Educational needs in China
Introduction
The education system in china is the envy of most of the western governments. The schools that are always ken to replicate the high test scores in the national exams and increase the discipline level in the school. However when the education system in China is looked at beyond the academic performance, the western critic could say that it promotes an education system that is narrow and limiting for the children in china. The state of education in china which gives nine years of compulsory schooling after which the students are admitted to the colleges that strictly consider the scores of the students in the exams I often looked at like a paradigm abroad of equity in education. This impression is a reinforcement of the Chinesestudents who at all times give good results in the standardized international tests, this reputation is however build in a myth.
While the china government has done its best to ensure that its people get the basic nine years education, in the past few years. The government has also succeeded in ensuring that there is discrimination against the poor people. The education system has succeeded in thwarting the social mobility at each of the education steps with financial and the bureaucratic barriers (Hannum 1999, p.193).
Background Information
The education system in china has many needs. There is a huge educational gap between the students who are from the rural areas and those from the cities. Some of the students who are from the rural areas have been left out in education. These children have been left behind by their parents in the hands of the grandparents as their parents look for jobs in the cities (Bao 2006, p.45). This happens while their peers who are in the city are equipped with many facilities and teachers who are well trained. The students in the rural areas always huddle in classes that are not ell constructed and struggle to understand the advanced subjects like chemistry and English with teachers who are not qualified. The rural students to don not stand any opportunitywhen they are competing with the children from the urban areas. Due to this, most of the children from the rural areas, after completing the compulsory education of nine years that is offered by the government, they go to the factories to labour there because the return is better than joining any of the third rate colleges.
The children of the migrants who go with their parents to the urban areas, theirchances of ever going to school become very limited. This because some of the government policies that have been put in place do not support their effort to integrate. This is the hooky system- this is a system that limits them to the subsidized social service in the people’s home town. This prevents the children from the rural areas to join the schools at the urban areas. The children are therefore regulated to the private schools that are in the cities and major tons in china. The fees that is charged in this school is quite high and the education offered in this schools is subpar, the recent reforms that have taken place have only had a small impact in ensuring that all the children have an equal right to education (Pan 2012, p.67).
Problem Statement
The education system has many gaps in China. The education does not give the children necessary skilled and it is only based on the academic performance. In addition, the government through its policies has denied the children from the poor families the right to education. Due to these problems that the education system in china is facing, this research will look at these problems in details, who are most affected and give recommendations on what can be done so that the education system can benefit all the children in china both the rich and the poor (Yuhui 1988, p.217).
Research Question
The research question for this study will be how has the government policies affected the education system in china?
The other question will be what are the necessary measures that will be taken to ensure that the gap in education in china does not exist?
Hypotheses
The hypothesis for this research will be, the government’s policies are the major cause of education disparities in China and the inadequate education to the children in the rural areas.
Literature review
There are several studies that have been done on the inequality in the Chinese education system. While there has been an expansion in the opportunities in education in china, there has been inequality created. The demand and the supply of education have been shortened by some of the government policies especially in the higher education. Despite this, not all the Chinese have managed in benefiting equally from the changes. The inequality in education has just worsened (Children of China, 1943, P.364).
According to the different studies that have been carried out, therural urban differences in terms of education opportunity has increased. The disparity in the rural urban education system is a historical problem in china. The disparity has increased since the 1970s (Ministry of Education-China 2004, P.89). The ratio of enrolment in the rural junior secondary and the rural primary is lower when compared to the other urban counterparts. Most of the students in the rural areas are likely to drop out of school.
Importantly is that the rural education has suffered for a long time because of the inadequate investment in the rural education system. Because of the investment that is inadequate, most of the rural students study in classrooms that are dangerous and most of the teachers have not been paid and they have many arrears. This demotivates them and they do not give the students the best.It has been estimated by studies that more than 50% of the people in the rural areas have not achieved the basic primary education(Deng 2003, p. 70). Most of these people who have not attained the basic education are concentrated in the westareas that are impoverished.
According to some of the reports that have been released, it is estimated that out of the 200 million students in primary and secondary education 150 million students are those in the rural areas. This means that only 50 million students are able to access quality education that is only in the rural areas. What makes the education system in china to be worse is that less than 40 % of the funds set aside for education has been flowing to the rural areas. The statistics that have been released also showed that the education that is received by the rural people who are above 15 years is seven years. This is three years less that the students in the urban resident. In the people whowork in the rural areas who are between the age of 65 and 15, only one percent of those people have attended the junior college level. Three forth of the people in china ho are illiterate or semi-illiterate live in the rural areas,in the regions that have the minority groups and in the east of china (Deng 2003, p.60).
As the localization of education moves forward, the regional disparity of education ideas increases. There are variations depending on the provinces to the development of education. The major cities and towns are the only ones that have benefitted from the growth in education. When the educational resources are looked into, the amount spent in the rural areas greatly differ to that in the urban areas. The expansion that has taken place in higher education in the recent years has only benefited those in towns and the coastal provinces (Deng 2003,p.20).
