Word Count : 1833
Now China is on top of the world GDP chart (1), only second to the United States. The United States had the country with the highest GDP even dating back to 1960. We first saw China surpass Japan in 2010, China then remains as 2nd on the chart since. In the past decades, China’s GDP grows rapidly, becoming a country that the Asia pacific looks to. The growth of GDP benefited the country’s economy, status, and did help with development. However, these development are limited to urban areas in China. Poverty and inequality problems still present in China, something that is being ignored. From an outsider’s perspective, China is a successful country from what we can see. People tend to not see that there are people in China that are still struggling to get an education. The education poverty gap in China will continue to exist if no changes are made, the gap will only widen with China’s rapid economic growth. Economic growth benefits urban cities, but harm rural areas. Rural areas of China is where the level education poverty high, rural place is at disadvantage, especially in city developments. Education poverty in China is made up of education inequality, regional inequality, wealth gap, and government policy.
With development focusing on the big cities, there are many rural areas in China where the province GDP is almost half of the GDP of big cities, Kunming and Beijing (2). Lower GDP would also mean lower-income, wider wealth gap. Inequality problems are mainly seen in rural areas of China. Such gaps can be considered as a result of regional inequality, as the different regions can impact its development. Closing the regional gap will be difficult, as many advantages and disadvantages are caused by geographical location. Impacting individuals isn’t just the difference in regional development, but government policies.
It’s easy for an individual to migrate to a new area to work and live, but government policy is making it difficult to migrate for families with children. The hukou system in China is a registration system, where your name is registered in (3). This register location is not based on where you live or are born in but based on where your family originates from. Registration location determines where one can receive access to wealth fare benefits, such as free education. Due to this system China government has and regional development gap, families from the rural part of China are often separated. Parents choose to leave the rural area to somewhere with more opportunities, in hope of seeking a higher income. With the restriction of education resources and the hukou system, children cannot move with their parents and still receive free education. Public school also has limitation to who they can enroll in their school, enrolling students with their hukou registered local and special waivers for selected students. Waivers are rarely applied to students with hukou registration problems. This hukou registration system is pulling families apart, many parents would leave their child behind when they leave to go work in a different area. These children are called left-behind children, they often live with grandparents or with relatives.
With the form of government in China, asking for a change to these regulations would be hard. The problem can be approached from individual actions by providing more care to children facing education poverty. Urban area schools can organize trips that bring rural and urban school students together and can be beneficial for both students. Urban students will gain knowledge of the different everyday problem people are facing, how going to school in these areas are not as nice as the school they are attending. This will also allow the urban area children to acknowledge the fact that they are at an advantage by having the opportunity to receive education in the environment they are in. Urban kids can also bring the knowledge they learn in school and teach it to kids in the rural areas. Another problem that is leading to poverty in education is teachers. A teacher is an occupation, the individual has the right to choose where he/she would like to work. The lack of development and pay in the rural area is not attractive as high pay and developed areas in the cities. If locals of the rural area are trying to leave the area in hope of better opportunities, it’s not the teacher’s fault if they don’t want to stay/come to these areas to teach. In the end, it’s just a job occupation and they have the right to choose. An increase in pay and benefits can be offered to these teachers to attract them to work at the school. The increase of pay should not be an expense provided by the individuals, but by government budgeting.
Across the globe, there are thousands of people who are struggling to fulfill basic life essentials. Though education is not something that’s needed to survive but being educated can be beneficial to both individuals and society. The education we are talking about here is basic education, from elementary school to high school. Being educated can help these students when they go into society, such as having basic knowledge. The importance of basic math when it comes to counting money, the importance of chemistry knowledge to avoid mixing two substances that might cause safety issues, and literature to learning how to read and write. Education is the only way for us to gain knowledge and to keep up with the progress of the world. Closing the education gap will be beneficial to society, individuals, and the country.
Individuals who are educated can provide back to the country, and/or to society. A country can’t be considered as developed just by the increase of the country’s GDP; a developed country includes more than just GDP. A country will only progress forward if the life of individuals in the country is benefiting and moving forward. Access to education resources should be equally distributed to every individual in China, this should not be impacted or differ based on any form of inequality or gap. Our goal here is to tighten as much of the gap as possible. Education is important and having fair access to education resources should not be something difficult or a privilege.
I am fortunate enough to be able to have access to higher education, gaining more knowledge on topics I’m interested in. Sometimes we are so focused on ourselves, we fail to see other parts of this world. At the time I’m sitting here and typing my paper up on a laptop, there is a student who doesn’t have lights to help him see when writing his paper. Giving back to society, in this situation is when we should be giving back. Passing on the knowledge we receive through higher education to individuals can be a way of giving back to society.
There are many areas in China where schools lack a clean environment for the students, changing all at once will be impossible. In a one-year-long plan, when the pandemic is over, I hope to be able to see these schools in real life. I would want to sit through a day of class, go through the road students might have to go through to get to school and live in the environment they live in. This way I can experience the life of these students and feel the difficulties they are going through. Rather than being a teacher to these students, I hope to be their friends. In this situations, the student will be more open to talk to me and share their stories with me. Stories I’m interested in how left-behind children feel, do wish they were in the cities, and if they were impacted by the hukou system. During the period I’ll be staying at a particular school, where I can assist as an English teacher, teaching children English at the school. The cost I need to be cover would be transportation cost to the school and back, living expenses to be provided on my own. Providing my own expense allows me to have a better idea of the cost that is needed to be living there or extra costs that I might encounter in the area.
With the money sponsored, I hope to use it to help renew the schools and provide more educational resources. Throughout this process I would document the changes to student’s life and mental health, posting these to social media. I can record my experience there is a vlog style, uploading it onto social media platforms. Posting such a document would help deliver the messages to more people across the world and bring awareness to this problem. The post is to hope for people to donate, and/or volunteer at these schools. Fixing all the schools in China at once would be difficult, to close these small steps should be taken. By providing the success of one school, it would give people a good background knowledge to help with other schools.
Right now, all the information I have is just text provided to me by researchers, everything is “dead” to me. Data is just a number when we look at it through a computer screen, but we can see these numbers in action when we visit the place. The number presented can be either underestimation or overestimation, something one can verify by seeing everything in real life. Research I’ve found so far has only focused on how education inequality happens in China due to financial issues. No research has focused on the mental health of students in these areas or the struggle these children face every day. Seeing everything from a first-person perspective can help answer any questions I have for the students. What’s stopping one from receiving education differ among individuals, possible factors provided are only general factors, not individual. Having the opportunities to speak to these children and live in the environment for a short period can help me better understand what help is needed.
Conclusion: Countless factors can stop an individual from receiving education, some can be individual unfreedom. We are unable to address all of the possible factors that may be stopping one from receiving education, what we can do is solve the problem from a general perceptive. This general perspective considers society rather than individuals, such as income, region, and government regulations. Understanding that everything takes time, claiming that we can close the gap completely is unrealistic. It takes time and effort of the citizens and government to help move forward in this. An individual can do something as simple as the donation of old books, school supplies, or a qualifying individual can volunteer/become a teacher to teach at these schools. Government can increase the funding that poverty schools are receiving for their expenses. Education poverty can’t just go away in a year or two, but it takes time and effort. Efforts must be put in to close the gap, rather than just ignoring the problem.