Beijing's Disadvantaged Migrant Children

CHAN:
Also, migrant children and their education are becoming a growing concern for China. We travel to Beijing now to learn more about their situation.

STORY:
Beijing's suburbs are a far cry from the glittering city center. Many of the residents who spend their days building the city's highways walk home on dirt tracks in the dark.

This suburb less than 40 minutes from the Forbidden City is home to Beijing Mingyuan School. The school's several hundred students all belong to the capital's million-strong floating population. Their parents left their countryside villages to seek work in the city and their children have followed them.

Mingyuan School has only basic amenities: the classrooms are dark, students sweep rubbish from their classrooms themselves, dumping it in wicker baskets at the door... and there is a strong smell of drains.

Wu Youqing, who's a student at the school, arrived in Beijing from Hubei province two years ago.

[Wu Youqing, Student]:
"My dad works in a fast-food place and my mum helps him."

Zhang Shujun took over as the principal of the school two years ago. He estimates that a quarter of his students frequently change schools and just a quarter might go on to university. Around half of his students will search for unskilled labor after leaving school.

[Zhang Shujun, Principal, Mingyuan School]:
"They are very naive and have very little access to the wider world. They have a very strong will to learn more about the world. They don't have the protection and support that the better off city children's parents can give them."

UNICEF experts and teachers say educational policy must change in order to prevent a sub-culture of millions of poorly educated and displaced children.

Category:

Education

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• migrant
• children
• Beijing
• China
• Mingyuan
• School
• UNICEF

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