A: Peking University recently released a study showing that the gap between rural area students and urban students is getting larger and fewer rural students are getting good education.

Y: These years, too many university students graduate and also because the economical downturns, the financial crisis, especially this year, even those students who once had jobs are losing jobs. So those parents who have sent their kids to universities from the countryside, when they see this result, they will think going to universities is useless nowadays. Even though you graduate from high school, from universities, you come back to hometown, come back to rural areas, you still become a farmer, then what’s the reason behind for you to study from the very beginning? The government has to do more to make the people understand, it’s not only good education, but family, maybe your kid, if your kid to go to university, he will catch more opportunities and chances not only in China but all over the world, and he will be more knowledgeable than other people, even though going back farming, he can use technology source, skills, knowledge learned from universities.

A: University education aside, let’s talk about some of the lower level schooling, your primary school, elementary school, middle school. Are those kids in the rural areas getting a good education in those schools?

Y: Not really, one of the reasons that rural area education is not as good as urban education is because of the teachers. The good quality teachers are leaving the countryside to go to the cities. So I think the government should do something in this area, and should give teachers work in rural areas much higher salaries than those teachers work in city areas. And also building up roads, making transportation much easier for teachers from the countryside to go to the city, and give teacher information access like internet access, and other things will also help teachers stay in countryside. Because for example, if you take a bus and go to the city easily, and if you can drive your own car, go to the city directly within 2 hours, then the teacher would like to stay in the countryside maybe because it’s not far away from the cities. So it’s not only education itself is the problem, it’s all about like how to build up a network in the countryside, including transportation, information, road condition, and also salary system, human resources system.

University students serving as one-year volunteer teachers often help solve the teacher shortage in the countryside. However, this volunteer program might be cancelled in Beijing this year. Instead, the government is calling for university students to take long-term positions in rural schools to steadily promote the education quality.

A: Do you think the government should have more control over the quality of education?

Y: I once gave a proposal to the government, I suggested that form grade 1 to grade 6, let kids stay near home, even though in rural areas, even though the school facilities are not good enough. But I think from grade 7 to grade 9, the students should be, actually the government should sponsor all the students move to near the city schools. Government can build up like school campuses near the cities, the towns, which are convenient for them to enjoy the information system or enjoy the educational resources. Also this will keep good quality teachers to stay in there because there is also need in cities. And what’s the reason why you jump from this school to that school since it’s already in the cities or around the cities. If the government can spend some money building up like boarding school campuses for rural area students and move them from grade 7, at this age who is actually good enough to take care of themselves to the school studying there, living in the school, then the students will enjoy the same quality teachers and the same resources, then the rural area students will have much big chances and opportunities to go to universities, to go to better universities.

Over 6 million university students will enter the job market this year. In big cities like Shanghai and Beijing, students from rural areas seem to face bigger challenges than urban students.

Y: Not only you have to give money to the countryside, go to the rural area schooling system, but you also have to pay great attention to employment of university students. At least 20-30 university students, totally speaking, not in Peking University, not in Qinghua University, 20%-30% of universities are from rural areas, so you should at least let these kids to have priorities to get jobs. I think it’s much more important than those urban kids. Because urban kids, even though you cannot find a job, their parents still have money to sponsor them, to let them have a cushion time, but rural kids cannot wait, because their parents paid all their money to support their kids in universities. And after 4 years, they find their kids cannot find a job. That’s terrible.

A: And one rural student who gets a good education can potentially help pull their entire family out.

Y: It’s one reason that they can potentially help their family out, the other reason is, tell all the rural area people their parents that see, if you go to university, then you have a better life, you can find a job. So I think the government should pay more attention to the rural university students who just graduated from university to get a job first, they should have a priority, because this is good for the equality, the total equality of education.

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