The Tongxin Experimental School in Chaoyang District in eastern Beijing is a school for children of migrant workers. Headmaster Wang Dezhi told China Today that most unlicensed schools for such children in Beijing’s northern Hai-dian District have been closed down. Some students have been transferred to licensed schools, but by no means all due to their limited capacity. Migrant schools like Tongxin are private and hence not entitled to government subsidies for the nine-year free education program. They normally charge tuition fees ranging from RMB 600 to 1,000 per semester. Parents are willing to pay the fees because they want their children to live with them rather than alone back in their rural hometowns. “A few years ago it was commonplace for about one third of our total students to transfer to other schools as their parents changed work locations or went back to their hometowns,” Wang Dezhi said. “Most of them now stay put, as more parents are finding work nearer their children’s schools.”

The Program for the Development of Chinese Children (2011-2020) promulgated in 2011 proposed efforts to promote reform of the residence permit (hukou) and social security systems, and to gradually ensure equal access for children of migrant workers in cities to compulsory education.

This concept has been acted upon in certain cities. In Shanghai, governments at both municipal and district level provide funds for migrant workers’ children’s free compulsory education. Consequently, since autumn of 2010, 470,000-odd migrant children have been able to enjoy free education at public and designated private schools. Among them, around 330,000, representing 71 percent of the total, are at public schools.

Since 2008, Shanghai has earmarked special funds, starting at RMB 2,000 per person per year, for migrant workers’ children to attend public schools. This subsidy, which is equally shared by municipal and district budgets, has since risen, year-on-year, to RMB 3,000, RMB 3,600 and RMB 4,000. In Hangzhou of neighboring Zhejiang Province, the local government stipulates that as long as migrant workers have residential permits, their children are entitled to the same rights in the province as locals to pre-school education and the nine-year compulsory education program. Many other cities have also begun taking action to resolve the problems of migrant children’s schooling and health care.

Certain schools that had been shut down have been reinstated to meet the huge demand, according to Wang Dezhi, who has been working in Beijing for 17 years. Wang’s wife and three-year-old son now live with him in the capital. Wang calls on permanent urban residents to accept the many people like him who have been working and living in the city with their families for extended periods and who are unlikely to go back to their rural homes. Migrant workers’ children in Beijing now also receive free vaccines. Wang is confident that in the near future they will also be eligible for free education.

Once cities are ready to accept migrant workers and their children as permanent residents, the number of left-behind children in rural areas will rapidly decline.