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A parent lies on the ground to protest the closure of a school for children of migrant workers in Haidian district in Beijing. (The Epoch Times photo archive)
The Chinese communist regime has forced the shut-down of schools for thousands of poor migrant workers’ kids in Beijing, jeopardizing these children’s education, while supporting a project to build schools for the poor in Africa.
Since June, nearly 30 schools for migrant workers’ children in Beijing have received shutdown notices. Approximately 30,000 students will be affected by the closures.
At the same time reports have surfaced that a non-governmental organization with close ties to the regime is planning to build 1,000 “Hope” Schools in Africa. The news has sparked a hot public debate.
Although the Chinese regime has made promises to provide nine years of basic education to all citizens, children of rural migrant workers without residential permits in cities cannot easily attend public school. They are required to pay several times more than local residents to enroll in public schools.
Without government subsidies, migrant workers have resorted to forming private schools to educate their children. As the number of migrant workers has increased, more and more such schools have appeared, numbering over 300 in Beijing alone.
However, just as the new school year is about to begin, the government has shut down more than 20 migrant workers’ schools in Daxing and Haidian districts in Beijing. Another nine schools in Chaoyang Districts were also shut down.
The main reason cited for the shutdowns are building code violation.
Authorities said the students would be reassigned to other public schools, but many people are skeptical whether the migrant children will in actuality be able to attend those schools.
Han Haixue, the principal of Ziqiangxiwang Elementary School in Beijing, said that reassigning the children to other schools would not solve the problem. He said some children were assigned to schools 10 kilometers away from their parents’ work, which makes it impossible for the children to get to the schools.
Zhang Zhiqiang, the director of Beijing Migrant Workers Children’s School said that the authorities’ proposal is not practical at all, and they would be lucky if half of the students could get enrolled in public schools. Zhang said the problem is that the Chinese education system separates policy and funding.
“Although the government has made a policy decision to relocate students, if the funding isn’t provided, the public schools will not be able to accept the students,” Zhang said.
An estimated 300,000 to 400,000 children of migrant workers live in Beijing. Only 63 out of the more than 300 private migrant worker schools have government-issued permits.
In order for these children to be able to attend public schools, their parents must first have five different certificates: a temporary Beijing residential permit, an employment certificate, and three other certificates. It is not easy for a migrant worker to obtain all five certificates.
Expanding Influence in Africa
As Chinese migrant workers are hard-pressed to secure a basic grammar school education for their children, China plans to spend approximately 2 billion yuan (US$312 million) to construct 1,000 schools in Africa under the China-Africa Hope Project in the next 10 years.
The World Eminent Chinese Business Association and the China Youth Development Foundation are the official fundraising organizations for the China-Africa Hope Project.
China Youth Development Foundation is affiliated with the Chinese Communist Youth League directly under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
According to public online information, Lu Junliao, the chairman of World Eminent Chinese Business Association, previously worked for the municipal government of Guangyuan in Sichuan Province and received training at the Party School of the Central Committee of the CCP. After he entered the private sector in 1995, his career skyrocketed. In 2005 Lu was named one of the 100 most influential wealthy people in China.
Lu’s daughter, Lu Xingyu, is the executive director and chief secretary of the China-Africa Hope Project.Freelance writer Chen Xi from Guizhou said that it was ironic that China is building schools in Africa when so many children of migrant workers are being deprived of an education at home.
“The government donates to other countries without regard for the Chinese students who have no opportunity for an education. We should ask ourselves, what’s the hidden agenda?”
Read the original Chinese article
