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Educating Beijings Migrant Children:A Profile of the Weakest Link in
Chinas Education System
Presenter: Chengfang Liu([email protected])
on behalf of
the REAP team
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As you already know from the talk by Scott:
Over the past 2 decades, migration to urbanareas has been the fastest growing segment of
the off-farm rural labor force
When examining individuals in the rural
population, there is a clear trend that more and
more are moving to city to work off farm
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And, this trend may just be starting
According to this years "No. 1 CentralCommittee Document, which is issued
every year by Chinas top leaders inJanuary to clearly communicate to thepopulation & lower govt officials whatare the new policy directions:
Efforts should be made to create anew and better life for migrants.
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Given this background, one of the
questions that is going to be more and more
important in this new environment is:
How do migrant children get
educated?
Could education for migrant childrenin the cities be a barrier to the
development of their human capital?
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In fact, the children of rural-to-urban migrants that
are moving to Chinas cities are falling into a GAP inthe provision of public education.
Most ofthe children of migrants are unable to go to
public schools therefore, they have to attend
migrant schools that are private, makeshift not
monitored by the government and until recentlywere thought to be outright illegal.
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In recent years, policy makers have gradually
begun to pass laws and design policies toprotect the rights of migrants.
Migrant children
are now supposed
to be entitled to
attend public urbanschools in their
local school
districts where
schooling issupposed to be free.
On Childrens Day, June 1st 2009, President Hu visited Jushan
school, a public school that accommodates migrant children
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Despite the change in the official line, access to schooling is still not
routine; most children of migrants in Beijing have no choice but to go
to these private, unregulated migrant schools (Tao and Yang ,2007).
Migrant Students in
Migrant Schools 70%
Migrant Students in Beijing
Public Schools 30%
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The goals of this presentation
To estimate the trends in migrant education in
Beijing;
To begin to understand the nature of migrant
education in Beijing
How POOR is migrant education?
[e.g., compared to rural schools in poor areas of rural China
e.g., compared to migrants in Beijing Urban Public School]
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Plan for the rest of this presentation
Trends of migrant education in Beijing (bycomparing them to rural and urban schools);
Data
Nature of migrant education in Beijing
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Trend 1. Change in the No. of Elementary
Students in URBAN Schools,1996 to 2006
0
5
10
15
20
1996 2001 2006
Millions of
Students
Data Sources: China National Bureau of Statistics (CNBS), 1997 to 2007
The student population
in China even in
urban areas is falling
this is, of course, in
part in response to the
success of Chinas One
Child Policy PLUS thedemographic transition
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Trend 2. Change in the No. of Elementary
Students in RURAL Schools,
1996 to 2006
0
20
40
60
80
100
1996 2001 2006
Millions of
Students
Data Sources: Ministry of Education (MOE), 1996 to 2007
This decline is even
more evident in ruralschools
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Panel A. Number of Migrant Schools
100
200
250
155
200
123
200
300300
239
300
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009
Year
Trend 3. Change in the No. of Migrant Schools
in Beijing Municipality,
1999 to 2007
However, look at the rise in the no.
of migrant schools and migrantstudents here we use data from
Bei in
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Trend 4. Change in the No. of School-Aged
Children of Migrants in Beijing Municipality,1997 to 2008
Panel C. Number of School-Aged Children of Migr
66,392
154,000
40,000
100,00100,00 100,000100,00
370,00 375,000
400,000
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
300,000
350,000
400,000
450,000
1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009
Year The no. of school-aged migrantstudents is also increasing
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Trend 5. Change in the No. of Students in
Migrant Schools in Beijing Municipality,2001 to 2007
Panel B. Number of Students in M igrant Schoo
15,00020,000
10,000
17,000
40,000
90,000
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
70,000
80,000
90,000
100,000
1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009
Year So is the no. of migrantstudents
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In summary, we can see a somewhat puzzling
phenomenon about Chinas educational system
The government is investing increasing
amounts of fiscal resources into:Urban schools and
Rural schools
However, the numbers of students in both
urban and rural schools have been decreasing.
In contrast, almost no investment is targeted tothe segment of the education system that is
growing the fastest
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So what is the implication of these children
getting their education in migrant schools?
