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Shutting Out The Poorest: Discrimination against the most disadvantaged migrant children in city schools
May 06, 2002
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Chinese government's failure to provide education to children of parents who are living away from their place of registered domicile under China's current household registration system (hukou) is currently shutting some of the poorest children in China's cities out of school. Under the hukou system, which assigns everyone to a particular place of residence, only the local government where a child's hukou is registered is responsible for providing her/him with the legally mandated nine years of compulsory education.
Although the central and local governments regularly issue regulations spelling out how migrant children ought to be admitted to local schools, in reality these regulations address only the situation of officially registered migrant workers, who represent a minority of the total number of migrants living in most big cities, especially given the cumbersome and costly procedures required to obtain the sheaf of permits migrants require for their residence in those cities to be technically "legal."
1.8 million not receiving education
Large numbers of children of migrant parents living in China's biggest and most prosperous cities are thus being denied the right to education by local authorities on the ground that they do not possess the correct registration. As a result of this rigidly applied policy, we estimate that hundreds of thousands of children may have already been deprived of their right to education under Chinese and international law. Over the next decade, millions of children may suffer in this way.
Estimates based on incomplete statistics point to a current total of 1.8 million migrant children in the age group for which compulsory education is mandated (between 6 and 14 years of age) who are not receiving education at all, although the real figures could be higher, given that China's migrant population is estimated between 100 and 150 million. The problem is made particularly acute due to the low level of state spending on education in China, which is among the lowest in the developing world at 2.5 percent of the GDP.
No recourse for migrant children shut out of schools
Despite increasing social concern about this problem, municipal authorities of major cities such as Beijing and Shenzhen continue to shut migrant children out of schools and to allow educational facilities to discriminate against them by charging them much higher fees than "local" children. A major reason for such discriminatory policies is that local authorities want to deter migrants with families from settling in the cities where they work. Some local authorities have forcibly closed down private schools set up by migrants whose children are barred from regular schools without providing alternative schooling for the children affected.
In one recent case, the authorities closed down around 50 migrant schools in Beijing's Fengtai district, with the objective of "clearing out low quality people." This attitude is particularly disturbing in the light of the fact that Fengtai had been chosen twice (in 1996 and 1998) to operate pilot programs for national regulations regarding the schooling of migrant children. Given the fact that according to official figures, Beijing has a surplus of 300,000 school places, the exclusion of migrant children from the education system is patently unjustifiable.
Migrant children relegated to substandard facilities
The physical environments of the privately-run schools, to which official policies effectively relegate many migrant children, are often poor and the facilities insufficient. Recent official news reports—including one in the People's Daily—pointed to "hazardous facilities," "overcrowded classes," "under-qualified teachers" and "lack of teaching materials," as well as highlighting the overall difficulties under which these schools operate in various cities across China. But official accounts neglect to mention the fact that in many major cities, including Beijing, a major reason for the poor quality of education being offered in private schools is that education departments have refused to allow them to register with the authorities or to help principals attempting to provide a much-needed service to migrant communities upgrade their facilities to reach the officially-mandated standards.
Overall, despite much rhetoric about "new" measures taken to address the situation of migrant children, the Chinese authorities have not given any tangible sign that they are moving away from making migrant children's enjoyment of the right to education conditional on the residency status of their parents.
Urgent measures needed
This report, based on official Chinese publications and interviews, examines the barriers official policies present to the realization of the right to education for migrant children in China, just at the time when Beijing and other cities around the country are employing large numbers of migrants in urban construction projects such as that in the capital for the preparation for the Olympic Games of 2008.
HRIC urges the Chinese authorities to implement the following constructive recommendations to ensure that migrant children are able to exercise their right to education in the places where their families are living. We also request that the International Olympic Committee and the corporate sponsors of the Games impress on the Beijing municipal government the importance of dealing expeditiously with this problem. We believe solutions for Beijing should be part of a national policy addressing this issue.
Summary of recommendations:
- Make education available to all children
- Eliminate discrimination against migrants
- Eliminate discriminatory fees as step towards ending fee charging
- In addition, the national authorities should take immediate steps in order to
Download full report (PDF, 180KB)
This report was made possible by the support of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Human Rights Project Fund
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