Educating Beijing’s Migrant Children:

A Profile of the Weakest Link in

China’s Education System

Presenter: Chengfang Liu

(cfliu.ccap@igsnrr.ac.cn)

on behalf of

the REAP team

As you already know from the talk by Scott:

• Over the past 2 decades, migration to urban

areas 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
And, this trend may just be starting
• According to this year’s "No. 1 Central
Committee Document,” which is issued
every year by China’s top leaders in
January to clearly communicate to the
population & lower gov’t officials what
are the new policy directions:

“Efforts should be made to create a

new and better life for migrants.”
 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 children

in the cities be a barrier to the
development of their human capital?
In fact, the children of rural-to-urban migrants that
are moving to China’s cities are falling into a GAP in
the provision of public education.

Most of the 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 recently
were thought to be outright illegal….
In recent years, policy makers have gradually
begun to pass laws and design policies to
protect the rights of migrants.

Migrant children
are now supposed
to be entitled to
attend public urban
schools in their
local school
districts where
schooling is
supposed to be free.

On Children’s Day, June 1st 2009, President Hu visited Jushan

school, a public school that accommodates migrant children
 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 Beijing

Public Schools – 30%

Migrant Students in
Migrant Schools – 70%
 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]
Plan for the rest of this presentation

• Trends of migrant education in Beijing (by

comparing them to rural and urban schools);

• Data
• Nature of migrant education in Beijing
 Trend 1. Change in the No. of Elementary
Students in URBAN Schools,
Millions of
Students
1996 to 2006

20

15

10

5 The student population

in China … even in
urban areas is falling
0 … this is, of course, in
1996 2001 2006 part in response to the
success of China’s One
Child Policy PLUS the
demographic transition
Data Sources: China National Bureau of Statistics (CNBS), 1997 to 2007
 Trend 2. Change in the No. of Elementary
Students in RURAL Schools,
Millions of 1996 to 2006
Students
100

80

60

40

20

0
1996 2001 2006

This decline is even

more evident in rural
schools
Data Sources: Ministry of Education (MOE), 1996 to 2007
 Trend 3. Change in the No. of Migrant Schools
in Beijing Municipality,
1999 to 2007
Panel A. Number of Migrant Schools
350

300 300 300

250 250
239

200 200 200 200

150 155
123
100 100

50

0
1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009
Year

However, look at the rise in the no.

of migrant schools and migrant
students … here we use data from
Beijing
 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 Migra
450,000

400,000 400,000
370,000375,000
350,000

300,000

250,000

200,000

150,000 154,000

100,000 100,000100,000100,000
100,000

66,392
50,000 40,000

0
1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009
Year The no. of school-aged migrant
students is also increasing
 Trend 5. Change in the No. of Students in
Migrant Schools in Beijing Municipality,
2001 to 2007

Panel B. Number of Students in Migrant School

100,000
90,000 90,000

80,000
70,000
60,000
50,000
40,000 40,000

30,000
20,000 20,000
15,00017,000
10,000 10,000

0
1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009
Year
So is the no. of migrant
students …
 In summary, we can see a somewhat puzzling
phenomenon about China’s 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 to
the segment of the education system that is
growing the fastest …
• So what is the implication of these children
getting their education in migrant schools?

• To answer this question, let’s look at:

– Our data, and then use these data to:
– Study the nature of migrant education in Beijing
 Where do the data come from … 3 surveys:
1. Beijing Migrant
School Survey

Conducted in December
2008 and January 2009.

In total, we surveyed 931 4th

graders

23 randomly selected
migrant schools in 7 districts
FF BJ office
6 in Chaoyang
5 in Haidian
2 in Shijingshan
2 in Tongzhou
2 in Daixing
4 in Changping
2 in Shunyi
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
3. Shaanxi Rural
School Survey:

5 national poverty counties

in Shaanxi province
√Jiaxian
√Suide
√Zhashui
√Xunyang
√Baihe
Xi’an

10 rural schools
Dayu
1800 4th graders

Same
standardized test
How well do students that attend migrant
schools perform in standardized tests?
Children in migrant schools rank at the bottom—
Standardized math dead last—in terms educational performance
score
85

79.7 80.3
80

75
71.9
70 68.6

65
Urban students-BJ Migrant students- Rural students-SX Migrant students-
public schools BJ public schools Rural schools BJ Migrant
schools
How well do students that attend migrant
schools perform in standardized tests?
Standardized
Interestingly
math score
… there has been a
lot of attention
85 put to the
education performance of the80.3
79.7
children80who are left by their
migrant parents behind in their
75
home villages … it was thought
that these left-behind children 70.5
70 68.6
were the worst performing, most
vulnerable
65 children in China …
our research shows
Urbanthat migrant
Migrant Left Behind Migrant
students in Beijing perform
students-BJ students-BJ Children (rural students-BJ
EVEN WORSE public THAN
schools left
public schools schools) Migrant
behind children! schools
 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
Student characteristics (at least observables)
appear to be nearly identical in migrant and
rural schools
140 126
120
120
100
80
60
44 45
40 33 33
22 23
20
0
Female(%) Age(month) No sibling(%) Has 2+
siblings(%)
rural schools migrant schools
However …

Facilities in migrant schools are inferior

to those in rural schools
percentage
100 91.3
83 83
80 70
59
60
45
40

20

0
Teaching builting With reading room With playground
younger than 20 years
rural schools migrant schools
 Teachers in migrant schools are inferior
to those in rural schools
percentage

100 100
83 86
79
80
67
60 50

40

20

0
With associate college With teacher certificate With more than 5 years
or above diploma of teaching experience

rural schools migrant schools

 Final Summary
• Size of Cohort of Students in Migrant Schools is fastest
growing in China
• But, Students in Migrant Schools performing at the
bottom 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 would
mean 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?
 REAP’s most recent efforts in searching for
a solution to one of the biggest problems
that 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 help
SO: how is it possible to provide remedial tutoring
to MIGRANT CHILDREN?
 REAP Takes “Action”
Two Programs on Migrant Children’s
Education 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 …