The tragedy in Jiangxi province last week, when up to 60 children were killed in a fireworks explosion in their school, has, yet again, raised the whole question of funding of schools and teachers' pay in China
China's schools are so starved of cash that pupils are being forced to do paid work in the classroom. In the wake of last week's tragedy, Asia Correspondent Miriam Donohoe examines a national educational struggle
I HAD my first experience of the Chinese education system when I took refuge from the freezing cold in a primary school in a remote part of north-east China recently. The school, in Houshi village in the province of Jilin, where I was covering local elections, resembled something from rural Ireland 50 years ago. What was most shocking was the lack of equipment. There were no packed bookshelves, no computers and no art equipment. Apart from a blackboard and one chart, the walls were bare. The wooden desks and chairs were in poor condition and the only source of heat was a coal stove. The toilets were located in a building at the back of the school. They were filthy, open squats.
I was told that this primary school was typical of many in the 830,000 villages in China. Given these sort of conditions, the revelation that schools right across China are forced to operate small cottage industries to supplement their incomes is not surprising. The tragedy in Jiangxi province last week, when up to 60 children were killed in a fireworks explosion in their school, has, yet again, raised the whole question of funding of schools and teachers' pay in China.
Reports suggest that the children in Jiangxi may have been making fireworks under pressure from teachers who were anxious to boost their own tiny incomes. Yet whatever the true reasons for the tragedy, it has highlighted the fact that serious problems exist in the classrooms of China.
Over the years, the powers-that-be have brought in comprehensive new laws governing education. The result has been decentralisation of the control and management of schools to provincial level. These initiatives have created as many problems as they have solved, however. The poorer provinces, with less money to invest in the schools system, have a lower standard of education and, as a consequence, a less educated workforce. This, in turn, has made it harder for some regions to attract much-needed outside investment.
Since 1949, when the People's Republic of China came into being, successive Chinese governments have placed education at the top of their agendas. Indeed last week, during his annual address to the National People's Congress - the country's parliament - the prime minister, Zhu Rongji, reiterated the central importance of education in China's ongoing development. In 1999, the country's educational budget was £33.49 billion, an increase of 13 per cent on the previous year. There are more than 190 million students in full-time education. They are taught by seven million teachers in over 700,000 basic education (from six to 12 years) schools. On top of this, there are three million undergraduates in 1,050 higher education institutions.
The education system in China is divided into five sections: kindergarten from ages three to six (this is not compulsory); primary school from six to 12; junior-middle school from 12 to 15 (both are compulsory); senior-middleschool or vocational training from age 15 to 18 (this is not compulsory); university or higher education.
China adopted its nine-year compulsory education system in 1986 with the aim of ensuring students complete both the primary school and junior middle-school cycles.
According to Chinese ministry of education statistics for 1999, there is an 8 per cent take up of the nine-year compulsory rule. The goal is to have every child across the country completing the six-year primary programme by 2003 and a 100 per cent take up of the junior-middle school syllabus by 2010.
