Childhood Education Policy in China: Problems and Strategies (Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices) 9811946825, 9789811946820

Table of contents :
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Contents
About the Authors
1 The Migrant Children Education Policy in China
1.1 Literature Review
1.1.1 Definition of Migrant Children
1.1.2 Causes of Migrant Children
1.1.3 Supervision of Migrant Children
1.1.4 The Responsibility
1.1.5 Education Equity
1.1.6 Social Adaptation
1.1.7 Identity Conversion: It is Difficult to Live in a Stable Home and Study and Live
1.1.8 Quality of Education: There Are Big Differences in Academic Performance and Low Academic Achievement
1.1.9 Why Should the Education of Migrant Children Be Solved
1.2 Analysis of Policy Text
1.2.1 Policy Background
1.2.2 Policy Content
1.2.3 Policy Analysis
1.2.4 Data Analysis and Result Collation
1.3 Challenges and Problems of Migrant Children in Practice
1.3.1 Definition of Migrant Children (“Floating Children”)
1.3.2 Causes of Migrant Children Existence
1.3.3 Social Integration in the Places of Entry is Poor
1.3.4 Absence of Family Care and Supervision
1.3.5 Migrant Children Generally Suffer from Poor Physical and Mental Health
1.4 Problems Faced by Urban Migrant Children in Compulsory Education
1.4.1 It Is Difficult to Formulate and Implement Government Policies
1.4.2 Insufficient Financial Investment in Education
1.4.3 There Are Deficiencies in the Way of Schooling for Migrant Children
1.4.4 The Health and Safety of Migrant Children Deserves Attention
1.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Challenges and Problems
1.5.1 Local Government: Set Up Schools
1.5.2 Policy Perspective: Limit the Generation of Migrant Children and Solve Education Problems at Home
1.5.3 From the Perspective of Family: Choose Wisely and Do Not Cause Trouble to the Government
1.5.4 Science and Technology: Modern Technology Helps Share Educational Resources
1.6 Conclusion
References
2 The Left-Behind Children Education Policy in China
2.1 Literature Review
2.1.1 The Origin and Definition of Left-Behind Children
2.1.2 Review of Education Research on Left-Behind Children
2.1.3 Research on the Impact of Left-Behind Experience on Children’s Education
2.1.4 Research on the Causes of Education Problems of Left-Behind Children
2.1.5 Research on Countermeasures of Education Problems of Left-Behind Children
2.1.6 Supporting Research on Left-Behind Children’s Education
2.2 Theory Tools
2.2.1 Human Capital Theory
2.2.2 Multi-center Governance Model
2.2.3 Public Policy Perspective
2.3 Analysis of Policy Text
2.3.1 Education Policies for Left-Behind Children in China Before the 18th CPC National Congress
2.3.2 The Deficiencies of Education Policies for Left-Behind Children
2.4 Challenges and Problems in Practice
2.4.1 The Absence of Family Education
2.4.2 Equality in Education
2.4.3 The Level of Rural Education Resources Needs to Be Improved
2.4.4 Rural Education Infrastructure Is Relatively Backward
2.4.5 Children’s Mental Health Problems
2.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions
2.5.1 Create a Good Family Education Environment
2.5.2 Pay Attention to the Overall Development of Children
2.5.3 Improve the Education Level of Left-Behind Children
2.5.4 Cultivate Left-Behind Children’s Interest in Learning
2.5.5 Create a Good Social and Educational Environment
2.5.6 Coordinate Regional Economic Development
2.5.7 Strengthen the Construction of Social Support System
2.5.8 Organize Mental Health Education Activities
2.5.9 Carry Out Rich Extracurricular Activities
References
3 The Ethnic Children Education Policy Development in China
3.1 Literature Review
3.1.1 The Historical Development
3.1.2 Establishing a Regular Mechanism for Ethnic Unity Education
3.2 Theoretical Tools
3.2.1 Multicultural Education
3.2.2 Policy Management Framework for Ethnic Education
3.2.3 Introduction of Policy Tools
3.3 Analysis of Policy Text
3.3.1 Attaching Importance to and Helping Ethnic Minorities and Ethnic Minority Areas Develop Education
3.3.2 Strengthening Leadership Over Ethnic Education
3.3.3 Implementing the Education Mode of Combining Ethnic Language Teaching with Bilingual Teaching
3.3.4 Establishing Schools for Ethnic Minorities at Various Levels and of Various Types
3.3.5 Improving the Teaching Staff of Ethnic Minorities
3.4 Challenges and Problems
3.4.1 High Dropout Rate
3.4.2 Bilingual Teaching Is Difficult
3.4.3 Difficulties in Cultural Transmission
3.4.4 Limited Development
3.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions
3.5.1 Supplementary Life Education and School Education
3.5.2 Implement Preferential Policies to Strengthen Teachers for Ethnic Education
3.5.3 Improve the Allocation of Educational Resources
3.5.4 Strengthen Communication and Enhance the Importance of Education
References
4 The Special Children Education Policy in China
4.1 Literature Review
4.1.1 The Concept and Definition of Exceptional Children
4.1.2 Acceptance of Special Children
4.1.3 Administration of the Process of Special Education
4.1.4 Quality Monitoring of Special Education
4.2 The Theoretical Tools
4.2.1 The Evolution of China’s Special Education Policy
4.2.2 The Development of Special Education in Non-compulsory Education
4.3 Analysis of Policy Text
4.3.1 The Historical Process of China’s Special Education Policy
4.3.2 China’s Special Education Policy Structure System
4.3.3 Analysis of Special Education Policies Since the 18th CPC National Congress
4.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions
4.4.1 There Is a Shortage of Teachers for Special Education, and the Comprehensive Quality of Teachers Should Be Improved
4.4.2 With the Shift, System Is Difficult to Implement—Low Quality
References
5 The Boarding Schools’ Children Education Policy in China
5.1 Literature Review
5.1.1 Mental Health of Students in Rural Boarding Schools
5.1.2 The Ruin of Boarding
5.1.3 School Management
5.1.4 Security Management Issues
5.1.5 Dietary Hygiene Management
5.2 The Theoretical Tools
5.2.1 Rural Boarding Schools
5.2.2 Social Basis: Educational Equity View
5.2.3 Economic Basis: The Theory of Economies of Scale in Education
5.2.4 Basis of Man: Socialization Theory of Education
5.3 Analysis of Policy Text
5.3.1 Overview of Policy Release
5.3.2 The Policy with Boarding Schools as the Main Object
5.4 Challenges and Problems in Practice
5.4.1 High Cost of Boarding School and Cost Pass-Through
5.4.2 Disadvantaged Students in Mind and Body
5.4.3 Teacher’s Burden and Moral Education Effect
5.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Challenges and Problems
5.5.1 Establish a Mechanism for Steadily Increasing Funds Allocation and Cost Measurement for Boarding Schools, and Appropriately Expand the Scale of Boarding Schools
5.5.2 We Should Pay Attention to Students’ Life and Psychological Needs, and Provide Professional Life Teachers and Psychological Counseling Teachers
5.5.3 Scientifically Determine the Number of Teachers in Rural Areas, Reduce the Total Amount of Teachers’ Work, Optimize the Working Environment for Teachers, and Improve Information Infrastructure
References

Citation preview

Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices

Eryong Xue Jian Li

Childhood Education Policy in China Problems and Strategies

Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices Series Editors Eryong Xue, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China Simon Marginson, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Jian Li, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

This book series explores education policy on Pre-K, K-12, post-secondary education, and vocational education, informing multiple experts from academia to practitioner, and specifically pays focuses on new frontiers and cutting-edge knowledge that transforms future education policy development. It has been initiated by a global group of education policy research centers and institutions, whose faculty and staff includes internationally recognized researchers in comparative education policy studies. The series’ mission is to advance the modernization of the education and social construction. This series provides policymakers and researchers with an in-depth understanding of international education policy from diverse perspectives. Topics include cuttingedge and multidisciplinary studies on identifying, analyzing and uncovering education policy reform and practice among the fields in education policy and pedagogy. It addresses how education policy shapes the development of education systems in different regions and seeks to explain how specific education policies concentrate on accelerating the development of quality education and social progress. More importantly, this book series offers policymakers and educational stakeholders, government, and private sectors a comprehensive lens to investigate the trends, rationales of education policy development internationally.

