EDUCATION IN RECEIVING CITIES
3.2 Lived experience of internal rural migrant children entering the educational system
3.2.4 The transition from primary to secondary level and beyond
In addition to the financial and administrative difficulties identified above, migrant students face an interruption between compulsory education and study at senior high school caused by institutional and structural arrangements, including the hukou system and the admission and recruitment system of the national college entrance exam.70 These may dash migrant children’s hopes of continuing education in their receiving cities. One of the admission criteria for take the national college entrance exam (gaokao – hereafter referred to as the NCEE) is that students must register and take it in the province where their hukou (hukou suo zai di) is located, even if this is not the place where they have actually studied.71 If students do not obtain the local hukou, regardless of how long they have studied in the place where they are living, they are not eligible for taking these exams. In Beijing, for example, although 25.73 per cent of
70
Lack of accessibility to junior and senior high schools for migrant children in receiving regions (which will eventually lead to the issue whether they can take the high school and the national college entrance exams in the places where they have lived) has increasingly become voiced by the public (see cited articles below). The main focus of the present study is on compulsory education for migrant children. This section will only touch the surrounding debate, as it is very important to the future development for migrant young people. Yet the transition from compulsory education to secondary level and beyond is quite complex and cannot be understood without carefully examination of currently hukou system/reform, the social insurance system, current national recruitment and admission systems for higher education, resources allocation for education between internal migration and local residents, vocational schools, and so on. Han (n 62), Yuan and Tian (n1) 128; Ren Xinghui, ‘What is Wrong with the Rejection of Taking Gaokao in the Place where the hukou is not located?’
<http://www.zhuanxing.cn/html/Education_Right/852.html>; ‘Migrant Students to be Fairly Treated When Taking College Entrance Exam’ <http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/bilingual/2012- 09/01/c_131821816.htm>; ‘Opening Vocational Education for Migrant Students is an Method to Ease the hukou Barrier’ <http://www.jyb.cn/basc/sd/201001/t20100120_336610_5.html> accessed 26 December 2012; T.E.Woronov, ‘Learning to Serve: Urban Youth, Vocational Schools and New Class Formations in China’ (2011) 6 The China Journal 77-99; Xiong Bingqi, ‘Resolving the Problem of Taking the National Higher Education Exam in Different Areas Has Been Put into the Agenda’ <http://edu.people.com.cn/GB/116076/14090408.html>; ‘Resolving the Problem of Taking the National University Entrance Exam: Three Solutions’ <http://nf.nfdaily.cn/nfdsb/content/2011- 03/11/content_21068845.htm>; ‘National People's Congress Representative: A Right to Take the National Higher Education Entrance Exam Should Be Entitled to Rural Migrant Children’
<http://www.edu.cn/sheng_yin_12145/20120305/t20120305_747841.shtml > accessed 22 June 2012 71According to the Ministry of Education of China, several requirements must be fulfilled in order to take the NECC: the students should have completed senior high school education or equivalent, be physically healthy, obey the Constitution of China, and obtain the local hukou where they will sit the exam. ‘National College Exam for Normal Higher Education’ <http://baike.baidu.com/view/850723.htm>; ‘Research on China's National College Entrance Exam (the Gaokao)’ <http://sydney.edu.au/ab/committees/admissions/2011/AEI_Gaokao_Report.pdf>; Cheng Yingqi, ‘Migrant Children to Take Gao Kao’ <http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2012- 09/07/content_15741234.htm> accessed 12 December 2012
‘migrant’ children were born in the city itself as of 2008,72
they cannot take the high school entrance exam where they have had their schooling, unless they have a hukou. (An exception is made if a parent has this certificate.)73 In this way, the hukou- orientated exam and admission arrangements have themselves become an institutional and structural barrier to the educational chances of migrant students.74 This problem has become a matter of great concern amongst officials75 and scholars76 in China – and, of course, amongst the migrant parents themselves.77 The following subsections illustrate the difficulties and conflicts raised by the current hukou-orientated testing system.
