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LI BINGBING, 10, gets up at 6:30 every morning, washes, dresses and has breakfast. Then her grandmother takes her to school 2 km away. Li is a third-grade learner at the Central Primary school in Liucun Village of Xingtai City in north China’s Hebei Province. The school is a merger of eight schools in nearby villages catering for children from grade one to six.
“I like to go to school as I can play games with my pals. But I have to walk to school for such a long time. It is so tiring,” Li told ChinAfrica. Like her, all the learners walk to school, spending an average of an hour on the one-way journey.
However, compared to Li and her schoolmates, many rural schoolchildren in China are not so lucky. They have to travel along tortuous mountain trails of dozens of km to attend school. The frequent schoolbus accidents making news since last year have added to public worries about the safety of this transportation.
A policy in education about 10 years ago is at the root of this strain on learners. In 2001, a regulation by the state Council, China’s Central Government, said the location of schools providing compulsory education should be adjusted according to local conditions so as to improve education quality of rural schools by pooling highquality teaching resources. In the same year, merger of rural schools were listed as a priority to develop rural compulsory education. since then, the program of closing and merging schools has been practiced across the country’s rural areas.
According to statistics released by the Ministry of education, China had 440,282 rural primary schools in 2000, while the number dropped to 210,894 in 2010, down 52.1 percent. In about 10 years, half of the previous rural primary and middle schools were closed or merged.
Optimizing resources
During the process of China’s rapid urbanization, more and more farmers immigrated to cities. Meanwhile, the strict family planning policies led to reduction of the birth rate in rural areas, causing the number of rural students to continue to fall. “Under such circumstances, the closure and merger of rural schools are in line with social development, as it helps optimize allocation of education resources and can better meet rural residents’ need for education,” Li Liyan, a news commentator, told People’s Daily.
“I love my school, as there are spacious classrooms and various sports facilities,”said Li Bingbing. The previous primary school in her village was near her home and it only took a five-minute walk. But it was too small, with no playground, let alone sports facilities such as a football field. students had no place for the Pe class. The problem of teacher shortages was alleviated after the closure and merger of smaller schools. since Li Hao, Li Bingbing’s brother, 17, was in primary school, the number of school-age children in his village has been dropping dramatically. At the worst scenario, there were not enough students for even one class in each grade. In neighboring Liufangcun Village, which has a smaller population, students of different grades had to share one classroom, and one teacher was asked to teach two to three different subjects.
“Now the problem is solved. We have individual teachers for each subject. Moreover, the teaching of art and music get more interesting and regular as we now have professional teachers,” Wang Qiaoling, a teacher from the Central Primary school, told ChinAfrica.
Safety implications
However, due to poor planning, the other side of the coin is the long travel time children face getting to class. Often some of the mountain journeys are fraught with danger, meaning safety concerns are a constant worry for parents.
For most of learners in Li’s school, the arterial country road is the only option. Passing through many villages with a lot of zebra crossings but no traffic lights, the road is a prime route for traffic accidents, especially in harvest season. “Aged eight to 12, the learners are too young and sometimes are not aware of traffic dangers. Their safety worries us teachers a lot,” said Wang.
Another concern for Li’s grandmother is the boarding facility at the Central Primary school. There is no dormitory but only a private canteen selling fast food like steamed stuffed buns. “They are neither clean nor nutritious. We grandparents and parents don’t want children to eat lunch at school for the sake of their health,” said Zhang Xiulan, Li’s grandmother. she would rather endure the inconvenience of accompanying her granddaughter to and from school twice a day. “With almost four hours wasted on the road every day, I can do little housework or farm work,” said Zhang.
Child-trafficking is a further worry for parents of learners who walk to school on their own. “Nowadays traffickers are so slippery that adults sometimes may be cheated, let alone children,” said Zhang, adding that it was not a problem when the school was near her home as people all knew each other.
Besides, the improvement of teaching facilities didn’t result in absolute improvement of the children’s academic performances as expected. “Away from the supervision and care of parents, some learners became averse to study, even getting addicted to online games,” said Wang. Possible solutions
The Ministry of education has acknowledged these problems and is planning to modify the policy regarding closing and merger of rural schools. According to the modified policy soliciting public’s opinions since July 23, the closing and merger of rural schools had to be stopped if they encountered overwhelming opposition from students’ parents, and some closed schools should be reopened when they are deemed necessary.
“It is a positive sign and shows the government’s determination to solve the emerging problems,” said Yuan Guilin, a professor on rural education from Beijing Normal University in an interview with CCTV.
He pointed out that the reopening of closed schools is not the exclusive responsibility of education departments. “They should work together with culture and agriculture departments to combine the restoration with the program of building a new socialist countryside,” said Yuan. “The new schools should have comprehensive functions, combining a teaching center, rural activity center and agricultural technology training center in the same building,”he added.
Yuan said that as the process is complicated, the management of restoring and reopening the schools should be supervised by upper levels of government. “It should be coordinated by the state Council, with local governments at the county level and below in charge of detailed works,” said Yuan.
