In a Global Issues course my junior year of high school, I had to prepare a presentation on a chapter of Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof’s book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. I chose to focus on a section of the book that stressed the importance of increasing girls’ access to education (particularly in second and third world countries) and I won’t soon forget the weight of understanding the odds stacked against not only women, but all rural Chinese children in receiving a good education and thus escaping poverty.

The New York Times article China’s Education Gap gives a run-down on the obstacles impeding access to an adequate education for rural children. The first problem is location: the journey to primary and secondary schools in rural China is often a strenuous one. This issue is described more in-depth in Half the Sky; the call to improve rural children’s access to education is also a call to improve public transportation and roadwork in rural areas, providing students if not with buses or trains than with, at least, main roads and routes to schools. Many children trek to school from homes an hour and a half or further away, and provided that they have the time, resources, and familial support to make the most likely overnight journey, they receive subpar education at their schools. Urban schools, especially in cities like Beijing and Shanghai, have access to more resources, better technology, and more qualified teachers. In a system in which college admissions are based on standardized test scores, this places rural students at an immediate disadvantage. They are not learning advanced courses, such as chemistry, in “decrepit school buildings” – if they even make it to school in the first place, as 60% of rural children have dropped out by the time they reach high school to learn a trade instead to support their families (China’s Education Gap – A Surprising Factor in Rural Poverty). Sadly, this is oftentimes the smarter choice for rural students: as families are responsible for financing children’s secondary education, becoming a migrant worker or learning a trade is more economically advantageous for families than paying for an education that will, at best, land their child in a third rate university.

Of the 40% of rural children who pursue secondary education, only 5% remain in school to take college entrance exams (China’s Education Gap – A Surprising Factor in Rural Poverty). Although China was once believed to have implemented a system of college admissions that promoted equality for students, corruption has since infiltrated the process. Even when we look beyond the obvious, that children of rural and poor families cannot compete with the stellar education urban and elitist children receive, university admissions quotas are still unevenly distributed throughout the country. As predicted, urban cities that produce high test scores are given the highest admissions quotas, increasing competition amongst lower performing, poorer, and rural children. Worse still, children are required to take the entrance exams in their hometown districts, allowing for discrimination based on location. So, why can’t students simply relocate to urban cities?

The cost of a good secondary school in China is equivalent to paying in-state college tuition at most universities in America. Even if a rural family could manage to fund their child’s education at an urban high school, the cost of living is higher still – especially in reputable school districts. Many families trade comfort for squalor to relocate to school districts often favored by universities, and even then, their children remain at a disadvantage, as many well-to-do families often hire private tutors and gain their children admission at top schools by donating hefty sums of money.

As aforementioned, as has been proven time and time again throughout the world, I firmly believe education is the route out of poverty. Facing seemingly unbeatable odds, rural Chinese families are doomed to remain in poverty, to remain as migrant workers, to remain oppressed in a system that keeps the impoverished in poverty. The system of test-score based college admissions once represented an equal playing field for students but is now widening educational, and therefore economic, equality.

Sources:

projectpartner.org/poverty/chinas-education-gap-a-surprising-factor-in-rural-poverty

https://www.newyorktimes.com/2014/09/05/opinion/sunday/chinas-education-gap.html?_r=0