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Officials feast while schools decay
By Xia Xiao |
September 13, 2012, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
EVIDENCE of China's regional development gap can easily be found in education.
Recent media reports stated that 3,000 primary school students in central China's Hubei Province had to take their own desks and chairs to school when the new semester began last week.
Education facilities in villages near the Dabie Mountains, where the 3,000 children live, are very poor. Some teachers in the region don't even have their own desks. Students have become accustomed to taking their own desks and chairs at the start of each semester.
Zhong Keqin, 57, sent his granddaughter Zhong Kexin to school with her own wooden desk last Monday. He said it was made more than 20 years ago for his son.
Student Lu Siling's parents borrowed a desk from a neighbor in the village of Nangang. The desk is 18 years older than the six-year-old girl.
The poor condition of the region's schools has attracted attention from the media and the public, who have criticized the local government's failure to provide adequate education resources.
Although underdevelopment of the local economy has been blamed by some, others have questioned the local government's commitment to providing quality education.
"If officials would only spare some of the money they spend on cars and lavish banquets, the children could have desks and chairs," wrote user "a Beijinger in Beijing" on news portal Sina.com.
Contrasts
Statistics from the Ministry of Education indicate the number of primary school pupils declined by 143,400 to 99.26 million last month, with a similar drop in the number of junior high school students.
Although some have cited the statistics as evidence of a surplus of education resources, the imbalance between urban and rural areas is massive, according to Tang Lihong, a professor at Fuzhou University in east China's Fujian province.
Inadequate facilities are not the only problem facing rural educators, who also struggle with a shortage of qualified teachers, since many new teachers refuse to take jobs in far-flung rural areas.
Similar conditions of depravity can also be found in cities.
In Sanya, a tourist city in south China's tropical island province of Hainan, a shabby two-story school contrasts sharply with surrounding high-end hotels and villas, some just a stone's throw from the school. The building is part of a primary school for children of migrant workers.
Although the government has repeatedly pledged to improve education for migrant children, computers and other essential equipment and facilities are still rare or nonexistent in migrants' schools, even in developed cities like Beijing.
Professor Tang said long-term, overall planning is needed to ensure that education resources are distributed evenly to all of the country's children, no matter where they live.
(Xinhua writers Zhang Yizhi and Meng Zhaoli also contributed to this story.)
Recent media reports stated that 3,000 primary school students in central China's Hubei Province had to take their own desks and chairs to school when the new semester began last week.
Education facilities in villages near the Dabie Mountains, where the 3,000 children live, are very poor. Some teachers in the region don't even have their own desks. Students have become accustomed to taking their own desks and chairs at the start of each semester.
Zhong Keqin, 57, sent his granddaughter Zhong Kexin to school with her own wooden desk last Monday. He said it was made more than 20 years ago for his son.
Student Lu Siling's parents borrowed a desk from a neighbor in the village of Nangang. The desk is 18 years older than the six-year-old girl.
The poor condition of the region's schools has attracted attention from the media and the public, who have criticized the local government's failure to provide adequate education resources.
Although underdevelopment of the local economy has been blamed by some, others have questioned the local government's commitment to providing quality education.
"If officials would only spare some of the money they spend on cars and lavish banquets, the children could have desks and chairs," wrote user "a Beijinger in Beijing" on news portal Sina.com.
Contrasts
Statistics from the Ministry of Education indicate the number of primary school pupils declined by 143,400 to 99.26 million last month, with a similar drop in the number of junior high school students.
Although some have cited the statistics as evidence of a surplus of education resources, the imbalance between urban and rural areas is massive, according to Tang Lihong, a professor at Fuzhou University in east China's Fujian province.
Inadequate facilities are not the only problem facing rural educators, who also struggle with a shortage of qualified teachers, since many new teachers refuse to take jobs in far-flung rural areas.
Similar conditions of depravity can also be found in cities.
In Sanya, a tourist city in south China's tropical island province of Hainan, a shabby two-story school contrasts sharply with surrounding high-end hotels and villas, some just a stone's throw from the school. The building is part of a primary school for children of migrant workers.
Although the government has repeatedly pledged to improve education for migrant children, computers and other essential equipment and facilities are still rare or nonexistent in migrants' schools, even in developed cities like Beijing.
Professor Tang said long-term, overall planning is needed to ensure that education resources are distributed evenly to all of the country's children, no matter where they live.
(Xinhua writers Zhang Yizhi and Meng Zhaoli also contributed to this story.)
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