Migrant School Visits

With Rotaract, I visited 2 migrants schools at the outskirt of Shanghai yesterday. The visit intriguer-ed some more investigation on google about it. Interestingly, on the google page, the western media and the Chinese media say the opposite things regarding the migrant school issue in China.

Through the visit yesterday, I learnt a few interesting things:

1. One migrant school can make about 10-20k EUR profit a year, given the fact that a small amount of kids cannot pay the tuition (100 EUR/year) some times. A school has about 750 kids which makes up to about 70k EUR of annual revenue, assuming some kids cannot pay. The school is making such a big profit while: 1) kids are provided with limited facilities to have sports games; 2) teacher vs kids ratio is about 50:1 and most classes have about 50-60 students. I start to wonder the intention of those people funded the schools, why teachers are not paid and trained properly and why kids cannot enjoy better facilities?

2. Migrant schools are not allowed to offer education beyond primary school level, as a government's regulation. So if they want to pursue a higher degree, they have to go back to their home province, while their parents are being migrant workers working away from their hometowns. Obviously, local governments wouldn't want to share the burden of citizens not from their territories. As long as China wants to base its economic growth on mass production, there will be migrant workers. Thus there needs a solution towards their kid's education because: 1) they deserve equality to access opportunities; 2) education is probably the best way to move a person out of poverty entering middle class in China since it gives the opportunity to go to a big city, study in a good university and find a well-paid job.

Clearly removing the issue itself is beyond Rotaract's reach though we can improve the situation a little bit. I am personally frustrated not being able to tap into the fundamentals of this issue, like many other issues in China. This once again has shown that: a centrally governed change is not sustainable. We are constantly stuck in the structural problems while making shortsighted moves. We intend to achieve economic growth and poverty alleviation through mass production. Mass production leads to a huge rush of migrant workers, which leads to a huge disparity of development levels between the coastal cities and inland areas. How can our billion population fit into the 10-20 developed cities? And how long can China maintain its world factory position in order to maintain the poor as cheap labors?

I will propose my thoughts on the solutions next time.