Eryong Xue · Jian Li

Childhood Education Policy in China Problems and Strategies

Eryong Xue Beijing Normal University Beijing, China

Jian Li Beijing Normal University Beijing, China

Social science foundation of Beijing “The mechanism of high-quality education resource sharing in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei” major project (No.18ZDA03). ISSN 2730-6356 ISSN 2730-6364 (electronic) Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices ISBN 978-981-19-4682-0 ISBN 978-981-19-4683-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4683-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Foreword

This book originally examines the children education policy development in China. It mainly involves investigating the holistic landscape of China’s children development from a policy perspective. It also offers a specific lens to examine the migrant children education policy, the left-behind children education policy, the ethnic children education policy development, the special children education policy, and the boarding schools’ children education policy in China. Chapter 1 explores the migrant children education policy development in China. With the social and economic development, many people moved from the countryside to the city and the number of migrant children also increased rapidly. The Party and the government have always paid great attention to the education of this group and issued several relevant education policies and regulations to ensure that migrant children enjoy the equal right to education. This chapter focuses on the period since the 18th party congress in 2012, China, on the problem of migrant children education and the education policy of the research, on the stage of the relevant literature to sort and summary, summarized the definition of floating children, migrant children’s education problem, and how to solve these problems as a theoretical too. The implementation data of education policies for migrant children released by the Ministry of Education and the State Council were analyzed from the aspects of economy, education, and living subsidies. This chapter puts forward the challenges and problems in the practice of education policy for migrant children, and finally puts forward countermeasures and suggestions from four aspects. Chapter 2 examines the education policy development of left-behind children in China. With the acceleration of China’s urbanization process, coupled with the background of social transformation, population flow has gradually formed a huge vulnerable group—left-behind children. The emergence of left-behind children is the combination of social and historical phenomena, which is produced in the relationship between population flow and family migration and is the product of family migration in population flow. Nowadays, the phenomenon of left-behind children has become a huge educational and social problem. Left-behind children have experienced a long historical process, which is inevitable in the process of urbanization

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Foreword

and industrialization in China, but also a unique phenomenon and problem under the special national conditions of contemporary China. Chapter 3 explores the education policy of ethnic children development in China. China is a unified country with many ethnic groups. In the big Family of the Chinese nation, the Han nationality has the largest population, accounting for over 90% of the total population. The other 55 ethnic groups have smaller populations and are called ethnic minorities. According to the results of the seventh national census released on May 11, 2021, the Han population is 128.631 million, accounting for 91.11%, and the ethnic minority population is 125.47 million, accounting for 8.89%. Chinese minority population is less, but distribution is very wide, in the form of a large decentralized, small settlement living in all parts of the country, especially in the southwest, northwest, and northeast China is, and many typical ethnic minority areas and more focused on the frontier of our country, the mountains, or remote areas, due to reasons such as history and environment, economic development is slow, education level is not high. Ethnic education is an important part of China’s education cause and important content of China’s ethnic work. Chapter 4 explores the educational policy for special children in China. Special education policy plays an important role in guiding the development of special education. This paper focuses on the education policy of special children and holds the special education policy after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China through literature analysis, policy text analysis, and executive data analysis. Results show that special education in China is getting more and more national attention, followed by the special education school and mutual support for the development of special education—the integration of education and inclusive education increasingly gaining development—but there are studies that the class teaching quality is not high, lack of special education teachers, special children’s future is at stake and we also put forward the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions. Chapter 5 examines the education policy development of boarding school children in China. Small-scale rural schools and boarding schools in towns and townships are the main bodies of rural schools. Running these two types of schools well is a basic requirement for implementing the rural revitalization strategy and promoting equal access to basic public services in urban and rural areas. Township boarding school has strategic significance in solving the problem of “going to school far away” and “left-behind children care,” which is the most important part of rural education.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the generosity and positive spirit of collegiality. Authors and Affiliations (Eryong Xue and Jian Li share the co-first authorship and contribute equally to this book).

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Contents

1 The Migrant Children Education Policy in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.1 Definition of Migrant Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.2 Causes of Migrant Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.3 Supervision of Migrant Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.4 The Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.5 Education Equity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.6 Social Adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.7 Identity Conversion: It is Difficult to Live in a Stable Home and Study and Live . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.8 Quality of Education: There Are Big Differences in Academic Performance and Low Academic Achievement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.9 Why Should the Education of Migrant Children Be Solved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Analysis of Policy Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.1 Policy Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.2 Policy Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.3 Policy Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.4 Data Analysis and Result Collation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Challenges and Problems of Migrant Children in Practice . . . . . . . . 1.3.1 Definition of Migrant Children (“Floating Children”) . . . . . . 1.3.2 Causes of Migrant Children Existence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.3 Social Integration in the Places of Entry is Poor . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.4 Absence of Family Care and Supervision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.5 Migrant Children Generally Suffer from Poor Physical and Mental Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Problems Faced by Urban Migrant Children in Compulsory Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4.1 It Is Difficult to Formulate and Implement Government Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 2 3 3 5 5 6 7

8 8 11 11 12 16 18 23 24 24 25 26 27 27 27 ix

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1.4.2 Insufficient Financial Investment in Education . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4.3 There Are Deficiencies in the Way of Schooling for Migrant Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4.4 The Health and Safety of Migrant Children Deserves Attention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Challenges and Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5.1 Local Government: Set Up Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5.2 Policy Perspective: Limit the Generation of Migrant Children and Solve Education Problems at Home . . . . . . . . . 1.5.3 From the Perspective of Family: Choose Wisely and Do Not Cause Trouble to the Government . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5.4 Science and Technology: Modern Technology Helps Share Educational Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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2 The Left-Behind Children Education Policy in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 The Origin and Definition of Left-Behind Children . . . . . . . 2.1.2 Review of Education Research on Left-Behind Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.3 Research on the Impact of Left-Behind Experience on Children’s Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.4 Research on the Causes of Education Problems of Left-Behind Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.5 Research on Countermeasures of Education Problems of Left-Behind Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.6 Supporting Research on Left-Behind Children’s Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Theory Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Human Capital Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2 Multi-center Governance Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 Public Policy Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Analysis of Policy Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Education Policies for Left-Behind Children in China Before the 18th CPC National Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2 The Deficiencies of Education Policies for Left-Behind Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Challenges and Problems in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1 The Absence of Family Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2 Equality in Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.3 The Level of Rural Education Resources Needs to Be Improved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.4 Rural Education Infrastructure Is Relatively Backward . . . .

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2.4.5 Children’s Mental Health Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.1 Create a Good Family Education Environment . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.2 Pay Attention to the Overall Development of Children . . . . . 2.5.3 Improve the Education Level of Left-Behind Children . . . . . 2.5.4 Cultivate Left-Behind Children’s Interest in Learning . . . . . 2.5.5 Create a Good Social and Educational Environment . . . . . . . 2.5.6 Coordinate Regional Economic Development . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.7 Strengthen the Construction of Social Support System . . . . . 2.5.8 Organize Mental Health Education Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.9 Carry Out Rich Extracurricular Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

56 57 57 57 58 58 58 59 60 61 61 62

3 The Ethnic Children Education Policy Development in China . . . . . . 3.1 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1 The Historical Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2 Establishing a Regular Mechanism for Ethnic Unity Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Theoretical Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 Multicultural Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 Policy Management Framework for Ethnic Education . . . . . 3.2.3 Introduction of Policy Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Analysis of Policy Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 Attaching Importance to and Helping Ethnic Minorities and Ethnic Minority Areas Develop Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.2 Strengthening Leadership Over Ethnic Education . . . . . . . . . 3.3.3 Implementing the Education Mode of Combining Ethnic Language Teaching with Bilingual Teaching . . . . . . . 3.3.4 Establishing Schools for Ethnic Minorities at Various Levels and of Various Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.5 Improving the Teaching Staff of Ethnic Minorities . . . . . . . . 3.4 Challenges and Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.1 High Dropout Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.2 Bilingual Teaching Is Difficult . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.3 Difficulties in Cultural Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.4 Limited Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.1 Supplementary Life Education and School Education . . . . . 3.5.2 Implement Preferential Policies to Strengthen Teachers for Ethnic Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.3 Improve the Allocation of Educational Resources . . . . . . . . . 3.5.4 Strengthen Communication and Enhance the Importance of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

63 63 63 68 69 70 71 72 74

74 76 77 78 79 81 81 82 84 85 86 87 88 89 91 92

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4 The Special Children Education Policy in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 The Concept and Definition of Exceptional Children . . . . . . 4.1.2 Acceptance of Special Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.3 Administration of the Process of Special Education . . . . . . . 4.1.4 Quality Monitoring of Special Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 The Theoretical Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 The Evolution of China’s Special Education Policy . . . . . . . 4.2.2 The Development of Special Education in Non-compulsory Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Analysis of Policy Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 The Historical Process of China’s Special Education Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.2 China’s Special Education Policy Structure System . . . . . . . 4.3.3 Analysis of Special Education Policies Since the 18th CPC National Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.1 There Is a Shortage of Teachers for Special Education, and the Comprehensive Quality of Teachers Should Be Improved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.2 With the Shift, System Is Difficult to Implement—Low Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The Boarding Schools’ Children Education Policy in China . . . . . . . . 5.1 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.1 Mental Health of Students in Rural Boarding Schools . . . . . 5.1.2 The Ruin of Boarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.3 School Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.4 Security Management Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.5 Dietary Hygiene Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 The Theoretical Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 Rural Boarding Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 Social Basis: Educational Equity View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.3 Economic Basis: The Theory of Economies of Scale in Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.4 Basis of Man: Socialization Theory of Education . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Analysis of Policy Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.1 Overview of Policy Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2 The Policy with Boarding Schools as the Main Object . . . . . 5.4 Challenges and Problems in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.1 High Cost of Boarding School and Cost Pass-Through . . . . 5.4.2 Disadvantaged Students in Mind and Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.3 Teacher’s Burden and Moral Education Effect . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Contents

