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Positive signs of progress in reducing nation’s education gap
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The rural-urban education gap has persisted in China for decades.
While kids in cities like Beijing and Shanghai are practicing the piano or learning English, children in poor areas are often studying in shabby rooms as an undereducated teacher presides over every class.
Providing a good education to all children, regardless of where they live, has been on the central government’s agenda for years. Lately there have been signs of improvement.
Andreas Schleicher, a special adviser on education for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, has recently visited Tengchong County in a remote area of Yunnan Province. He visited Qiao Tou Lian He elementary school and says he was impressed by the improving standards of basic education.
In an essay written for BBC Online, he says: “In this poor neighborhood of simple houses and farmland, it is the school rather than the shopping center that has the cleanest and most impressive building. In terms of standards, the mathematics classes seem to be at least at the same level you would see in a European classroom.”
From his perspective, it is surprising to see such standards in such an impoverished place. But the reality is that after years of increasing investment in education, standards are slowly improving.
I can recall a similar experience with Schleicher in Qinghai Province.
The first Ethnic Minority Elementary School of Gonghe County has neatly refurbished classrooms. The school’s students live in tidy and spacious bedrooms, use state-of-the-art computers and are provided three free nutritious meals a day. The school even has hired nursemaids to take care of the youngest children.
The local education bureau chief says: “Without good education, these kids will not have a good future. That is why 25 percent of the city’s fiscal revenue is channeled to basic education.”
Indeed, investment in rural basic education has greatly improved. In 2012, 4.2 percent of China’s gross domestic product was spent on education, of which 30 percent was allocated to improve education in poor provinces in central and western China.
This, of course, has benefited rural children. Their classrooms are bigger and brighter, dormitories cleaner, and food safer and more nutritious.
More importantly, the so-called left-behind kids don’t have to worry about being psychologically isolated because their campus lives are more fulfilling.
Despite these improvements, this does mean it’s time to rest on our laurels. Much more needs to be done.
The Ministry of Education says there are still 23 million left-behind rural children studying in shabby schools.
The ministry has publicized new plans to improve education in rural areas. In the coming five years, more money will be made available to renovate schoolhouses and train more teachers. The more we do to improve education inequality, the more prosperous China will become because “strong youths lead to a strong China.”
The author is an editor at China Radio Internationa (CRI).
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