Even in the same region, the education inequality exists. There is unequal distribution of resources. The Chinese education system is examination oriented the educational resources are in most cases allocated to the schools that are known as the key schools. In every city in china there is a school that is named as the key school which enjoys the privileges in terms of resource allocation due to the fact that the places for these key schools is limited, the threshold entry into these schools is set to be very high in order to control employment. The enrolment in these schools depends highly on the academic performance of the candidates. Not only performance matters in these schools but also the families that they come from. The parents from the higher status families can use their connections in ensuring that their children join these key schools in the country. They can always exchange the school admission with money. When a student fails to attain the pass mark, he or she has to pay an extra fee that is known as school selection fee so as to enroll (Bauer, Feng, Riley and Xiaohua 1992.p.333).
Another problem that is faced by the education system in china is gender inequality. Although the situation of the female education in china has been looked at by the government, the gender inequality especially in the rural areas is still severe in china. This is common especially in the inland rural areas. Poverty has led to the ignorance of the in the educational opportunities that are meant for the girls. In the year 1997, the numbers of illiterate people in china were 145 million and 75% of them were females (Deng 2003, p.19). In china, the higher the level of education, the worse in terms of gender inequality the gender equality is minimized at the primary level of education however the gap between girls and boys increases as the education level goes high. The percentage of the female students especially in the post graduate class is very low.
Due to the inadequate resources, the little resources from the government are invested in the few universities that are considered as the key universities especially the universities that have been put under the jurisdiction of the education ministry. Most of the local government has not been in a position of increasing the investment in the higher education because of the low performance of those regions. The scale of higher education for these universities has however increased. This has forced the universities to transfer the burden to the parents despite the low income from the parents and the high tuition fees of the parents. The students that are from the poor families have found it difficult to afford the education in china that is ever on the rise. Some students have not been in a position of attaining the higher education because of the financial constraints of the parents. The few poor families that have tried their best to ensure that they take their children to school have ended up in poverty. The situation has even become worse when such children do not get jobs after completing their education in the expensive higher institutions. Parallel to the expansion of higher education that has taken place, the university fees have increased (Feng 2007, p.14).
Another challenge to the education policy in the market transition of china is the issue of the educational rights of the children of the people who are the peasant workers or the migrantworkers. The peasant works are a current stratum of the working class of the Chinese, they originate from the change of the mobility control which separated the society into rural and urban during the 30 years of the planned economy (Xinzhi & Chunyan 2014, p.75). As the temporary residents and employeeswho are casual in the informal type of economy, the migrants are always not considered from the state distribution as well as the welfare regimes like the jobs that are regular health care and even the subsidized education for their children. The migrant workersalways rely on themselves andthe market supplies through the market purchase.
The inadequate political rights and the protection from the government, compound themargined of the e migrants. After the workers who are migrants have been marginalized, the access of their children to the services that are given by the government to the citizens like the basic education and the health service are denied. Because of the education localization and the duality of the rural urban that is based on the registration system, the public schools are not open to those children whose parents are migrants. It these parents and their children to join the public schools they have to pay fee that is higher than the rest. Because most of the migrant workers earn little money they are not in a position to pay the higher fee which makes it hard for their children to attend school. The workers who are migrants are therefore not in a hurry to take their children to school (Tsang & Ding 2005, p.25).
Due to the demand for the fundamental education for the migrant children, there have been some schools that have been made only for the migrant workers to take their children. The schools are known as the schools for the children of the migrants, in most cases these schools are poorly equipped and do not have the teachers who are qualified and the financial resources are insufficient the tuition fees are lower which are the only thing that attracts the migrant workers towards these schools (Tan, Wu, & Liang 2011 p.60). To make it even more harder, while the countries hosting the workers cannot provide education for their children, they also do not recognize the schools that the children attend. In most of the schools the authorities close the schools because the schools do not meet the standards of the schools that is in the educational laws. This is something that is very controversial. When the schools do not meet the laws as stipulated, the local governments should support the schools to ensure that they meet the required standards instead of closing them down. The education of the children of the migrants has not received attention from the government. Because of these, most of the migrants do not have the opportunity to receive schooling (Hua 1994, p.445).
Design and methodology
Data collection techniques
There were four instruments that will be used in collecting the data in this study. One of the instruments will be questionnaires. Four types of parallel questionnaires will be used in the study to get information from the teachers. Parents, students and principals so as to asses school level climate factors. The questionnaires will be adopted from the other studies that have been used in the other studies that have been carried out.
Another method that will be used in the data collection is observation. This is a method that gives firsthand information (Pri Harmon, Morgan and Harmon 2001, p.973). The researcher will go around the schools in the rural areas and those in the urban areas so as to determine the difference that exists between these two schools. The factors that will be considered during these observations are the resources that are available in the schools, the number of teachers in the school and how the daily activities are carried out in the schools (Sun & Xie 2008, p.7).
The school observation checklist will be used in this study. This will be used in collecting school level data. The checklistswill guide the observation. The checklist will have some sections which will include the principal, assistant principal, playground, schoolarrival the physical appearance, the cafeteria, the hallways, the library, the bulletin boards and the custodial staff.