5.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Challenges and Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.1 Establish a Mechanism for Steadily Increasing Funds Allocation and Cost Measurement for Boarding Schools, and Appropriately Expand the Scale of Boarding Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.2 We Should Pay Attention to Students’ Life and Psychological Needs, and Provide Professional Life Teachers and Psychological Counseling Teachers . . . . . 5.5.3 Scientifically Determine the Number of Teachers in Rural Areas, Reduce the Total Amount of Teachers’ Work, Optimize the Working Environment for Teachers, and Improve Information Infrastructure . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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About the Authors

Xue Eryong is a professor in China Institute of Education Policy, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, China. Changjiang scholars (young scholars) are awarded by the Ministry of Education in China. He is also a research fellow of the center for science and technology and education development strategy in Tsinghua University. He is also a postdoctoral fellow in the public administration of Tsinghua University. He has published more than 100 Chinese and English papers in the field of educational research. He has produced more than 100 CSSCI and SSCI articles. He has won the seventh award for outstanding achievements in scientific research in institutions of higher learning, the fifth national award for outstanding achievements in educational scientific research, and the award for outstanding achievements in political participation and discussion by the central committee of China Association for Promoting Democracy (CAPD) for more than 60 times. More than 60 independent or co-authored consulting reports were adopted by decision-making departments or approved by leaders. He has presided over more than 10 national or provincial projects such as national social science fund, natural science fund, ministry of education humanities and social science fund, Beijing philosophy and social science project and participated in 9 national or provincial key projects such as ministry of education philosophy and social science project, and 2 international cooperation projects. The project of national natural science foundation of China was awarded excellent. He has been honored as the advanced worker of summer xv

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About the Authors

social practice for students at capital college and technical secondary school, the outstanding talent of Beijing division, the young talent of Beijing social science federation, the outstanding talent of Beijing universities and colleges, and the outstanding talent of Beijing. Main social part-time jobs: member of the 14th committee of the communist youth league of Beijing, deputy director of the working committee of college students and young teachers, special expert of China education association, China education development strategy society, national academic level office, and director of Beijing postdoctoral fellowship (the 20th session). Li Jian is an assistant professor in China Institute of Education Policy, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, China. She received her Ph.D. degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (ELPS), School of Education, Indiana University Bloomington. Her research interests focus on Education policy studies, World-class universities, Globalization, and Internationalization of Higher Education. She has published over 60 articles and books regarding China’s education policy and comparative higher education studies. Dr. Li currently also serves as think tanker at China Institute of Education and Social Development, Beijing Normal University. Dr. Li’s general area of scholarship is on the assessment of education policy within education institutions comparatively. Within this general area, she has pursued four themes: the education policy studies, globalization of higher education, higher education policy and management, undergraduate students’ global learning performance assessment, faculty academic innovation perspective within higher education, and comparative higher education development as a framework for institutional research. Dr. Li has published over 60 articles, 20 monographs and book chapters, and delivered over 60 workshops and seminars and offered more than 20 keynote, peer-reviewed, and invited presentations throughout the United States and in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Chapter 1

The Migrant Children Education Policy in China

This chapter explores the migrant children education policy development in China. With the social and economic development, many people moved from the countryside to the city and the number of migrant children also increased rapidly. The Party and the government have always paid great attention to the education of this group and issued several relevant education policies and regulations to ensure that migrant children enjoy the equal right to education. This chapter focuses on the period since the 18th party congress in 2012, China, on the problem of migrant children education and the education policy of the research, on the stage of the relevant literature to sort and summary, summarized the definition of floating children, migrant children’s education problem, and how to solve these problems as a theoretical too. The implementation data of education policies for migrant children released by the Ministry of Education and the State Council were analyzed from the aspects of economy, education, and living subsidies. This chapter puts forward the challenges and problems in the practice of education policy for migrant children, and finally puts forward countermeasures and suggestions from four aspects.

1.1 Literature Review Along with the rapid development of economy and population, labor mobility between urban and rural areas is frequent; the formation of a large number of migrant workers to work, according to the easing of the household registration system, the improvement of its economy, rural migrant workers flow relatively more and more families choose to bring their children to city life, creating a large number of floating children. These migrant children will face a large number of social problems, the first is education, because for migrant children, education is a necessary condition to change their destiny and integrate into society. The education of migrant children has aroused the warm attention of the society and become the focus of the academic © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 E. Xue and J. Li, Childhood Education Policy in China, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4683-7_1

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research project. In China, many scholars have carried out in-depth research and discussion on the education of migrant children. The following will summarize the research results of scholars, so as to make an academic literature review. Many floating children cause social problems in compulsory education, such as education fairness, study situation, social integration, and other aspects. Based on the occurrence of these problems, many scholars in our country strive to solve the shortcomings in the field of education. Children are the pillars of the future country, and education is the way to cultivate children. Educational equity is the foundation and core of the society. Migrant children are also members of the society and one of the pillars of the future country. And the author with “migrant children” as keywords in baidu online input search, can search out up to 21 million articles, visible social concern for floating children warm today, but in China with academic research knowledge search in the net, can search out 4823 papers, visible floating children has been a hotspot of academia, the education policy is the study of center of gravity. Some scholars studied the adaptation of migrant children, and some scholars analyzed the ethics of education policies (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Fan et al., 2009; Lei, 2005; Liu & Guo, 2020; Lu & Wang, 2017; Xie, 2012; Yuan et al., 2010; Zhou & Rong, 2011).

1.1.1 Definition of Migrant Children Regarding the definition of floating children, there is no uniform definition in the current academic circles. Some scholars think that migrant children refer to 6–14 in defined temporarily live with her parents or guardian children more than half a year, these children is also known as “children of the floating population,” “rural migrant workers children,” “migrant workers,” etc. Some scholars believe that floating children are the offspring of floating population, which is called the second-generation immigrants. It generally refers to children aged 6–14 or 7–15 who live in the destination with their parents or guardians for more than half a year and have learning ability. Therefore, it is also called the school-age children of floating population. If divided by administrative regions, it can be roughly divided into three types: county and city floating children, inter-regional floating children within the province, and interprovincial floating children. Some scholars have pointed out that, strictly speaking, floating children are a diversified group, not only representing migrant children, namely the so-called “migrant children.” Migrant children of the floating children is one of the concept of floating children, just “migrant workers” in floating children and the proportion of occupied most, has the important position, and solve the problem of migrant children compulsory education is the key problem of floating children, so the children of migrant workers as the focus of the floating children study.

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1.1.2 Causes of Migrant Children Most scholars believe that migrant children are caused by migrant parents with better economic conditions who take their children with them and let them go to school in migrant cities, but their household registration remains in rural areas. Some scholars believe that the main cause of the problem of migrant children in China is the large-scale population flow brought by the urbanization process, many rural labor force flooding into cities, and the rapid increase of migrant children in cities. Professor Lei Wanpeng connects rural labor to urban mobility which results in a large number of migrant children, which is the inevitable stage of China’s modernization and urbanization development. And this kind of situation will cause the challenge to China’s urban and rural compulsory education system which will cause strong pressure to define the government. The pressure is the most specific performance for financial pressure, and flow demand for education and children into the government supply will cause the contradiction, when there are more and more migrant children, the government will face greater pressure. Since the reform and opening, because of social transformation and economic system transformation, keeps Chinese social class differentiation, while the urban floating population for the individual differences in human resources and social capital, the result of the floating population’s income and living standard differentiation problem, the floating population in the city of weak social class. According to the fifth national census of China in 2000, the size of the floating population has exceeded 100 million, among which the floating population under the age of 18 is 1.82 million, accounting for 19.37% of the total. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2003, the rural migrant labor force has reached 114 million, accounting for 23% of the rural labor force. Among them, there are about 6.43 million floating children between the ages of 6 and 14 who follow their parents to cities, while the total number of floating children in China reached 25.33 million in 2005 (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Lu & Wang, 2017; Yuan et al., 2010).

