CFLIU Educating Beijing Migrants FF Apr2010

8/7/2019 CFLIU Educating Beijing Migrants FF Apr2010

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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


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


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

Documents

CFLIU Educating Beijing Migrants FF Apr2010