The high school exam (Zhong kao)
The high school exam in China is managed, operated and supervised by the local educational authorities at the provincial level (sheng ji jiao yu ting) and their remit is to provide for residents in possession of a local hukou.78 In practice, there is a great
72 ‘A Report on Compulsory Education for Migrant Children’ (n 12) National Institute for Education Research
73 Huyun Yang, ‘A Discussion is Undergoing by the Ministry of Education to Resolve the Problem of Taking National Higher Education Entrance Exam in Beijing and Shanghai’ < http://news.163.com/11/0307/03/6UGT566B00014AED.html> accessed 20 June 2011
74 Ni Wu and Fuyan Zhu, A Policy Research on the Issue of Taking High School Exam for Migrant Children in Receiving Regions (Educational Science Publishing House 2011)
75
For example, this problem was one of the worrying issues raised and discussed by many representatives of the National People’s Congress during the Fifth Session of the 11th National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) (‘the Two Meetings’) held in March 2012 in Beijing, China. Concerns were voiced by representatives from different provinces. ‘Taking the National Higher Education Exam in Receiving Cities, Hot Topic at the Two Meetings, Pay Attention to National Educational Reform’, Special Report from the Two Meetings of 2012 <http://www.edu.cn/html/e/2012lianghui/ydgk.shtml>; ‘Topic of the Two Meetings: How to Resolve the Problem for Rural Migrant Children to Take Two Exams After the Completion of Their Compulsory Education in Receiving Cities’
<http://www.edu.cn/re_dian_12144/20120305/t20120305_747880.shtml>accessed 22 June 2012 76 Ni Wu, ‘The Issue of Taking the High School and the National College Exams in Receiving Cities’ <http://www.qstheory.cn/zxdk/2012/201204/201202/t20120213_138374.htm>; Wang Ming, Focus on
the Education for Migrant Populations’ Children (Higher Education Press 2012) 178; T.E.Woronov, ‘In
the Eye of Chicken: Hierarchy and Marginality Among Beijing’s Migrant Schoolchildren’ (2004) 5 (3) Ethnography 297
77 For example, ‘A Proposal from an Non Governmental Perspective Concerning How to Make the Opportunity Available for Migrant Children to Take the National Higher Education Exam in Receiving Cities’
<http://www.jiaoyugongping.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=342&extra=page%3D1> accessed 23 June 2012
variation in how far some local authorities will bend the rules to allow migrant students to take high school exams in their adopted areas.79 Only a small number of local authorities have moved on to this provision, allowing migrant students to take their high school exams in the cities they have moved to.80 What do the migrant children do then? One option for these children wanting to attend senior high schools in receiving cities is for their parents to pay high temporary schooling fees.81 Owing to limited educational resources and high competition for places, especially in state schools with good reputations, there are very few places left for migrant children. In the city of Dong Guan, in Guang Dong Province, for instance, there are just three places available for non-local students in many of the state senior high schools.82 Aside from high fees and limited public resources, submission of correct credentials to the local authorities is normally required, including hukou certificates for the whole family, the parents’ work permit and a guardianship certificate from the students’ places of origin to prove that no legal guardianship remains there.83 In these circumstances, the common choice for migrant children is to return to the place where their hukou is located and take the high school exam there.84 But the curriculum, the pedagogical systems and written tests are different in the different provinces and adapting to a different academic system is not easy for students.85 Thus migrant parents have to send their children back home after the completion of elementary education in their receiving cities so that they can adapt to the new study environment in advance.86 The problem of different syllabuses and tests in different places clearly disadvantages migrant children, who have to start from scratch with various curricula and modules of
79 Wu and Zhu (74) 34
80 The latest figure indicates that as of December 2010 only 5 provinces (municipalities), 19 prefectural level cities and 4 districts and counties allowed migrant students to take the high school exam in their own regions. Wu and Zhu (n 74) 47
81 Yuan and Tian (n 1) 71 82
Ibid.,71
83 Ibid., 71; Wu and Zhu (n 74) 47 84 Ibid., Wu and Zhu 47
85 Ibid., 139
86 Mitch Moxley, ‘Hard Time Expose Migrants’ Worried About Children’ <http://www.china- labour.org.hk/en/node/100681> accessed 17 December 2012; Ingrid Nielsen, Berenice Nyland and others, ‘Determinants of School Attendance Among Migrant Children: Survey Evidence from China's Jiangsu Province’ (2005) Working paper 65/05, Monash University 4
courses.87 Consequently few continue with their studies at senior high school level.88 Many children may spend a few years in their home town, and eventually move back to the city they used to live in. Many migrant students choose to attend vocational schools.89 Others, just start to work directly (da gong) without pursuing further education, or they start to help out their parents at the age of fourteen or fifteen.90 A survey conducted in the city of Gongguan, Guang Dong Province, the largest receiving province in China,91 indicates that, after the completion of junior high school education, 20 per cent of students choose to enter employment; 30 per cent apply for non-state vocational senior high schools; 40 per cent return to their place of origin to attend senior high schools; and a very small number of students continue their studies in local state senior high schools.92
All these options could have a negative impact on the children. In his interview, Mr Zhang, Principal of Ming Yuan Migrant School, explained:
[M]any students [do] not want to return to their home town to continue their junior high school and take the high school exam, because they were born in the city; therefore they see themselves as urban kids. Lifestyle and academic environment in rural areas would be very difficult for them to adapt to. The curriculum is also different from province to province. Aside from these difficulties, if they returned to their home town, they would just become the new group of ‘left-behind’ children there, which would cause new problems. Currently many students are either not able to take the high school exam, which would advance them to the senior high schools, or cannot have a proper job. Thus many of them have just dropped out and stroll around and do nothing. They could easily become involved in criminal activities.93