1.1.3 Supervision of Migrant Children The education of more than 20 million migrant children not only affects the destination governments, schools, and students, but also affects the education policies and school teaching of the destination governments and puts pressure on the central government’s education decisions. To effectively solve the problem of migrant children’s education, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued the Interim Measures on Migrant Children’s Schooling as early as 1998, handing the issue over to the governments of the destination countries to provide migrant children with educational opportunities, and relevant departments have further improved relevant policies. In 2001 the State Council on the decision of the reform and development of basic education “stipulated in the flowing into

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government with management is given priority to, give priority to with full-time public elementary and secondary schools, in September 2003, the sixth ministries and commissions under the State Council on forwarding the Ministry of Education” about further do a good job of compulsory education to farmers’ children migrant workers employment advice, establish with defined the government give priority to. To solve the problem of compulsory education for migrant children, full-time public primary and secondary schools should be given priority, namely the so-called “two priority” principle. Some scholars pointed out that compulsory education in China is “local responsible, hierarchical management” of the school system, lead to lose their original place after floating children follow their parents into the city the right to free education, and migrant children in defined without hukou, which lead to more don’t have access to compulsory education resources, floating children receiving education in defined is the social concern. In recent years, China’s economy has developed rapidly, the degree of urbanization has deepened, and the labor exchange between urban and rural areas has intensified, which undoubtedly increases the number of migrant children, resulting in an increasingly large number of migrant children. According to the 2010 national census, the number of migrant children in China is as high as 35.81 million, accounting for 12.8% of all children. This is undoubtedly a huge group, which cannot be ignored in the society and is also an education problem that needs to be solved urgently. At present, China’s education for migrant children is based on a “two-oriented” policy of “public schools first” and “government of the destination country first.” Most migrant children receive education in the destination country. Some scholars have pointed out that in 2010, the proportion of migrant children receiving compulsory education in the destination countries has exceeded 96%. The finance of public schools mainly comes from public financial input, while private schools mainly rely on tuition income. Their flexibility is greater, and they can make changes according to market demand. To adapt to the characteristics of floating children, tuition fees can be adjusted, and other measures can be taken. In addition to the public and private schools, there is also a migrant children school, also known as school for children of migrant laborers or migrant schools. Public schools can make up for the shortage of education resources, effectively for floating children, and solve the problem of the education, but more loopholes exist, such as the teachers are of poor quality, management confusion, and other issues. The education of migrant children requires that the government of the destination country should include the migrant children into the local education development plan, and give equal treatment to the working children, including financial allocation, charging standards, school status, etc. In addition, the local government should provide corresponding financial support to schools for migrant children, such as providing land for school expansion, updating teaching equipment, and other relevant financial support measures (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Fan et al., 2009; Lei, 2005; Liu & Guo, 2020; Lu & Wang, 2017; Xie, 2012; Yuan et al., 2010; Zhou & Rong, 2011).

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1.1.4 The Responsibility To meet the educational needs, but in solving the problem of migrant children, there is no unified model that should be based on their own conditions and educational needs, as well as the government’s financial input, to improve the problem of migrant children. Some scholars think that migrant children education problem, we should share the responsibility to each other by the state and government, for the moment, relatively weak national education responsibility, migrant children education problem is completely by the local government is responsible for, this phenomenon is unable to effectively solve the problem of floating children’s education, scholars believe that only further strengthen the central government on the floating children’s education problem of state responsibility, Only in this way can migrant children’s sense of social belonging and sense of civic responsibility be effectively promoted. Moreover, the government should provide corresponding economic subsidies to the inflow governments to support them in solving the education problems of migrant children.

1.1.5 Education Equity The education problem of migrant children can be regarded as the inherent malpractice of the household registration system and education system divided between urban and rural areas. In the performance stage of the new period, the most fundamental means to solve or postpone this problem is to increase the investment and supply of education, that is, to improve the quantity and quality of education supply, which can be achieved through financial investment. Urban floating population is mainly composed of the rural population or of lower socio-economic status. But there is no single system for the floating population. The diversity of floating population will affect the demand for education of floating children, since the floating population is from different social background, the rural and urban have a cultural difference, and migrant children can’t have the same preferences. Neighborhood school is a compulsory education phase to the allocated number of basic principles, but this principle in the floating children failed to be put into practice, because of the urban system of examination and approval and issuing of temporary residence permits not being standardized, resulting in temporary residence permits of the floating children thereby the multiple or floating population could change their living place, to choose the ideal school for their children, which also put the government under pressure. The status of floating population in the city is not high, so they hope their children can receive high-quality education, to change their life. Therefore, floating children not only hope to receive education in the city, but also want to obtain high-quality teaching modes, thus the situation of “school choice” appears. Problems there has always been fair in China, whether economic or education can achieve full fairness. This is due to the differences in regional economic development level, resulting

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in some areas with vast resources, some parts relatively lack resources, and therefore people migrate, forming the conflict between locals and migrant population. The problem of migrant children’s education is also in the same situation. Local children can enjoy compulsory education, but can’t migrant children enjoy compulsory education? In the final analysis, it is the household registration problem. The household registration restriction is the main obstacle to education equity in China, and the identity difference is the reason why floating children are forced to receive unfair education. Due to the household registration problem, floating children cannot receive compulsory education in the destination. The schooling problem of migrant children is related to society, the realization of educational goals, education equity and economic construction, and a series of problems that need to be solved through the reform of the education system. Some scholars believe that it is an urgent problem for us to ensure that migrant children enjoy the right to compulsory education when China is implementing education for all and realizing “everyone has a book to read” and promoting education equity. Only by solving the problem of compulsory education for migrant children can we realize the policy of equal educational opportunities. Ensuring migrant children receive compulsory education is the most basic position. In terms of policies, local governments should support migrant children’s schools and formulate reasonable standards for running schools. Local governments should strengthen supervision and eliminate migrant children that do not meet the requirements, so as to achieve educational equity. The education of migrant children is an issue of social education equity. If it can be solved and perfected, it will promote educational equity and social harmony. Otherwise, migrant children and their families will suffer discrimination in terms of identity. This problem even affects the international community. How the migrant children’s education problem is solved may affect the international educational image and political image of Chinese governments at all levels (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Lu & Wang, 2017).

1.1.6 Social Adaptation There is a certain degree of cultural difference between migrant children and urban children in terms of language and social background. Migrant children studying in public schools may suffer discrimination and exclusion from urban students or even teachers. Adaptation problem of the floating children is one part of the research. The floating children follow their parents from rural to urban life and the transformation from a familiar place to another in a strange place, although the members of the family have not changed, but its living environment changes, huge differences existed between the rural and urban since the city has a unique superior environment. But as there is no city household registration, migrant children are unable to enjoy the city’s rights and interests embodied in compulsory education, and the floating children will bring the influence for transforming environment, for the panorama floating children need to adapt to, this is the negative effect on the floating children, the scholar thinks when floating children are compared with urban children. Migrant children have

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lower self-esteem, stronger sense of loneliness and more problem behaviors, which reflects in the negative influence of migrant children in adapting to social conditions. Are there differences between migrant children and local children in school? Local children take the advantage of the environment, and migrant children are undoubtedly at a disadvantage as migrants. There are differences in educational background, family background, and psychological status, which will affect the degree of adaptation of migrant children in school and even affect their academic performance. It is true that there are many floating children in big cities. Take Beijing as an example. In 2014, 41.2% of the students in compulsory education in Beijing were non-Beijing students, that is, almost half of the students studying in Beijing were floating children.

1.1.7 Identity Conversion: It is Difficult to Live in a Stable Home and Study and Live Affected by various family factors, a large number of rural children’s identities are constantly changing among floating children, left-behind children, and rural residents. Especially left-behind children and migrant children, these two groups have too much uncertainty, relatively complex and constantly changing. For example, with the promulgation of the Compulsory Education Law, especially due to the gradual implementation of the free compulsory education policy, school-age children who originally moved with their parents may gradually return to the countryside, from migrant children to left-behind children. This phenomenon has been shown in Beijing, Shanghai, and other megacities. On the contrary, due to the continuous increase of urban employment pressure, some of the rural labor force transferred out may gradually return because they cannot find suitable jobs, and their children may become unleft-behind children. On the other hand, due to the rising income and better living conditions of migrant parents, their children in rural areas are transferred to urban life and study, which may turn left-behind children into migrant children. Due to the separation of residence and registered residence, migrant children living with their parents in cities cannot enjoy equal educational opportunities with urban children. Many migrant children have to return to the registered residence to go to school and live, and eventually become left-behind children. In this way, even if the enrollment problem is solved, children who receive education in different places will still face many challenges due to the differences in teaching materials and curricula. Compared with rural schools, urban schools are bound to have different teaching methods and teaching quality. Left-behind children who follow their parents to cities and become migrant children may face problems such as inability to adapt to the new teaching methods, failing to keep up with the learning progress, and great academic pressure. Migrant children who must go back to their hometowns to become leftbehind children due to high enrollment restrictions in cities may suffer from poor academic performance and even mental health due to the large gap between teaching environment and teaching quality. Moreover, children who had the opportunity to

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receive high-quality education will inevitably feel dissatisfied with the unfair education after returning to the countryside, which is not conducive to their physical and mental health development (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Lu & Wang, 2017).

