Educating migrant children
18/12/2003 14:50
Shanghai will issue a new policy to provide free school education to the
children of the migrant workers, government spokesperson Jiao Yang said at a
news conference yesterday.
The policy will ensure equal rights for the school
age children of the migrant workers, giving them the same opportunity to enter
first-class schools without additional payments.
Drafted jointly by the
departments of education, compilation, public security, development &
reform, finance, and labor and social security, the trial version of the policy
is now pending legislative approval.
By 2000, Shanghai had a migrant
population of some 3.8 million. By the end of 2002, the number of their children
of school age reached 320,000. Only 120,000 of them are studying in the same
schools as the local residents.
Thanks to policy support, the rest, 190,000
are traveling somewhere farther to get educated at a lower cost in the 420
special schools in the outskirts where there are migrant students only.
Vicky Xu / Shanghai Daily news
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