87 Gao Dongli, ‘Migrant Children - Where is My High School?’
<http://edu.sina.com.cn/zhongkao/2011-03-30/1209290635.shtml> accessed 20 June 2011; Pan Fang, ‘A Survey on the Current Circumstances of Compulsory Education for Migrant Children – A Case Study of Changzhou’ (Master’s thesis, Department of Educational Administration, East China Normal University 2006)
88 Ibid., 37
89 Xu Leiying, ‘Most Migrant Children Don’t Attend High School: Survey’ < http://english.cri.cn/6909/2009/12/28/1821s538299.htm> accessed 15 June 2011 90
Interview with Han Jialing, famous sociologist and scholar at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences (Beijing, China, 7 March 2011)
91 Guang Dong Province ranks in the first place: it receives 14.6% migrant children, equivalent to 2,678,000 children, from other provinces in the country. Yuan and Tian (n 1) 25
92
Ibid., 71
93 Interview conducted on 2 March 2011 with Zhang Gezhen, Principal of Ming Yuan Migrant School in Beijing. A survey conducted in Shanghai indicates that, after completion of junior high schooling,
Another teacher from a migrant school in Beijing backs this up:
[M]any students in my class can easily lose their motivation to study, as they know that they cannot take the high school exam in Beijing because they have not got the Beijing hukou. The development of students at this stage is crucial. But, aside from a very few students in the class who are greatly motivated to continue their senior high school education (which might lead to the university in the future), the majority of students do not have much motivation to study and do not really know about their life goals. People discuss whether these kids can take the national college entrance exam in their receiving cities. Yet how can they even get that far if they are not allowed to take the high school exam in the first place? What is the future for these migrant students if they only obtain the junior high school certificate?94
Having worked in his own migrant school for more than ten years, Principal Zhang said in his interview: ‘I really hope the government can provide some preferential policies, hope and care for these children, because they would never forget such kindness from the government in their whole lives.’95
The national college entrance exam (Gaokao)
Even for those migrant students who succeed in taking the high school entrance exam in their receiving cities and continue their senior high school, there are barriers to advancing further. The next dilemma for them is whether they are eligible to take the national college entrance exam (NCEE) in their receiving city. In China, the NCEE (Gaokao) is undertaken at the completion of senior high school for admission to higher education. The majority of students and their parents take the NCEE very seriously. Yu compares it with the Chinese imperial exam (keju), which was the test used during the imperial era to select government officials and bureaucrats.96 He points out that both exams are comparable, as they are ‘highly competitive in nature, maintained by the state system, used as a social ladder and have [or had] a profound effect on
around 30% of migrant children neither go to high school nor start to work: they hang around in the streets. Xu (n 43)
94 Zhang Chunming, ‘Taking the High School Exam in Receiving Cities, When the Ideal Clashes the Reality’ <paper.jyb.cn/zgjyb/page/.../2012021503_pdf.pdf> accessed 29 December 2012
95
Interview with Zhang Gezhen (n 93) 96
Chinese Imperial Examination System, Confucianism and the Chinese Scholar System <http://www.csupomona.edu/~plin/ls201/confucian3.html>; Ke Ju Exam
society’.97 Indeed, the NCEE is regarded as the primary opportunity for the rural poor to enlarge their opportunities and leave the poor rural communities.98 Rural poor students use the exam to help them ‘jump into the dragon gate’ (which means getting into higher education to reach the upper social ladder).99 A survey conducted amongst 1,728 migrant students in 40 elementary migrant schools shows that 53 per cent of migrant students wanted to pursue a doctoral degree in the future, and only 1.5 per cent wished to go back to their places of origin working as peasant farmers.100 Parents also have their expectations: they hope for high academic achievement from their children. A survey has shown that 30.4 per cent of migrant parents want their children to obtain doctorates and 26 per cent hope their children will obtain bachelor degrees in the receiving cities.101 Such high expectations reflect an eager desire from the parents that their children will be able to ‘walk out’ (zou chu qu)102 from the rural areas by taking advantage of educational opportunities. These parents see education ‘as the best possible means of social mobility’,103 helping their children escape the fate of peasant farmers, whose lot – ‘eating bitterness’ (chi ku) – is so hard.104 Indeed the migrants have moved to the more economically developed regions with specific aspirations to improve their children’s lives. Nevertheless, most migrant children are, in practice, unable to progress to the NCEE. They face several obstacles.