1.1.8 Quality of Education: There Are Big Differences in Academic Performance and Low Academic Achievement Compared with normal children of the same school age, migrant children have problems such as delayed enrollment, declining grades, and dropping out of school. Many unstable factors that affect their normal learning will lead to their overall poor academic performance, easy to be partial to subjects, and difficult to achieve high academic achievement. In addition, a survey conducted in Shanghai found that the gender difference in education quality of migrant children, especially those from lowincome families with manual labor, was the largest. The traditional concept of “male preference” in the families of these children exerts an influence on the socialized division of labor of children’s gender roles, while teacher–student interaction and teacher evaluation in the process of school education and classroom teaching reinforce gender differences again, and gradually lead to gender differences in students’ classroom behavior and education quality. The survey found that most migrant children in urban and suburban schools come from working-class families. In these schools, most boys are shy and introverted, while girls are more active and independent. They are better at expressing their opinions in class interaction and have a sense of ownership of the class and can actively assist teachers in managing the class. Among local students in Shanghai, male students are more active in class while female students are more introverted and passive. In order to narrow the gender gap, in addition to school education, it is more necessary for the floating population to enhance their awareness of family education to their children and strengthen communication and cooperation with school education.

1.1.9 Why Should the Education of Migrant Children Be Solved Political perspective: Solving the education problem of migrant children ensures that migrant children’s equal right to education is guaranteed and they can receive better education, which is conducive to cultivating more outstanding talents and thus promoting political development. Education provides support for politics and serves the governance of the CPC. Education can promote the stable development of politics by cultivating qualified citizens and political talents needed by the society. Education can also serve politics by spreading the political ideology of the ruling

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class and forming political public opinion and ideological trend. The state attaches great importance to the education of migrant children, which can reflect the political consciousness of pursuing fairness and justice and putting the interests of the people first. Education can also promote the democratization process of a country, and the level of education is closely related to the level of political democratization of the country. The process of trying to solve the education problem of floating children is the process of promoting democratization of the country, so it is imperative to solve the education problem of floating children. Economic perspective: Education is the basic means of labor production, education and economy are mutual. Economic foundation provides material conditions for education, which is fundamentally determined by social productive forces and development level. Education improves the labor quality of laborers, inherits, and innovates scientific and technological knowledge, takes science and technology as the primary productive force, and promotes economic development. Solving the problem of floating children’s education, so that more floating children do not have to give up or interrupt their studies due to limited conditions, get a better education, improve the flow of children’s scientific literacy, make their learning more advanced technology and scientific knowledge and create new scientific knowledge, to create a more advanced social production, high quality of labor force, enhance the human capital of society, and promote the development of social economy industry. Solving the problem of migrant children’s education is conducive to realizing the rational allocation of educational resources. Education belongs to social public undertakings, and educational resources belong to social public resources. Allocating limited resources to various fields involves the problem of resource allocation. The allocation of educational resources is the core issue of education policy. Through the regulation and control of education policy, it helps migrant children to obtain more equitable and high-quality education resources and solve the education problems of migrant children, which is conducive to realizing the fairness and efficiency of education resource allocation and promoting the stable development of society. In the “China Education Modernization 2035” issued by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, “realizing equal access to basic public education services” is one of the ten strategic tasks for education modernization, which put forward “to promote city trailing their children to school treatment,” “improve the system of floating population children different entrance exam,” which means that China in the next ten years will fully implement the floating children’s treatment of city, protect the rights of floating children of education, so as to realize accurate and reasonable allocation of education resources, realize the goal of education modernization (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Fan et al., 2009; Lei, 2005; Liu & Guo, 2020; Lu & Wang, 2017; Xie, 2012; Yuan et al., 2010; Zhou & Rong, 2011). Social perspective: Educational equity is an important part of social equity, and the realization of educational equity is conducive to maintaining social stability. The compulsory education law of the People’s Republic of China: the second chapter, the provisions of article 12 parents or other statutory guardians work or live in the census register seat, school-age children and adolescents in their parents or other statutory guardians work or residence to receive compulsory education, the local

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people’s governments shall provide equal access to compulsory education. Specific measures shall be formulated by provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government. If floating children cannot enjoy the right to education fairly in cities and the dropout rate is high, social instability factors will increase, affecting social harmony and stability. If floating children education properly solves, floating children can receive a good education, and people’s life of the happiness index will increase, the floating population can be treated socially and educationally fair, can have a good and prosperous life in the city, is beneficial to prevent social instability, the formation of good atmosphere to promote social harmony, to maintain social stability. It is conducive to realizing the equality of citizens’ rights and guaranteeing the freedom of migration. Freedom of migration, as a basic right of citizens, not only refers to the right of free movement of citizens, but also includes a series of rights during and after migration. In the field of education, the right to education of children of migrant is very important. Migrant children’s equal right to education is guaranteed, which is conducive to the realization of equal rights of citizens and the protection of freedom of migration. The problem of migrant children’s education needs to be solved, so that migrant children families can get enough care and support, which is conducive to their better integration into the urban society and active return to the society. Freedom of migration is also conducive to labor mobility, and then promotes the harmonious development of society, forming a virtuous cycle. Cultural perspective: Education is the medium point of culture formation and reaction to society. Culture plays a significant role in social life, and attention to culture cannot be separated from education. To solve the problem of migrant children’s education, it is necessary to formulate or modify relevant educational measures, so as to make the provisions of migrant children’s education in relevant policies more perfect. Floating children are part of the floating population. To solve the education problem of floating children is directly conducive to more floating children to be able to enter school safely and smoothly, obtain higher quality education, and generally improve cultural literacy, which is conducive to the improvement of the cultural level of the whole society. The overall improvement of social and cultural levels is conducive to the formation of a good and harmonious cultural atmosphere and the construction of advanced culture. Floating children’s cultural identity is referring to the floating children on the basis of the experience, comparison, reflection, to vest in the city group of an attitude, life is floating children in the school environment, under the influence of structure and system, through the reflective activities such as “inward force,” “according to its formed by personal experience, as a reflective understanding of self.” The positive cultural identity of migrant children is that they consciously recognize their identity as a member of urban schools, and consciously experience the existence of no difference in living habits, learning rules, language communication, and interaction. To support the integration of migrant children into urban life, attention should be paid not only to the education of migrant children themselves, but also to the family, community, employment, security, and public services related to the growth of migrant children. When the equal right of migrant children

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to receive education in cities is guaranteed, they will face fewer and fewer difficulties and problems, and their positive cultural identity will naturally be enhanced in urban life and learning, which is conducive to better integration of migrant children into urban life and the construction of their unique spiritual culture. Reduce the conflict between the new urban culture and its local culture, hometown habits and rural customs, strengthen the national cultural identity, and form the spiritual power of its continuous development.

1.2 Analysis of Policy Text 1.2.1 Policy Background Since the reform and opening, China’s economy has developed rapidly and the urbanization process has been accelerated, with many rural populations migrating to cities. Due to the imbalance of economic and educational development between urban and rural areas, more and more rural migrant workers choose to bring their children to the city together, and family migration has become an important feature of population mobility, forming a special group of urban and rural administrative management— migrant children. Migrant children are generally registered in rural areas, but they have been living with their parents in cities for a long time. Without urban hukou, they are often unable to enjoy basic public services in cities and face many problems such as housing and schooling. The Party and the government have always paid great attention to the education of migrant children and made great efforts to ensure that migrant children enjoy the equal right to education, but in practice, there are obvious institutional obstacles for migrant children to receive education. Preschool education and compulsory education stage, the floating children influx of city is more economically developed regions, the insufficiency of public-school degree, on the household register children set admission threshold is higher, private high school in private schools, floating children of poor parents were forced to choose qualified informal cooperatively run school, or even give up go to school or drop out of school. In the stage of high school education, the proportion of migrant children receiving education is low, there is the phenomenon of education delay, and they also face the problem of college entrance examination in different places. According to the sixth national census in 2010, the number of migrant children between the ages of 0 and 17 was 35.81 million, an increase of 10.48 million or 41.37% over 2005. On the one hand, the number of migrant children has increased rapidly and the problem of receiving education has become increasingly prominent, which calls for urgent education reform. On the other hand, since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, China has entered a new era of development. Building a basic public service system covering both urban and rural areas has become the direction and main task of China’s future development. In this context, the central government attaches more importance to ensuring that migrant children

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receive equal education and has issued a series of policies to further solve the education problems of migrant children by reforming the household registration system and introducing education policies. The relevant policy system is improving day by day. The enrollment rate of floating children in public schools, the number of private education degrees purchased by the government, and the proportion of local college entrance examinations increased significantly (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Fan et al., 2009; Lei, 2005; Liu & Guo, 2020; Lu & Wang, 2017; Xie, 2012; Yuan et al., 2010; Zhou & Rong, 2011).