To answer this question, lets look at:
Our data, and then use these data to:Study the nature of migrant education in Beijing
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1. Beijing Migrant
School Survey
Conducted in December
2008 and January 2009.
In total, we surveyed 931 4th
graders
23 randomly selectedmigrant schools in 7 districts
6 in Chaoyang
5 in Haidian2 in Shijingshan
2 in Tongzhou
2 in Daixing
4 in Changping
2 in Shunyi
FF BJ office
Where do the data come from 3 surveys:
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2. Beijing Public School
Survey
Public Schools that DO
accommodate migrant
students AND are close to the
sample migrant schools
4 public schools in 3 districts
2 in Haidian
1 in Daixing
1 in Changping
In total we surveyed:
430 4th graders
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5 national poverty counties
in Shaanxi provinceJiaxian
Suide
Zhashui
Xunyang
Baihe
10 rural schools
1800 4th graders
Same
standardized test
3. Shaanxi Rural
School Survey:
Xian
Dayu
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How well do students that attend migrant
schools perform in standardized tests?
79.7 80.3
71.9
68.6
65
70
75
80
85
Urban students-BJ
public schools
Migrant students-
BJ public schools
Rural students-SX
Rural schools
Migrant students-
BJ Migrant
schools
Children in migrant schools rank at the bottom
dead lastin terms educational performanceStandardized mathscore
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How well do students that attend migrant
schools perform in standardized tests?
79.7 80.3
70.5
68.6
65
70
75
80
85
Urban
students-BJ
public schools
Migrant
students-BJ
public schools
Left Behind
Children (rural
schools)
Migrant
students-BJ
Migrant
schools
Standardizedmath scoreInterestingly there has been a
lot of attention put to theeducation performance of the
children who are left by their
migrant parents behind in theirhome villages it was thought
that these left-behind children
were the worst performing, most
vulnerable children in China our research shows that migrant
students in Beijing perform
EVEN WORSE THAN left
behind children!
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Why do migrant schools do so poorly?
Is it that migrant students are different?
How about school or teacher characteristics?
Let us do some comparison: migrant schools in
Beijing vs rural schools in Shaanxi
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Student characteristics (at least observables)
appear to be nearly identical in migrant andrural schools
44
126
2233
45
120
2333
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
Female(%) Age(month) No sibling(%) Has 2+
siblings(%)
rural schools migrant schools
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Facilities in migrant schools are inferior
to those in rural schools
8370
91.3
59
45
83
0
20
40
60
80
100
Teaching builting
younger than 20 years
With reading room With playground
rural schools migrant schools
percentage
However
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Teachers in migrant schools are inferior
to those in rural schools
83
100
86
50
79
67
0
20
40
60
80
100
With associate college
or above diploma
With teacher certificate With more than 5 years
of teaching experience
rural schools migrant schools
percentage
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Final Summary
Size of Cohort of Students in Migrant Schools is fastestgrowing in China
But, Students in Migrant Schools performing at thebottom of the scale the worst performing group in
China
What is the solution to this problem?
Likely the best solution is that the government makes a commitment to giving each
and every student that lives in the city access to quality education this wouldmean building a lot more boarding schools our policy brief to the State Council
advocates this policy direction
But, this policy if adopted will not be able to take effect for years (as schools are
built and teachers hired)
So what can be done to help migrant students in the meantime?
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REAPs most recent efforts in searching for
a solution to one of the biggest problemsthat migrant children face:
When students fall behind
(as they often do since:
-- they are in transient homes;-- they attend schools w/out after school support;
-- their parents have little education/difficult to helpSO: how is it possible to provide remedial tutoring
to MIGRANT CHILDREN?
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REAP Takes Action
Two Programs on Migrant ChildrensEducation and Remedial Tutoring
Fall Challenge (2009) This is a peer tutoring program [funded by the Ford Foundation] Paired better students in the class (tutors) with poorer students in the class
(tutees)
Offered prizes to the pairs of tutor/tutees which had scores (of the tutee)
improve the most Preliminary results: Large impacts on the tutees, like taking a C student and making him/her
into a B- student;
The scores of the tutors also increased!
This summer, Summer Lightning (2010) This is a remedial tutoring program based on Computer Assisted Learning
(CAL)
We are rolling this out as an RCT, and will measure the impact