Firstly, as indicated earlier, students in China must take their national college exam in the place where their hukou is located. The Ministry of Education of China
97 Yu Kai, Diversification to a Degree: An Exploratory Study of Students’ Experience at Four Higher Education Institutions in China (Bern, Peter Lang, 2010)
98 Wanhua Ma, ‘Why the Rural Poor Get Fewer Opportunities to Leading Research Universities?’ (2012) 13 Asia Pacific Education Review 263-271
99 Ibid. 100
‘Only 1.5% of Migrant Children in Beijing Wanted to Return to Hometowns Becoming as Peasants After the Completion of Middle Schools’ <http://www.nwccw.gov.cn/html/18/n-145118.html> accessed 20 June 2012
101 Ibid. 102
Peggy A. Kong, ‘To Walk Out: Rural Parents’ Views on Education’ (2010) 8 (2) China: An International Journal 361; Jin Chi and Nirmala Rao, ‘Parental Beliefs about School Learning and Children’s Educational Attainment: Evidence from Rural China’ (2003) 31 (3) Ethos 330-356
103 T.E.Woronov, ‘Migrant Children and Migrant Schooling, Policies, Problems and Possibilities’ in Labour Migration and Social Development in Contemporary China (ed) by Rachel Murphy (Routledge
2009) 108
employs a strict system of hukou-orientated quotas to allocate available spaces for the NCEE. Each year the Ministry decides the student quota in consultation with universities, while the universities’ recruitment plans are developed with the provincial educational authorities and approved by the Ministry. Local authorities at provincial level are mainly responsible for the NCEE student applications, for holding the exam, and for developing recruitment plans based on provincial needs.105 A complex matrix of provincial quotas, university quotas and subject quotas is negotiated between local educational authorities and the universities for each successive year. Based on this admission and exam system, all senior high school students must take the exam in the place where their hukou are located.106 The quotas are biased in favour of residents with ‘non-agricultural hukou’ in the cities.107
Such discrimination in the allocation of quotas further limits the educational opportunities available to ‘agricultural hukou’ holders – mainly rural migrant children. Thus the general rule is that migrant children have to return to their permanent residence to take the NCEE, regardless of what curriculum they have followed and how long they have studied in their receiving cities.
In addition to all this, as part of the national curriculum reform, each province can now design its own examination paper for the national college entrance exam (fen sheng ming ti) and can develop its own localised curriculum.108 The rationale for this is to promote the notion of ‘education for quality’ (su zhi jiao yu) as an advance on the conventional paradigm of an exam-oriented educational system (ying shi jiao yu)109 and (in a devolution of power from central government) to provide more administrative autonomy for local authorities at the provincial level, so that they can develop, manage and supervise pedagogical and exam systems according to their own regional characters.110 As of 2012, the Ministry of Education has permitted 16 of
105 Ibid. 106 Han (n 62)
107 For example, the Ministry of Education allocated Beijing (with 10 million permanent residents) 25,000 university admission slots, whereas it allocated Shangdong Province (with around 100 million local residents) 80,000 slots..
108
Yi Lin, ‘Turning Rurality into Modernity: Suzhi Education in a Suburban Public School of Migrant Children in Xiamen’ (2011) 206 The China Quarterly 313-330
109 Rachael Murphy, ‘Turning Peasants into Modern Chinese Citizens: “Population Quality” Discourse, Demographic Transition and Primary Education’ (2004) 177 The China Quarterly 1-20
110 ‘Whether Each Province Should Design Their Own Exam Papers for the National College Entrance Exam’
China’s 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities to design their own localised exam papers for the national higher education entrance examination, while other regions use a unified national paper.111 State schools in the rest of the provinces,