I have had more difficulty with these contacts than I imagined. My two original choices are on holidays and I certainly can understand their taking some time to get back to me.
To that end, I have started a chat with a Chinese teacher. During our chat this week she said that her experience has been like mine in international schools. However, her son attended public school and she has colleagues who are presently teaching in the public school system.
Her first area of interest is the migrant children who are numbering 400,000of primary school age. It is interesting she brought this topic up because this has been an area of interest of mine for some time. In fact, I considered volunteering at one of the schools set up for migrant children. However, the program needed a commitment of consecutive Saturdays that I felt I could not take on with my present work load. This teacher expressed how much this would be appreciated as these schools are hugely under-funded and teachers/conditions are often not up to national standards and some are not even licensed and therefore rely on donations.
I plan to visit her school next week and look forward to continuing this dialogue.
I have contacted another teacher who is presently in an international school but has experience in public schools. I will follow up with another email and hope to perhaps meet her this week as well.
One thing that came out of our conversation was that the government has policy for compulsory nine years of education. However, the schools are provided for the children who are registered as residents.This excludes the migrant children. There is a new policy as of last year that gives papers to these children and mandates that every child within the area of that school must be admitted. However, there is not enough room. I wish to look into this further, to see how it actually is working out.
Then there is the issue of the children who are left in the rural areas. They have resident permission to go to school but there may not be schools available and if there are, are not up to the national standards.
These are all issues that the government is addressing. It seems that every country has children that are left behind. It seems that what makes the difference is a driving force that keeps the needs of the child at the forefront. UNICEF-China seems to be one of those forces here with its Beijing representative, Kirsten Di Martino. She is a name that keeps showing up when issues about children's rights are brought up. She is a person of interest that I look forward to finding out more about in the days ahead.
An interesting aside.
I have just two weeks ago moved into a new apartment and the owner is wanting to move back to Beijing. In my search for another apartment, I got a picture of what it is like to be without legal representation. Thankfully, I am a person in good standing here and was able to obtain some assistance and I can always go to the Embassy. However, it is a different story for those who have not been brought up with the life of the city, or the rights that are afforded them or even access to information on what is available to them. This is a big job for the Chinese government but one that they have take on with determination and an aim to success.
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