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Life bleak, lonely in rural schools
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IN China, many parents in the countryside have no choice but to send their children to boarding schools because they often need to leave the hometown to work in cities.
However, unlike the better boarding schools in cities, the condition and facilities at rural boarding schools are fairly shabby and poor.
According to a recent report by Growing Home, resident students experience many problems in their character and human relationships.
The report is based on a survey of boarding schools in Hebei, Hunan, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. Growing Home staff member Du Shuang says, “These children are sleeping together in a small bed. The food is not good, and there is no hot water.”
Some of the results of the survey include:
• Because of the regulation issued by the central government more than 10 years ago to merge schools in the countryside, the number of primary and middle schools plummeted from 620,000 to 370,000; 80 percent of the disappearing schools were in rural areas.
• About 45 percent of the primary schools have resident pupils who are in grades one and two.
• Nearly two-thirds of the students in the survey said they felt very lonely.
“Usually for a 6- or 7-year-old child, they miss home very much under such a poor condition,” Du says. “In these boarding schools, they don’t have many things to do except some written homework. Then the teacher will ask them to write again in order to kill time.”
But such a bleak life is very difficult to avoid for families.
“Many of the parents have jobs in the cities, and it is a relief for them to put their children in these boarding schools, whether they like it or not,” Du says.
Yin Jianli, an education expert in Beijing, is strongly against boarding school for small children. “Whether the child is from the city or countryside, all they need is love. There is nothing more precious than to live with their mother.”
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