Hey! Some good news!  It looks one of my cherished hopes for China, improved education, is getting a big push from the government.

The government is adjusting a 20-year-old mandatory education law to meet the deficiencies of the 1986 version.  Right now, rural students don’t have the “free” education that is expected from public education.  Because the county governments, whose responsibility it is to maintain schools, don't have enough money, students must pay for their own books, winter heating, and transportation to school.  This economic burden is blamed for the difference in drop out rates between urban (nearly 0%) and rural students (which approaches 5% in some areas).  Besides having to carry an economic burden, rural students are also not getting nearly as good an education as urban students.  For example, the education budget for Shanghai is fifty times higher than that of Henan students.  This obvious inequality has led to a multitude of complaints.

So here is what the Chinese government is doing to alleviate the problem.  First: the money!  Funding for education is now going to be the responsibility of the richer provincial governments.  The provincial governments are also now responsible to pay for textbooks, heating, transportation, and other incidental costs.  Hopefully, this will make it easier for poorer children to attend school.

And now urban teachers will be required to go and teach in rural schools for a time.  This might be disruptive to families, and would never happen in America, but it will probably improve the level of education for rural students.  Newly employed teachers and teachers hoping to achieve the title of “senior professional” will be the ones required to teach in the countryside.

The final note: the central government is allocating 27 billion US dollars to improving rural education.

Will this erase the 50:1 funding difference between Shanghai and Henan?  Probably not.  But I do believe that as this amendment is implemented, students across China will have a better shot at education—and thus a real hope of improving their standard of living.