China Safeguards Children's Education RightsA number of special vocational schools have been established in some parts of the country over the past few years to help poor and disabled children acquire basic education and working skills.Hundreds of children have benefited from the Hope Primary Vocational School project, initiated and funded by the China Working Committee for Caring for the Next Generation. The schools are located mainly in the country's old revolutionary bases and border regions, such as Jinzhai County, Anhui Province, and Ih Ju League of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Since it opened in 1996, the Hope Primary Vocational School in Ih Ju League in northern China has received 202 children who dropped out of school because of their families' poor economic conditions. Apart from basic secondary school courses, the school offers such subjects as animal husbandry, vegetable and fruit growing, food processing and computer science. Of the school's 93 graduates last year, 18 have gone on to senior middle school for further studies and 75 chose to work. In Jinzhai County, a poor county in the east China province of Anhui, most of the school drop-outs have been girls. Teachers at the Hope Primary Vocation School there were devoted to getting the girls back to school. They visited over 400 girls' families and arranged to meet their special needs. So far, more than 200 girl students have completed their primary middle school courses in the school. They also learned vocational skills such as hair-dressing and sewing. The committee, while putting emphasis on helping the poor to get basic schooling, have also taken steps to promote the rights and interests of disabled children. For instance, the committee has helped set up schools specially designed for mentally handicapped children in the Dongcheng and Xuanwu districts of the Chinese capital of Beijing. The Hope Primary Vocational Schools are highly regarded by many people. Participants at a recent symposium on the project held that the Hope Primary Vocational School model has been proved effective in helping children in difficulties to get basic education. The project has also helped the country to effectively carry out the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the participants said. Wu Peiqiu, executive director of the China Working Committee for Caring for the Next Generation, said that the committee was planning to further promote the project in the country's vast west regions. |
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