The protocols of interviewing the teachers will also be used in this study. The protocol will be specifically developed for this study in order to get what the teachers think about the schools. The interview will be developed in a standardized and in an open ended interview. This will be done in order to reduce the effect of the interviewer. It will also help in the analysis of the data. The protocol will have five questions
1. How is the achievement of the student important in your school?
2. How much support do get from the government?
3. What challenges do you face in the school?
4. How do you teach in the school?
5. Do you have any salary arrears?
Each of the schools will be visited by to people who will carry out the research. The researchers will administer the questionnaires in the school. The researchers ill visit these schools in a total number of five days. This will allow enough time to gather the information that they need from both the teachers and the students. It will also give enough time for classroom observations in each of the schools that they will visit. They will also interview and use the questionnaires in as many people as possible.
Another party that will take the interview and be required to fill the questionnaire will be the parents. The parents from both the key schools in the urban areas and that of the rural areas will be interviewed to give their views on what they think about the education system in china. The students will also be expected to give their views on what they think about the type of education that they are receiving from the different schools.
One of the strengths of the data collection method that will be used in this study is the information obtained will be first hand. Observation method for instance,will not be biased as the researchers will only have to see what is being done and record down for further analysis. Though thequestionnaires may be biased the majority will be taken into consideration during the analysis of the data. The researchers will have to explain to the teachers and the students the purpose of study. This will ensure that they give information that is reliable and they will not feel threatened by the exercise.
The observation will be done together with the questionnaires at the same time. However the interviews will be done differently after the classroom observations have been done. This will be done so as to increase inference transferability. The thick descriptions of each of the schools that the researchers want will be developed.
Another technique that will be relied upon in the data collection will be the desk study. The desk study will be used in looking at the previous research that has been done on the disparities in the china schools. The previous literature will give information on the situation in china from theperspective of theother scholars who have investigated in the educational needs in the china educationsystem. The literature will besupported by thefieldstudy that wills b carried out about china.
Data analysis techniques
The hypothesisand the research question needs that the research employ different types of techniques to analyze the data that had been collected. The quantitative data that will be obtained from the observation done will be used in the analysis of the research hypothesis. The descriptive statistics like the standard deviations will be used to analyze the observations in the class room. MANOVA will be used in the analysis of the quantitative data in response to the school effectiveness type and the community type whether rural or urban (Sandelowski 2000, p.247). This will form the independent variables and the dependent variables will be the scores of the school, the time on task and the support from the government. Since this will be a school study, the methodology used ill allow for the testing of the three effects in analyzing the framework.
The primary qualitative analysis will be used to provide the answers for the research questions. The primary qualitative analysis will be organized around the school context, the teachers, the principals, as well as the student school life. The different schools will be compared taking into consideration the differences and the similarities of the schools. The study will have to levels of contrast; one will be the effectiveness of the schools. The study will look at the more effective schools and the less effective schools and then compare the two in terms of resources allocated to the schools and the student performance in the school. The second type will be the type of the school. The urban effective schools and the rural effective schools will be compared and contrasted in terms of the students attending the schools, the teachers in the schools, the resources as well as the government support of the schools.
In order to answer the question of this research, both the qualitative and the quantitative analysis will be used. The quantitative analysis that will be used in this research will include the MANOVA as well as the descriptive statistics (Sandelowski 2000, p.246). The effect of the type of community that the school is located in will be used to describe the quantitative effect of the type of community.
For the components that are quantitative in the study, some other approaches such as the selection of the participants randomly will be used the procedures will be standardized. Three techniques willbe used in order to determine the credibility and the trustworthiness of the results that will be obtained from the study. The thick description will beused will be used to increase the inference transferability of the research. Since the study involved the observation of the classrooms it was involved in a big number of the detailed descriptions of the context. This will be used in providing evidence for transferability and the interpretations that will be done as well as the conclusions.
Selection of the schools for study
The schools will be chosen randomly. The study will ensure that five schools will be chosen form the urban area and five schools from the rural area. Five schools will be chosen because thiswill give a good picture of the gap that exists in the schools that are found in china. The schools will include the countries key schools that have more resources than the schools in the rural areas. The schools for the migrant workers will also be looked at.
Ethical considerations
The research will ensure that the ethics of any research will be taken into consideration. It is important to ensure that the research follows the ethical issues so that it is not biased and it does not affect the participants such as the school activities should not be interfered with because of the study. Also it will be ensured that there is no bias in the results that will be obtained in the school. The information that the study will obtain will therefore be accurate and will be reliable to be used in the other future studies.
Conclusion
The main purpose of this study is to identify the educational needs of China’seducation system. This will enrich the effectiveness of the china education system. The study will be important to the government. The study will help the government in knowing that its support is needed in the rural areas and in the schools of the migrants. The study will show that for the education system in China to help all its citizens, and then it should be equally distributed between the rich people and the poor taking into consideration and the children of the migrants. This is an important research that might make an impact in the children of the poor people in china whose children have not been given the chance to attend schools.
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