The Chinese Education System’s Itch for FairnessShi Yan with Xiao Yiling and Qian Yingrong 3/10/05 -- On March 5, 2005, in presenting a working report to the National People’s Conference, Premier Wen Jiabao announced that starting this year, as part of a nationwide effort to alleviate poverty, the government would waive some grade-school fees for students from impoverished families – including the cost of books, miscellaneous expenses, and a living allowance for boarding students. According to Xinhua News Agency, the central government plans to provide 1.3 billion yuan to finance these costs, while local governments will provide 2.8 billion yuan. 31-year-old Lin Yantao drives a rental truck in a small town on the Jiaodong Peninsula. His route covers the town and the surrounding villages, and he carries both passengers and cargo. For each trip, he negotiates a price with the owner of the goods. Since Lin also knows how to fix and maintain autos, he saves quite a bit of money on maintenance fees. Each month he’s able to take home wages of roughly 1,000 yuan. He has no unemployment insurance or family care insurance, and he pays his medical bills out of his own pocket. His wife works in a small business in the village, and makes 500 to 600 yuan a month. His skin blackened and greasy, Lin Yantao seems to have accomplished a lot for someone his age, and he says he’s very satisfied with his life. 16 years ago, Lin Yantao was in third grade. After failing a key exam, he decided that his “brain just wasn’t school material.” So he took out a pen and paper and did a few calculations. If he quit school and studied to be an auto mechanic, after a three month course he could start earning 300 yuan a month – and after three years, that would total over 10,000 yuan. If he stayed in school but couldn’t pass this class, there was still a mediocre chance he would pass into high school – in which case he would have to spend at least another 2,000 yuan of his family’s money in order to study for three more years. If he failed high school, his chances of going to college would be nonexistent, and he would have few career opportunities – so he would just end up enrolling in auto mechanic school anyway. So Lin Yantao dropped out and became a mechanic. Today, Lin says he “planned correctly.” Recent scholarly research shows that Lin Yantao is not an isolated case. In the unseen crevices between country and town, between one school level and another, there has grown up a hidden “chessboard” of individuals’ lives. [Remaining text untranslated] By Shi Yan, Beijing Correspondent; with Xiao Yiling and Qian Yingrong, interns --Translated By Sky Schouten -------------------------- |