Missing the idea?

It is interesting to note that we are raising the barrier to education while other countries are seeing the value. This is particularly painful given that we were so successful at it with the GI BILL. Are we really that dense or just distracted?

China Plans to Cut School Fees for Its Poorest Rural Students
By JIM YARDLEY

Published: March 13, 2005


EIJING, March 12 - China will begin eliminating rural school fees this year in response to growing criticism that the education system is increasingly corrupt and discriminates against poor rural students.

The new policy, announced last week by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao at the opening of the annual National People's Congress, will begin by removing fees for 14 million students in the country's poorest counties, and will continue expanding until 2007, when all rural students will receive a free primary education.

The program is part of a broader domestic agenda outlined by Mr. Wen to address increasing inequality in China, where urban residents earn three times as much as farmers and other rural residents. Education fees are particularly crippling for rural families, who often survive on only a few hundred dollars a year.

"Without fairness in education, there can be no fairness in society," said Zhou Hongyu, a delegate to the National People's Congress, China's legislative body. "The main injustice in education now is the imbalance between cities and the countryside."

Recent studies show that an overwhelming percentage of government education spending is dedicated to cities, despite the fact that two-thirds of the 1.3 billion Chinese live in the countryside.

Li Shi, a prominent sociologist, wrote last month in the official English-language newspaper, China Daily, that the country dedicated only 23 percent of its education budget to the countryside in 2002. He said this disparity meant that rural students often missed out on an adequate education "just by being in the wrong place, at the wrong time."

In February, a group of retired educational officials in Hunan Province published a broader, more blistering critique that detailed how the cost of supporting and building rural schools in Hunan fell largely on farmers who were already among the poorest members of society.

This critique, in China Youth Daily, said rural students were further disadvantaged because a growing number of high schools and universities were lowering standards for wealthier students whose parents could make cash payments for admission, leaving less room for poor students to be admitted on merit. In addition, many universities are required to admit quotas of local city students. At a time when China is annually increasing military spending and pouring money into infrastructure projects, spending on education has fallen below projections established by the government in 1993 and is below the international average of developing countries.

Mr. Wen's promise to eliminate school fees may ultimately be difficult to carry out in a country where changes announced by the central government are often circumvented locally. China already promises nine years of free compulsory education to all students. But faced with reduced government support, schools have attached a variety of special fees to make up for the lost revenues.

For rural families, these fees can account for a quarter or more of their annual income and often are a primary reason that parents leave the farm for migrant work. Last year, financial pressure was a contributing factor in several high-profile suicides or rage killings by rural high school and university students.

Hu Xingdou, a professor of governmental economics at Beijing Institute of Technology, said that Mr. Wen's new policy moved China in the right direction but added that the government needed to assume all costs of compulsory education and eliminate corrupt practices that gave preference to wealthy or politically connected families.

"The rural education system is on the verge of collapse," Mr. Hu said. Taiwan Leader Urges Protest

TAIPEI, Taiwan, March 12 (Reuters) - President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan called Saturday for a million people to take to the streets of Taipei, Taiwan's capital, on March 26 to protest against China's anti-secession bill, which allows for the use of force against the island.

Mr. Chen, in his first public comments on the proposed Chinese legislation since Beijing unveiled its details on Tuesday, called China a "major threat to regional stability" and said the legislation would increase tension in the Taiwan Strait. China's Parliament is expected to pass the bill on Monday.