This document discusses poverty and culture issues related to rural education in China. It notes that rural areas face problems like remote locations, poor infrastructure, depleted natural resources, and traditional farming techniques that contribute to poverty. There is also a large gap in education levels between rural and urban students, with rural students less likely to graduate high school or attend college. Culturally, rural families place importance on education and gender roles that can influence education outcomes. The document examines causes like policies that led to more boarding schools far from home, labor migration leaving children behind, shortage of qualified rural teachers, and an education system not suited to rural needs. It notes government and non-governmental organizations could help address these issues in the future.

1. Culture and
poverty: Chinese
rural education
Viola Liu

2. 1. Poverty issue

3. General Information
• Increasingly frequent natural calamities, especially floods and
droughts, caused by extreme weather conditions that are
associated with climate change
• Remote locations with poor community infrastructure and
services, such as paved roads, markets and safe drinking water
• Depleted natural resources and decreasing farm sizes
• Lack of skills and capacity, and a disproportionate incidence of
illiteracy and poor skills among women
• Limited access to inputs, financial services, markets and value
chains
• Reliance on traditional farming techniques.

4. Journeytoschool

5. Climbtheclifftoschool
https://youtu.be/hrHLA5G_VC0

6. Big gap!

7. Population of age 3-6
Rural
57%
Urban
22%
Counties
21%
Total: 60
million
Rural: 34
million
* Data from
website National
Bureau of
Statistics of
People’s Republic
of China on
Major Figures of
the 2010
Population
Census.

8. Teacher-students ratio
Teachers
Students
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Nation Avg.
Rural Areas
Teachers
Students

9. Rural students in boarding
school
Rural students in boarding school
Middle school
Middle school
Primary
school
11,000,000
Middle
School
22,000,000 60% is left-behind
children

10. Statistics tells the facts
Drop-out increased 1.1 times (2006-2011) among
1155 sampled rural schools.
(Audit Administration, 2013)
High school graduation rate: 90% (city) VS 50%
(rural)
College enrollment rate: 70% (city) VS 8% (rural)
(Sampling by Stanford, CAS, 2015)

11. Investment in Education
• Increase and the investment unbalanced and unequal.
• In 2012, The average budgets per student in Beijing:
• Primary school: $2300, Middle school: $3500, High
school: $4300.
• The average budgets per student in Guizhou:
• Primary school: $450, Middle school: $500, High
school:$510.
• The average budgets per student in Shanghai is the best,
about $2600, while the worst is Jiangxi, about $350.

12. 2. Culture

13. Culture background
• Importance of the education
• Importance of the gender

14. Cause
• A 10-year policy of school merger of rural schools results in
more and more boarding schools far away from home.
• Migration of young labor from country to city for job, leaving
their children behind at home while others follow their
parents to city.
• Shortage of qualified teachers in rural school due to low
income and less opportunity for individual development
• Identical textbook/teaching materials and standards of
test/examination unsuited for rural students.
• Hu Kou policy restricts migrant children for schooling in city.
• Monolithic education system limits a multifunctional supply
of schooling for different and factual needs of rural students
and migrant children.

15. Current & Future
• Government
• NGO
• Technology
To be continued…

16. References
• Knight, J., Song, L., & Huaibin, J. (1999). Chinese rural migrants
in urban enterprises: three perspectives. The Journal of
Development Studies, 35(3), 73-104.
• Mauger, P. (1983). Changing policy and practice in Chinese
rural education. The China Quarterly, 93, 138-148.
• Zhao, Y. (1997). Labor migration and returns to rural education
in China. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 79(4),
1278-1287.
• Jacob, W. J. (2006). Social justice and gender in chinese higher
education: regional issues of equity and access. In Education
and Social Justice (pp. 139-159). Springer Netherlands.
• Cao, S., Wang, X., & Wang, G. (2009). Lessons learned from
China's fall into the poverty trap. Journal of Policy Modeling,
31(2), 298-307.