1.2.2 Policy Content It is one of the constant educational goals of the Party and the government to protect the migrant children’s right to education and promote the equality of migrant children’s education. Article 12 of the “compulsory education law of the People’s Republic of China:” parents or other statutory guardians work or live in the census register seat, school-age children and adolescents in their parents or other statutory guardians work or residence to receive compulsory education, the local people’s governments shall provide equal access to compulsory education. The Outline of the National Medium- and Long-term Program for Education Reform and Development (2010–2020) and the Outline of The Program for the Development of Chinese Children (2011–2020) have made it clear that education should be universal and nonprofit, and that migrant children should be guaranteed equal access to education. Since then, the Party and the government have issued several relevant policies, including not only macro development planning, but also specific mechanisms such as household registration, school roll management, and education funds. A review of the contents of a series of policies to solve the education problems of migrant children in the table shows that there are both macro target planning and micro rules and measures, basically covering the whole process of education from the establishment of school status to the entrance examination. From the macroscopic strategic point of view, education is the fundamental of countries, to promote the floating children enjoy the fair right and the core concept of education throughout the country each instructional program files, not only closely related to the modernization of education and child development, more equal as promoting urban and rural integration, and basic public services and an important part of the country revitalization, appeared in the state’s overall development plan, not just in education. Migrant children’s registered residence is separated from their actual residence, and their families’ economic conditions are relatively poor, making it difficult for them to enjoy basic public education services in cities and towns. Migrant children’s education is related to household registration management, urban–rural differences, educational equity, and many other issues, which can be described as “affecting the whole body.” In relation to education, urbanization, children’s development plan, it must be ensured that floating children receive compulsory education equality—whereas the equal right to

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education has been highlighted many times—promote the floating children’s education fairness, and one of the important tasks of the new urbanization is to embody the national attention and solve the problem of the floating children’s education problem determination (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Lu & Wang, 2017; Yuan et al., 2010). To be specific, China’s education policy for migrant children includes two major links: schooling and entrance examination for migrant children in the destination areas, ensuring that migrant children are “mainly in the destination areas and mainly in public schools,” receiving education on an equal footing and being able to enter schools normally. Floating children is closely related to the population flow, with the development of the economy, increasing the scale of the floating population, household registration system reform, the household register is the foundation of student status management, and to promote the floating children equal access to education, the first thing you need to solve is the seat of registered permanent residence and see if it is inconsistent with the actual settlement problem, flexible adjustment measures for the management of student status. In 2013 and 2014, the Ministry of Education has promulgated the “measures for the management of student status of primary and middle school students” and “the flow about do not admitted to the university student management work of the notice,” the regulation of floating children eligible for government defined the entrance should be established in defined one’s status as a student, does not comply with the conditions of one’s status as a student should return flow of seat of registered permanent residence to accept education, but in the process of actual execution. It is difficult for migrant children to enter the school successfully because of poor communication between the governments of the two places. Moreover, the return of a large number of migrant students without school status will bring the problem of left-behind children. Therefore, our country household register system reform in 2014, and in January 1, 2016 began to implement a new residence permit system, where migrant children education policy adapted to the requirement of the reform of household registration system, and gradually established a residence permit as the main basis for floating children entrance way. Student status management follows the principle of “book with people”, in order to establish the student eligible floating children. Improving the national school status information management system for primary and secondary school students has become the most basic institutional guarantee for migrant children to receive education on an equal basis. In view of the high requirements and cumbersome procedures for entering schools, the state has implemented a policy of “two primary schools and two included schools”, in which the places of entry are the main ones and public schools are the main ones to receive compulsory education. Education for migrant children has been included in urban development plans and the scope of financial security, and the treatment of migrant children for entering schools has been promoted to be integrated into urban areas. Migrant children’s access to education, the household registration system reform after the provisional regulations on the residence permit is pointed out in article 12, the people’s governments at or above the county level and its relevant departments shall provide compulsory education for the residence permit holders such as basic public services, and to simplify the optimization of the entrance to handle the process and documents requirements,

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and ensure that they conform to the conditions based on which the floating children enter. The state has made great efforts to provide more and better educational opportunities, mainly in public schools, supplemented by the purchase of private education degrees by the government, and accommodating migrant children. On the one hand, China’s education policy for floating children has appropriately relaxed the admission conditions of public schools, appropriately expanded public-school resources, orderly expanded urban degree supply, and ensured that floating children mainly receive compulsory education in public schools, and receive preschool education in public kindergartens and inclusive private kindergartens. On the other hand, to strengthen the construction of migrant schools, private schools, and vocational schools, the flow of the security has not been able to study in public-school children to accept the education in accordance with law, run the universality of private schools, gradually improve and implement migrant children accept the secondary vocational education free tuition and defined the pratt & whitney preschool education policy, to encourage migrant children to receive preschool education and vocational education before and after compulsory education. In densely populated areas, floating children focus, education resources tense megalopolis, the provisions of the state where according to actual formulate specific measures for admission to the floating children, in the central centralized and unified leadership, grasping the direction of policy at the same time, gave the place a certain freedom to adjust space around to adjust measures to local conditions, reduce the entrance threshold of floating children; we will ensure that migrant children enjoy the equal right to education. The investment of funds is an important basis for the development of education. The high mobility of migrant children requires a more flexible educational funding mechanism. In 2015, the State Council issued “about further perfecting the urban and rural compulsory education funds safeguard mechanism of notification”, from 2016 began to further improve the urban and rural compulsory education funds safeguard mechanism, regulation education funds with portable student movement, namely “two free fill” China funds and public funds benchmark quota capital flow which the students can carry. Starting from the spring semester of 2016, China’s compulsory education schools in urban and rural areas will unify the benchmark quota of public funds per student. Starting from the spring semester of 2017, China has unified the policy of “two exemptions and one subsidy” for students receiving compulsory education in urban and rural areas, and fully implemented the mechanism of ensuring funding for compulsory education that is unified between urban and rural areas and focuses on rural areas. At present, China implements the mechanism of sharing the compulsory education funds by projects between the central government and local governments in proportion. In the reform of education system and fiscal and taxation system, due to the great pressure of floating population in eastern provinces, the proportion of sharing of public funds by the central finance in eastern regions has been increased to 5:5 by provinces. The state has increased funding for the education of migrant children, urged local governments to include the compulsory education of migrant children in the educational development plans and financial guarantees of governments at all levels, and implemented the allocation of education funds based on the number of migrant children in school, which should be fully funded and allocated in

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a timely manner. According to the Ministry of Education, since the spring semester of 2017, compulsory education funds have been allowed to be carried along with students, with about 14 million migrant children being exempted from compulsory education and receiving subsidies and the basic quota of public funds per student, easing the educational fund burden of families with migrant children. China is deeply aware of the difference in education levels between urban and rural areas and the shortage of educational resources in urban areas, and has issued a number of policies to solve the problem of insufficient educational resources caused by the concentrated inflow of population, so as to ensure the integration of migrant children into the urban education system. China’s migrant children education policy stipulates that public compulsory education schools should be generally open to migrant children, and mixed classes with urban students, unified management. In addition, local governments should urge and supervise all schools to make rational school layout plans, scientifically check and approve the number of teachers, and guide and help privately run schools and universal privately run kindergartens to improve the quality of education. In recent years, the family migration trend and scale of China’s floating population has significantly expanded. Apart from standardizing school education, the national education policy for floating children also cares about family education. The parents of migrant children’s families are mostly migrant workers, who have great work pressure and little leisure time. Migrant children come to cities with their parents from rural areas. In the new living environment, they need the warmth of family education especially. Highly focused on the special difficulties children’s family education work, in 2015 and 2016, the Ministry of Education and other departments have issued “about to strengthen family education guidance work” and “about guidance to promote family education of five-year plan” (2016–2020), the policy paper stresses that local governments at all levels should pay attention to the difficulty of floating children family education. To carry out the activities of caring for migrant children and help migrant children better integrate into schools and communities reflects that with China’s economic and social development, the educational field involved in the policy is more extensive and in-depth, and promotes the comprehensive development of migrant children (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Fan et al., 2009; Lei, 2005; Liu & Guo, 2020; Lu & Wang, 2017; Xie, 2012; Yuan et al., 2010; Zhou & Rong, 2011). At present, the proportion of migrant children receiving compulsory education in China has significantly increased, but migrant children have a greater demand for higher education, and the restrictions of household registration, which are inconsistent between their registered residence and their actual residence, affect the normal participation of migrant children in the entrance examination. In 2012, China issued the Opinions on Doing a Good job in taking local Entrance examinations for Children of Migrant Workers living with them after receiving compulsory education, which clarified the policy direction for migrant children to take entrance examinations in their destination cities. In 2014, it was written into the “Opinions on Deepening Reform of the Examination and Enrollment System” to encourage local governments to establish and improve policies for migrant children to attend high school