Li Bingbing may be too young to understand the significance of the possible changes to the rural schooling system, but what she does hope for is to have a shorter walk to school, caring teachers and interesting lessons when she gets there.
“I like to go to school as I can play games with my pals. But I have to walk to school for such a long time. It is so tiring,” Li told ChinAfrica. Like her, all the learners walk to school, spending an average of an hour on the one-way journey.
However, compared to Li and her schoolmates, many rural schoolchildren in China are not so lucky. They have to travel along tortuous mountain trails of dozens of km to attend school. The frequent schoolbus accidents making news since last year have added to public worries about the safety of this transportation.
A policy in education about 10 years ago is at the root of this strain on learners. In 2001, a regulation by the state Council, China’s Central Government, said the location of schools providing compulsory education should be adjusted according to local conditions so as to improve education quality of rural schools by pooling highquality teaching resources. In the same year, merger of rural schools were listed as a priority to develop rural compulsory education. since then, the program of closing and merging schools has been practiced across the country’s rural areas.
According to statistics released by the Ministry of education, China had 440,282 rural primary schools in 2000, while the number dropped to 210,894 in 2010, down 52.1 percent. In about 10 years, half of the previous rural primary and middle schools were closed or merged.
Optimizing resources
During the process of China’s rapid urbanization, more and more farmers immigrated to cities. Meanwhile, the strict family planning policies led to reduction of the birth rate in rural areas, causing the number of rural students to continue to fall. “Under such circumstances, the closure and merger of rural schools are in line with social development, as it helps optimize allocation of education resources and can better meet rural residents’ need for education,” Li Liyan, a news commentator, told People’s Daily.
“I love my school, as there are spacious classrooms and various sports facilities,”said Li Bingbing. The previous primary school in her village was near her home and it only took a five-minute walk. But it was too small, with no playground, let alone sports facilities such as a football field. students had no place for the Pe class. The problem of teacher shortages was alleviated after the closure and merger of smaller schools. since Li Hao, Li Bingbing’s brother, 17, was in primary school, the number of school-age children in his village has been dropping dramatically. At the worst scenario, there were not enough students for even one class in each grade. In neighboring Liufangcun Village, which has a smaller population, students of different grades had to share one classroom, and one teacher was asked to teach two to three different subjects.
“Now the problem is solved. We have individual teachers for each subject. Moreover, the teaching of art and music get more interesting and regular as we now have professional teachers,” Wang Qiaoling, a teacher from the Central Primary school, told ChinAfrica.
Safety implications
However, due to poor planning, the other side of the coin is the long travel time children face getting to class. Often some of the mountain journeys are fraught with danger, meaning safety concerns are a constant worry for parents.
For most of learners in Li’s school, the arterial country road is the only option. Passing through many villages with a lot of zebra crossings but no traffic lights, the road is a prime route for traffic accidents, especially in harvest season. “Aged eight to 12, the learners are too young and sometimes are not aware of traffic dangers. Their safety worries us teachers a lot,” said Wang.
Another concern for Li’s grandmother is the boarding facility at the Central Primary school. There is no dormitory but only a private canteen selling fast food like steamed stuffed buns. “They are neither clean nor nutritious. We grandparents and parents don’t want children to eat lunch at school for the sake of their health,” said Zhang Xiulan, Li’s grandmother. she would rather endure the inconvenience of accompanying her granddaughter to and from school twice a day. “With almost four hours wasted on the road every day, I can do little housework or farm work,” said Zhang.
Child-trafficking is a further worry for parents of learners who walk to school on their own. “Nowadays traffickers are so slippery that adults sometimes may be cheated, let alone children,” said Zhang, adding that it was not a problem when the school was near her home as people all knew each other.
Besides, the improvement of teaching facilities didn’t result in absolute improvement of the children’s academic performances as expected. “Away from the supervision and care of parents, some learners became averse to study, even getting addicted to online games,” said Wang. Possible solutions
The Ministry of education has acknowledged these problems and is planning to modify the policy regarding closing and merger of rural schools. According to the modified policy soliciting public’s opinions since July 23, the closing and merger of rural schools had to be stopped if they encountered overwhelming opposition from students’ parents, and some closed schools should be reopened when they are deemed necessary.
“It is a positive sign and shows the government’s determination to solve the emerging problems,” said Yuan Guilin, a professor on rural education from Beijing Normal University in an interview with CCTV.
He pointed out that the reopening of closed schools is not the exclusive responsibility of education departments. “They should work together with culture and agriculture departments to combine the restoration with the program of building a new socialist countryside,” said Yuan. “The new schools should have comprehensive functions, combining a teaching center, rural activity center and agricultural technology training center in the same building,”he added.
Yuan said that as the process is complicated, the management of restoring and reopening the schools should be supervised by upper levels of government. “It should be coordinated by the state Council, with local governments at the county level and below in charge of detailed works,” said Yuan.
Li Bingbing may be too young to understand the significance of the possible changes to the rural schooling system, but what she does hope for is to have a shorter walk to school, caring teachers and interesting lessons when she gets there.