In China, no rural children left behind
The Chinese government has just announced a new $1 billion plan to provide free education to 150 million rural children. Their schooling has been ostensibly free for decades, but fees are often introduced by local authorities, leaving cash-strapped parents unable to pay. (Fees average $18 a child in rural areas, where the average income is ...
The Chinese government has just announced a new $1 billion plan to provide free education to 150 million rural children. Their schooling has been ostensibly free for decades, but fees are often introduced by local authorities, leaving cash-strapped parents unable to pay. (Fees average $18 a child in rural areas, where the average income is approximately $367).
The primary motivation behind the plan is to narrow the ever-widening gap between wealthy, urban Chinese and their poorer, rural fellow citizens. Education is one of the top financial burdens for rural families, who have been largely left behind in China’s economic boom.
Higher spending on education is just one of several initiatives, including more and better rural healthcare, that the government has promised to deliver in response to growing rural unrest. Whether it’s enough to stop the riots that seem to be occuring more and more across the countryside remains to be seen. Ironically, one group of children is excluded from the new education plan: The children of the millions of rural families who have flocked to China’s booming cities in recent years.
More from Foreign Policy

America Is a Heartbeat Away From a War It Could Lose
Global war is neither a theoretical contingency nor the fever dream of hawks and militarists.

The West’s Incoherent Critique of Israel’s Gaza Strategy
The reality of fighting Hamas in Gaza makes this war terrible one way or another.

Biden Owns the Israel-Palestine Conflict Now
In tying Washington to Israel’s war in Gaza, the U.S. president now shares responsibility for the broader conflict’s fate.

Taiwan’s Room to Maneuver Shrinks as Biden and Xi Meet
As the latest crisis in the straits wraps up, Taipei is on the back foot.