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entrance exams and college entrance exams in places where they enter after receiving compulsory education. Although the national level of migrant children education policy starting from the household registration, admission, education, family education, and the entrance of funds and resources together multiply link the process of education, promote the floating children’s enjoyment to equal education, even then by the floating children’s relatively poor family economic conditions, and policy implementation and plans, with the influence of the problems such as the United States, migrant children drop out of school to work is a serious situation. 2017 of The General Office of the State Council on further strengthening the control of keep learning improve the level of compulsory education to consolidate the notice provisions, all learn in perfect control of insurance supervision mechanism and examination of accountability mechanism, the supervision of the education departments at all levels to the compulsory education control keep dropping out work to learn and consolidate level to carry out special supervision, establish control keep dropping out appointment system and reporting system, We will implement a system of announcing the results of supervision and inspection, rectification within a specified time limit, and accountability. China has included compulsory education in the assessment system of local governments at all levels, as an important indicator for the assessment of local governments and their main leaders, and as a reference for the national research and supervision of the implementation of education policies for migrant children.

1.2.3 Policy Analysis Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the state has focused on the education of migrant children and adopted a series of policies to promote equal education for migrant children, equal access to basic public services, new urbanization, and modernization of education. In terms of the year of policy release, 2014 was the peak year for the release of education policies for migrant children in China, which may be because education is the top priority in the overall layout of the country’s comprehensive deepening of reform. The reform of the household registration system and the examination and enrollment system developed simultaneously, and the construction of new urbanization made steady progress. Under the guidance of the overall national strategy, from 2014 to 2016, the policies of various links in the education process of migrant children have been constantly refined. After 2018, education reform entered a stable period with few new policies, reflecting that China’s education policy system for migrant children has been basically formed after several years of adjustment and running-in. For the promulgation agencies, the formulation of education policies for migrant children involves the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the State Council, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and other national departments, which is the result of the administrative system reform in China, and the enhancement of the overall coordination ability of various departments and the simultaneous implementation of multiple measures (including

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the State Council General Office). The Ministry of Education is the largest number of government agencies, reflected as the nation’s highest administrative department and the highest department for education career to the leading role of the education industry, China’s migrant children education policy presents dominated by the State Council and the Ministry of Education, department of systematic cooperation characteristics, reflecting the “one hundred plan, education for this,” education plays an important role in the common development of all fields of a country. On the specific content, China’s migrant children education policy in both breadth and depth, basic education includes preschool education, compulsory education, and high school, three stages of the whole process of education, rely mainly on national force, to specification and supervision of each link, central policy’s main object is the local government, in their schools, parents, and other social forces in the form of a call for indirect impact, systemic deficiencies in the application of policy tools. In the future, the scale of migrant children in China will continue to grow, the gap between urban and rural economy and education level exists objectively, and the phenomenon of family migration will become more common in the process of population migration. The education of migrant children will increasingly become an important issue in the field of education in China. China’s national education policies for migrant children are still dominated by authoritative normative constraints, with insufficient understanding of mobilizing social forces to participate in system construction and lack of positive incentives. In fact, education equity for migrant children is not only an education issue, but also a social issue affecting the development of new urbanization and equal access to basic public services. To promote migrant children’s equal right to education, the government not only needs to provide more and better basic education public services, but also needs schools, parents, and all sectors of society to jointly create an inclusive education environment, so that migrant children who leave their homes and migrate with their parents can better integrate into school and social life. Therefore, education policies can mobilize the whole society to pay attention to the education of migrant children, understand the relevant national education policies, so as to consciously and actively implement policies and measures, and use policy incentives to gather the common forces of multiple subjects to jointly promote the education equity of migrant children and improve the long-term benefits of policies. Secondly, China’s policies have basically established the school status system and education fund allocation mechanism based on the residence permit, and gradually improved the entrance examination system that is not restricted by the household registration system, which plays a crucial role in supporting and supervising the education process of floating children. However, it plays a crucial role in promoting the social adaptation of floating children. The current policy text stays at the level of simply advocating the strengthening of family education, with low influence in practical application. And migration has regional differences, the scale of the floating children is also different in each region, policies are mentioned in the text, megacities can adjust measures to local conditions, combined with the actual situation to make relevant policy measures, but in real life, some local governments on the local flow of the education demand insufficient understanding of children, there is an obvious underestimated phenomenon.

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For example, the Shanghai municipal education commission published in 2010, the city has 400,000 floating children, but according to the sixth census data to estimate, children attended school in 2010 and primary and middle schools in Shanghai has reached 800,000 people, the central leading policy direction at the same time, each region-specific situation is different, it shall timely research local data, thus more reasonable allocation of education resources. In addition, China’s education policy system for migrant children is realized by detailing all links in the education process and focusing on ensuring compulsory education in the education stage. National population census data can be found, however, before the floating children school education, compulsory education and higher education enrollment and dropout rate was different, and when the floating children receive compulsory education, the proportion of the corresponding, preschool education and higher education enrollment rate is low, with high dropout rate, in order to the long-term development of the national education career. Promoting migrant children’s access to preschool and higher education, as well as vocational education, can effectively improve the quality of the labor force. Gender is also an important factor affecting the education of migrant children. Data show that male students show stronger preference when they should receive education. After completing compulsory education, female students are more likely to go out to work than male students. Therefore, the government should pay attention to the equal right of girls to education among migrant children. Finally, the problem of floating children’s education needs to be solved, although there is need to centralize and define the governments actual situation, by actively building floating children education service supervision mechanism and performance evaluation mechanism, strengthening the linkage cooperation department, measures simultaneously, but for the long-term plan, to develop the economy, promote education fairly, reduce the level of urban and rural education, and the education gap is the fundamental resource input. It is also the key for migrant children’s education to promote urban-rural integration and new urbanization development. Migrant children arise from the imbalance between urban and rural economy and education, and the root cause of migrant children’s education is that rural education cannot meet the needs of children’s development (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Fan et al., 2009; Lei, 2005; Liu & Guo, 2020; Lu & Wang, 2017; Xie, 2012; Yuan et al., 2010; Zhou & Rong, 2011).

1.2.4 Data Analysis and Result Collation From the overall perspective, according to statistics, in 2015, the urbanization rate of China’s permanent resident population was 56.1%, and the students studying in compulsory education in urban schools accounted for 73.8% of the total. The number of children of rural migrant workers receiving compulsory education reached 13.671,000, and more than 80% of them attended public schools. In addition, local governments purchased 831,000 private compulsory education degrees. A total of 20.192 million rural left-behind children received compulsory education, accounting

