Chinese police close schools that serve children of migrants

SHANGHAI, China -- Since police closed Hope School, 13-year-old Jiang Lei has gone from A-student to trash scavenger. Jiang's only education now comes from books he occasionally unearths in his daily hunt for cardboard, bottles and other recyclables to sell.

"I don't understand all the words, but I want to learn more," said the soft-spoken youth, wearing a dirty green-and-white jacket that used to be his school uniform.

His was one of 21 privately run schools for children of migrant workers shut down by authorities in Shanghai, China's largest city, in a single day last August. Jiang said police barred the way for him and his classmates.

Chinese children like Jiang are part of the nation's "floating population" of more than 100 million poor migrants. Their parents do urban China's hardest, dirtiest and lowest-paying work.

Cities like Shanghai are closing migrant schools as part of efforts to stem a flood of poor workers from rural areas.

A vulnerable group

Government officials contend they are only trying to protect children from dirty, unsafe school environments.

But educational experts and human rights groups warn the heavy-handed tactics and lack of educational alternatives could condemn whole generations of already disadvantaged migrant children to low-paying, low-skill jobs.

"Poverty and discrimination make migrant children one of the most vulnerable groups in society. But the government has decided to leave them to fend for themselves," said Wang Libing, an education researcher at Zhejiang University in the southeastern city of Hangzhou.

At least a half-dozen other cities -- including Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen -- have shut down schools, according to a report released Tuesday by Human Rights in China, which is based in New York.

The group said the closures and other policies aimed at stemming migration are depriving 1.8 million children of an education.

Treated as intruders

Afraid of crime and swamped social services, China's cities treat migrants as unwelcome intruders. Their children are effectively denied access to public schools by special annual fees for migrants of up to $1,250 -- many times the annual earnings for most.

Experts say at least 1,000 private schools have appeared across China to educate migrant children. Most are run by former migrants and charge only $100 a year in tuition. They range from small classes in private apartments to full-scale operations with hundreds of students, uniforms and school buses.

Last year, Shanghai said it counted 519 such schools with 120,000 students -- about a quarter of the city's estimated half million migrant children. But officials have refused to license them.

Experts and officials say Shanghai has closed at least 70 schools over the last three years, including all those in the industrial district where Jiang, the former student, lives.

Beijing closed 50 schools last fall, according to the Human Rights in China report.

The Hope School that Jiang attended reopened three months later in a different neighborhood too far away for him to commute.