CHINA: Chinese parents protest for children of migrant workers to be allowed to attend high school in cities like Beijing and Shanghai, rather than being forced to return to their ancestral home for such education

Record ID: 348582

  • Title: CHINA: Chinese parents protest for children of migrant workers to be allowed to attend high school in cities like Beijing and Shanghai, rather than being forced to return to their ancestral home for such education
  • Date: 22nd December 2012
  • Summary: SHANGHAI, CHINA (FILE - MARCH 2012) (REUTERS) GREENHOUSE TENTS ON FARMLAND IN FRONT OF BUILDINGS APARTMENT BLOCKS
  • Embargoed: 6th January 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: China
  • Country: China
  • Topics: Education,Education
  • Reuters ID: LVA1S8G4QXHS5V732UAW4FSVMSUF
  • Story Text: Chinese parents were prevented from marching on Saturday (December 22) to demand the right for the children of migrant workers to be allowed to attend high school in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
    A group of around 20 people attempted to gather for a planned protest, but were outnumbered by police and plain-clothed officials who surrounded them and ushered them away.
    The parents said they had applied to the police twice to hold the protest, but had never received a reply. They told Reuters that three had been detained by police.
    Police officers prevented reporters from filming or interviewing parents.
    Millions of children whose parents belong to China's vast migrant workforce are barred from taking senior high school or college entrance exams where they live by half-century old policies on household registration, known in China as 'hukou'.
    According to regulations, they must return to their ancestral home for high school.
    Activist Xu Zhiyong has been leading a campaign for change for three years, but was prevented from attending Saturday's planned march by police who monitor him around the clock.

    "Of course this is a form of discrimination. It's discrimination based on the circumstances of someone's household registration. Even though someone works in this city, and pays taxes in this city, their child still cannot study here because they are registered in a different place. I think in the United States even the children of illegal immigrants can study normally. But in China, 200 million people face the problem that their children cannot be in the same place as them to receive an education," he said.
    Shanghai, China's bustling financial hub with a population of over 20 million, is a hotspot for debate over the rights of migrants.
    Fifteen-year-old Zhan Haite, who has lived in Shanghai since she was four, has effectively become the poster child for the migrants education movement after she launched a widely-read microblog in May to argue her case online.
    Faced with the prospect of moving back to her ancestral home in Jiangxi province, Zhan stayed on in Shanghai with her parents, grandmother, brother and sister to home study.
    As well as support, Zhan has also received sharp criticism from Shanghai hukou holders who feel migrants are a burden on social services and drive up prices.

    "We study in Shanghai, just the same as our classmates, so why can't we attend the high school entrance exam in Shanghai? This restriction forces people to make the choice between their situation and their studies. Someone can choose to send their child back home to be a 'left behind child.' This is the reason why children are left behind in China. So I think it's an extremely cruel policy, and it needs to change," she said.
    Highlighting the sensitivity of the case, Zhan's father, Zhan Quanxi, was detained for several days this month after publicly protesting for education rights in central Shanghai, but criminal charges were dropped.

    "It's really too painful. For our child not to be able to attend regular high school is a fatal blow to our family. It has brought massive sorrow to our family. Getting through this last year has been very hard for the family," he said.
    Lawyers and parents have sent three petitions to the government making recommendations for how to phase out hukou restrictions on access to education.
    There has been no direct response, but earlier this year the Ministry of Education issued an order requiring all provinces and major cities to draft proposals by the end of the year for including non-hukou children in exams.
    Several provinces have already done so, but with the year winding down Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong - the locations with the biggest migrant populations - have yet to move.
    For now, the children of many poorer migrant workers in Shanghai can only attend small private schools in the city's sprawling suburbs.
    Many of them, like ten-year-old Hu Yanqiong, want to stay on in the city to study if they can.

    "After I graduate (from middle school) I want to stay in Shanghai, because it's a much better environment here, and the teaching here is much better, so I like it here," she said.
    The country's 230 million migrant workers have been the oarsmen of the world's second biggest economy, but have long been treated as second-class citizens with unequal access to education, health and other services tied to official residence status.
    As China's leaders prepare to hand over full power to a new generation in March, how to deal with migrants is one of the most important, and divisive, issues to resolve.
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