By Xie Liangbing (谢良兵)

Nation, page 10, Issue No. 537, Sep 19, 2011

Translated by Song Chunling

Original article: [Chinese]  

13-year-old Peng Hui didn't want to leave her parents. She was staying with them in Huizhou, Guangdong province while she studied at primary school, but in order to prepare for her university entrance exam she has to return to the house where she grew up in Shaoyang(邵阳), since she can only take the exam in the place that she was registered when she was born.

On the second weekend of her stay in Tangtian middle school(塘田市镇中学) on Sep 9, Peng went to the ferry dock in the town. It is a half-an–hour walk from their school on mountain, and the ferry is almost the only choice for people in Tangtian to cross the river to the other side. Students like Peng normally chose to ride the ferry that passes all the nearby villages instead of transferring to buses on the other side, because it’s cheaper and more convenient.

 At about 2pm on Sep 9, Peng and her classmates went aboard the last boat of the day, “Xiangshao 0018” , which was crowded with passengers for the seven villages that it passes. However not long after the boat started, it began to sink. 12 people died, 20 were injured and 38 saved according to the official data. Peng was saved by a classmate, but she is still scared when recalling the sank boat accident.

Urbanized Rural Education

 Rural education in China has always been arranged according to the administrative division, and the model of “high school by county, middle school by countryside and primary school by village”(县办高中，乡办初中，村办小学) has been followed for years. However as the rural education urbanized, the model has also changed.

Since 2000, many schools in villages have been closed and merged into one school in town. Tangtian middle school where Peng studies was formed by a merger of three village schools in 1900.

This move has been driven by the lack of local government funds and the shrinking number of prospective students. After the reform of taxation and charges in rural areas, nearby villages are merged into a big town school in order to save expenses; while the number of students in rural areas is also shrinking because of the fast urbanization in China and the one-child policy.

 Take Tangtian city for example, there were 24 middle and primary schools in the 1990s, but only 10 public schools and 3 private schools in 2010. Tangtian Middle school has also become the only middle school of the whole area. However what happened in Tangtian is not the only case. In Shaoyang, the number of primary school has decreased by 42% and the number of students dropped by 4.3% from 2002 to 2010.

 Apart from primary and middle schools, high schools are also facing the same problem. In 2005, there were 18 high schools in Shaoyang, and this number has fallen to 13 in 2009, with only two of them located in villages. The only high school in Tangtian, NO.4 High School, was forced to close in 2005 due to the lack of students.

These changes of rural schools has made the commute to school longer and harder. Roads and transportation in Shaoyang are all in a very bad condition, and thus the free ride provided by Tangtian middle school has become the best choice for students to go back home.

Competition for More Students

 The shrinking number of schools is caused by the decreasing number of prospective students, due to the one-child policy and the urbanization. However as schools are merged, the competition for more students has become a strange phenomenon in rural schools.

Education resources are not balanced in rural and urban areas, and therefore students are flowing from villages to counties and from counties to cities. Among all the counties in Shaoyang city, education quality in Shaoyang county is among the worst. Many students choose to study in the neighboring Longhui County(隆回县) instead, whereas students of better-off families choose to study in Changsha city(长沙) at an expense of around 30,000 yuan per year.

The loss of students in Shaoyang county also leads to the loss of education funds, which is estimated to be at least 10 million yuan per year for every 1,500 students that choose to study elsewhere. Meanwhile, good teachers are also flowing to other places, which accordingly attracts many students to follow. Some teachers even make profits for “buying prospective students”(买卖生源) for schools. Education in Shaoyang county has fallen into a vicious circle.

 Competition for more students is also intense among schools within Shaoyang county. Schools attempt to attract more students with less tuition fees and good teachers. The boat that sank was also provided by Tangtian middle school as a free ride in order to win more students from farther-away villages, as was acknowledged by the administrative officer Xiao Xiaoming(肖小明).

The Hallowed-Out Rural Education

 This tragic boat accident reveals the weakness and poverty of rural China, where the quality of education has been sinking over the past decade. Eight out of the nine students who drowned were "stay-at-home" children whose parents had gone to the city to work.

According to investigation, the number of “stay-at-home women, children and elders” is 47 million, 50 million and 40 million respectively. In Shaoyang county there are 53,108 “stay-at-home students”, accounting for 45% of the total. In Tangtian middle school, two thirds of students are “stay-at-home students”. These students stayed at home for the entrance exams of high schools and universities.

The undue urbanization of rural education is emptying the rural schools while the quality of education offered in many city schools has also been weakened by large class sizes, according to an expert from the Taoxingzhi Research Institute.

A survey conducted in 2008 by Shaoyang county education bureau shows that the average number of students per class in the county primary, middle and high schools is around 63, which is above the standard of Hunan province. Four classes in Shaoyang No.1 middle school even exceeded to 100 students. While total pupil numbers at one village school, No. 3 middle school, dropped from 650 in 2005 to 300 in 2008.

Another consequence of this urbanization of rural education is the loss of teachers. The low salaries are the main reason. The average salary is only 520 yuan in schools in Tangtian town, and even that is considered reasonable compared to other schools in Shangyang county.

Recently the focus has turned to building boarding schools since school mergers have made the trip to school even further for many students. Although Tangtian middle school is one of the model boarding schools built in 2005, there are more students from villages living in shabby dorms. They don't dare even dream of a safe “school ride”.