with a residence permit, but those without can apply for a spot if they are willing to pay an admission fee, which usually runs around 5,000 yuan (US$602), on top of annual tuition fees.

The fee, however, is a fortune for migrant workers, who generally work the lowest paying jobs in the city.

"My wife and I earn less than 1,500 yuan per month combined," said Chen, who now works as a waiter while his wife is a part-time housekeeper. "How can we afford to take out 5,000 yuan at one time?"

Even if schools waived the admission fee, Chen said his family couldn't afford the annual tuition at local public schools.

Primary schools in the city charge about 1,500 yuan a semester for tuition.

When it became clear Chen couldn't afford the city's public schools, he stared looking into the private schools set up for migrant children in the city.

Currently, Shanghai is home to 519 such schools, where 5,000 teachers instruct more than 120,000 students. Most of the schools, which are scattered around the city's suburbs, were set up and are run by migrants themselves.

Tuition fees range from 200 to 900 yuan per semester, according to education officials.

"Though the fees are lower than those at public schools, they are still a burden for my family," Chen said, adding that many children of his migrant friends have dropped out of school altogether since their families can't afford to pay for their children's education.

The migrant schools lack the quality teachers and facilities of their public counterparts, with most never receiving a license because their shabby classrooms couldn't pass an inspection.

Only 124 of the 519 migrant schools in the city have registered with the local education commission.

Jiao Yang, spokeswoman for the local municipal government, said at a press conference last month that migrant children are entitled to equal education as natives.

"All our teaching standards are set exactly the same as ordinary local primary schools," said Shi with Yuxing. "The only difference is that everything is carried out here in the most frugal way."

While each student pays 760 yuan a semester in tuition, the school's budget is still extremely tight. Teachers are only paid 60 percent of the salary those at public schools make, and facilities are so limited there is only one phone in the school.

"That's because we are not entitled to the government education subsidy," Shi said.

Local public schools receive a government grant of 130,000 yuan each semester, which can be used to improve facilities and increase teaching salaries. Migrant schools, however, don't get any government funding.

"The situation is caused by the central government's system of funding education, not by the city," said an official with the Shanghai Education Commission who asked not to be named.

"Every child in the country will receive a certain amount of money every year as subsidy for their education. But the money is allocated to the child's official residence," the official said.

That means money for a migrant child from Jiangsu living in the city goes to schools in that province, not those in Shanghai.

"Therefore, it is natural for financial aid to only be given to local students," the official said.

That's why migrants are asked to pay an admission fee if they want to study at a local public school, the official explained.

To tackle the problem, the local education commissions said it will allocate special money to support migrant schools in the city in the future, but the subsidies will only go to primary and middle school students, not those attending high school.

The idea of a university education is no more than a far-fetched dream for most migrants.

"In fact, none of us will let our children apply to universities in Shanghai, mainly due to the frighteningly high tuition fees," said Chen.

Even if the financial problems could be worked out for migrant students, they still face many other difficulties in getting a decent education.

"Since students came from different parts of the country, children of the same age have greatly varying knowledge levels," said Yin Guanghua, who teaches at a local migrant school. "Some of them even cannot speak Mandarin fluently, not to mention other subjects."

To make matters worse, many children of the migrant workers don't stay in one city for a long time.

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