Serve, Not Only Give: Talk with Guo Bin on Migrant Schools
“For years we’ve been researching on our practice, which has become precious experience,” said Guo full of hope, “We realize the experience should be known to more people. So in collaboration with Narada Foundation, we’ll build a migrant school. There we’ll experiment on our experience. If it works, we’ll introduce our practice countrywide. The scheme has already been on agenda. I believe the future of migrant schools lies in professional and non-profit service, rather than donating to build more of them. Professional practice enables the migrant children to get the same level of education as urban children while, non-profit service would earn constant public attention to this problem.”
Stiffling heat triggered, rather than ruined,Guo Bin’s narration of the history and future of Beijing True Love Education Service Institute (shortly, BTLESI). His clear thought brought me to the fact that wisdom, on top of enthusiasm, erects non-profit career as a cause.
Since 1980s, millions of rural migrant workers flooded into cities, with the number climbing up to 150 million from the original two million. Tentative at first, migrant workers have long lived under the government’s tacit permission as part of urban society. Now they can reunite with their family in the city. More noteworthy are the children that immigrate with their parents into cities, now reported as many as 20 million. Against the backdrop of economic reforms, education is also brought to the table as a priority issue; however, the tightly-knit relation between schooling and permanent residence policy is dragging the foot of education popularisation, especially for rural workers’ children.
Back to 1990s, some organisations, including the government, took the first step to seek a way out. Some of them looked to public schools. But the heavy schooling fees or so called “sponsor charge” kept the kids at bay, which stimulated the rise of migrant schools. Featured by low cost those schools met the children’s need to some extent. But problems remain big.
“There are around 300 migrant schools in Beiijng, with only 60 or some officially granted,” said Guo, “Most of the rest are struggling desperately against inadequate teachers, unbalanced sheet, potentially illegal status, and frequent move from one location to another….Whatever their motivation, they should be respected for the efforts to boost education equality.”
Teachers are a common concern. Not all migrant schools have enough charisma to lure qualified teachers. Addressing such embarrassment is the commitment of BTLESI. Training its teachers, volunteers and students with scientific education ideas and newest information resources, and tuning the public into the process and result of the practice, the institute tries to grab a collective force to solve the children’s education problem.
“For years we’ve been researching on our practice, which has become precious experience,” said Guo full of hope, “We realize the experience should be known to more people. So in collaboration with Narada Foundation, we’ll build a migrant school. There we’ll experiment on our experience. If it works, we’ll introduce our practice countrywide. The scheme has already been on agenda. I believe the future of migrant schools lies in professional and non-profit service, rather than donating to build more of them. Professional practice enables the migrant children to get the same level of education as urban children while, non-profit service would earn constant public attention to this problem.”
White Paper on Education of Rural Migrant Workers’ Children, a book that sorts out the previous research on this subject and discusses the past, present and future of migrant children’s education, is the summer project for BTLESI. The paper is aimed at the public, hopefully to awake wider awareness of the issue; after all, education is a matter of all responsible citizens.
Methodologically a Volunteer Training Manuel is under way. Volunteers are the backbone of any non-profit organisation. Brimming with passion but inadequate in skills and experience, they often pay effort twice as much as is needed. Written by veteran teachers, volunteers and relevant experts, the book provides a guideline for volunteers to understand migrant schools, to communicate with the children, to organise activities, to cooperate with other teachers, and if need be, to visit their parents.
“Education concerns the hope of a nation. If 80% of its people are kept off education, the nation is heading towards the tomb. So I hope everyone of us could be part of this great cause,” prayed Guo in the end.
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