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for 14.4% of the total number of students, with more than 80% of them concentrated in the central and western regions. The retention rate of nine-year compulsory education reached 93%; 2.2% points higher than in 2009. Up to now, 1,314 counties (countylevel cities and districts), accounting for nearly 50% of the total, have been assessed as having a basic balance in compulsory education. Due to the national family planning policy, the urbanization process and the low quality of rural education, the number of rural schools and students are decreasing year by year, and compulsory education is not coordinated with the development of urbanization, resulting in the phenomenon of “weak villages and crowded cities.” It is also urgent to strengthen the work in the areas of migrant children, left-behind children, dropout control, and education guarantee. At the end of 2015, the State Council issued the Notice on Further Improving the Guarantee Mechanism for Urban and Rural Compulsory Education (the Notice for short). In the first half of 2016, opinions of the State Council on Strengthening The Care and Protection of Left-behind Children in Rural Areas and Opinions of the State Council on Promoting the Integrated Reform and Development of Urban and Rural Compulsory Education at County level (Hereinafter referred to as Opinions) were issued, respectively. For perfect compulsory education funds safeguard mechanism and unbalanced urban and rural education, rural education quality is not high, we need to do a good job in rural small schools (school), the flow of left-behind children education put forward a series of reform measures for the protection of love, as a whole to promote the county in the integration of urban and rural compulsory education reform and development, and promote solving the problem of weak “village, town.” Then the content of the floating children policy is analyzed in detail. Policy as a whole can be divided into three levels, further horizontal analysis: economic level (including the redistribution of education resources and the allocation of compulsory education expenditure level and tilt), education level (for floating children special education status particularity focuses), life level (guarantee on poor migrant children have school, ensure the legitimacy of the floating children school, justification). Based on November 25, 2015, the State Council issued by the “about further perfecting the urban and rural compulsory education funds safeguard mechanism” circular (guo fa [2015] no. 67), the integration of rural compulsory education funds safeguard mechanism and city compulsory education policy, on the basis of establishing a unified urban and rural areas, focus on rural compulsory education funds safeguard mechanism, starting from the spring semester of 2016, we will unify the benchmark quota of public funds per student in urban and rural compulsory education schools. Starting from the spring semester of 2017, students receiving compulsory education in urban and rural areas will be exempted from paying two tuition fees and receive one subsidy. Establishing a mechanism for ensuring funding for compulsory education that integrates urban and rural areas, especially rural areas, is a major measure to improve the integrated system and mechanism of urban and rural development in the field of education. Through the implementation of the policy, 143 million urban and rural students receiving compulsory education received free textbooks, 13.77 million urban and rural boarding students from poor families received living allowances, and about 14 million children of rural migrant workers living with their parents in cities were exempted from paying two tuition fees and receiving one subsidy, as well as

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the basic quota of public funds per student. Funding for the mechanism for guaranteeing urban and rural compulsory education will be shared by the central and local governments on a proportional basis. Funds from the central government are directly distributed to provincial-level governments and used by provincial-level governments in combination with local financial resources. Since the implementation of the mechanism, local governments have attached great importance to it, carefully organized it, and taken active actions. In 2016, all 31 provinces issued their own implementation plans. In terms of implementation, local governments have further strengthened the responsibility for coordinating compulsory education funds at the provincial level, strengthened the system of managing compulsory education funds at the provincial level, and at the county level, made clear the proportion of funds shared by governments at and below the provincial level, and increased the preference for poor areas and weak links. Fujian, Jiangxi, Henan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan and other provinces have further increased provincial financial input in old revolutionary base areas, ethnic minority areas, and contiguous areas with extreme poverty. The funds that should be shared by local governments at all levels are mainly borne by provincial financial departments (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Lu & Wang, 2017; Yuan et al., 2010). On the one hand, attention should be paid to the level of enrollment rate to ensure that floating children do not drop out of school and can go to school. For primary school students, in July 2016, the State Council about the plan as a whole to promote the county within the several opinions of the reform and development of the integration of urban and rural compulsory education, made clear that the county education administrative department of information management system of small and mediumsized students’ status files depends on the country to establish control of learning dynamic monitoring mechanism, strengthen the rural, remote, impoverished, national key areas, such as Middle school and other key sections, as well as migrant left-behind children, poor children, and other key groups of monitoring. Schools of compulsory education shall step up efforts to help students with learning difficulties and implement systems of persuading, registering, and reporting students who have dropped out of school to return to school. Residents’ and villagers’ committees should assist the government in controlling dropout rates and ensuring school attendance. Local governments should increase social assistance and educational aid for students from poor families, and give priority to students from registered poor families. We will carry out a plan to improve the nutrition of rural students receiving compulsory education, improve the quality of nutritious diets, and improve the nutritional status of students. We will ensure that school-age children in rural areas do not drop out of school because of inconvenient schooling by ensuring nearby schools, building boarding schools in towns and townships, expanding public transport routes, and providing school bus services. In view of the actual situation of disabled children in rural areas, the government ensures that disabled children in rural areas have equal rights to receive compulsory education. We will improve the policy on student aid, continue to expand the number of students enrolled in the special program for targeted enrollment from poor areas, ensure that channels for students from

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poor families to enter higher education are open, and give students from poor families more confidence in entering higher education. Civil affairs departments should include eligible migrant left-behind children with special difficulties and children from families with financial difficulties in the scope of social assistance policies and fulfill the responsibility of ensuring those in need. The whole concern is not limited to the compulsory education stage, but also involves the kindergarten stage. In April 2017, four departments jointly issued by the Ministry of Education on the implementation of the third phase of the opinions of the preschool education action plan, clearly put forward the three years to 2020 the national preschool MAO RuYuanLv reached 85%, general kindergarten coverage reached 80%, built a broad basic, fundamental, quality preschool education public service system of the target. In 2010, the State Council issued “Several Opinions on the Current Development of Preschool Education” (Guo Fa [2010] No. 41) clearly requires that all localities should reasonably determine the ratio of students to teachers based on local conditions, check and approve the staffing of public kindergartens, and gradually complete the staffing of kindergartens. According to the hierarchical management system of institutional staffing in public institutions, the staffing of teachers in public kindergartens shall be determined by the administrative departments of institutional staffing at all levels according to procedures. Considering the different development levels and preschool education needs, the development of preschool education in different regions should not only conform to the local reality, but also adapt to the current financial level as far as possible. Therefore, the central institution establishment department does not uniformly approve the kindergarten teaching staff establishment. Provinces (regions and cities) can formulate specific standards and management measures suitable for local conditions according to actual work needs and in accordance with the spirit of Kindergarten Staff Staffing Standards (Teachers [2013] No. 1). At present, 15 provinces have issued standards for the staffing of public kindergartens. But from the practice in recent years, under the background of insufficient local financial investment and total staffing control, many places fail to check and ratify the staffing of kindergarten teachers according to the actual needs. In some places, even if staffing standards have been established, they have not been implemented. The staffing of public kindergartens has become an important factor restricting the development of preschool education. According to the Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of Teacher Team Construction in the New Era, where conditions permit, local governments will issue staffing standards for public kindergartens. In order to thoroughly implement the spirit of the Fourth Document of the CPC Central Committee, the Ministry of Education is working closely with the Central Government Organization office, the Ministry of Finance, and other departments to actively study specific measures to strengthen the construction of kindergarten teachers and promote the promulgation of the staffing standards for public kindergartens. In terms of education, we also pay attention to the quality of education for migrant children, so as to ensure that they not only have access to education, but also the quality of teaching. According to the Letter of the Ministry of Education on The Reply

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to Proposal No. 0124 (Education No. 026) of the Fourth Session of the 12th National Committee of the CPPCC, it states that: We will further strengthen the responsibility of local governments, include compulsory education in urban development plans and financial support for children living with them, establish an enrollment policy for children living with them based mainly on residence permits, and effectively simplify and optimize the enrollment process and certification requirements for children living with them. Promote the “two exemption and one subsidy” funds and students per capita public funds benchmark fixed funds that can be carried with the students. We will stick to public schools as the main arrangement for their children to go to school, and those whose degrees are insufficient in public schools can be arranged to study in inclusive private schools through government purchase of services. We will establish a work system for the care and protection of left-behind children in rural areas in which families, the government, and schools fulfill their duties and social forces actively participate. We will strengthen the primary responsibility of family guardianship, encourage school-age children whose parents have obtained residence permits to follow their parents to the nearest schools where they work, and urge parents of migrant workers to fulfill their guardianship duties and support obligations in accordance with the law. We will establish a dynamic monitoring mechanism for preventing dropout rates and ensuring school attendance, and strengthen monitoring of key areas, school segments, and groups such as rural areas, remote areas, poor areas, ethnic minority areas, middle schools, migrant left-behind children, and poor children from families. Primary and secondary schools shall implement a system of persuasion, registration, and written reporting for dropouts. If persuasion fails, a written report shall be made to the administrative department of education at the county level and the people’s governments of the towns and townships, and measures shall be taken to persuade dropouts to return to school. In terms of living allowance, it is “open source” and “cut-off.” On the one hand, it is to promote schools to provide after-school services and strengthen local care services and support for floating population. In 2017, The General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the Guiding Opinions on Doing a Good Job in After-school Services for Primary and Secondary School Students and in 2018, The General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Standardizing the Development of After-school Training Institutions, both requiring explicit provisions on improving after-school service guarantee mechanism. Give students the option to make up their lessons, rather than having to make it mandatory. In 2003, The General Office of the State Council forwarded the Notice of Opinions on Further Improving the Compulsory Education Work for The Children of Rural Migrant workers employed in Cities issued by the Ministry of Education and other departments, requiring the strengthening of support and management of schools run by social forces that mainly accept the children of rural migrant workers employed in cities. For example, Beijing has carried out in-depth investigation and cleaning up of schools for children who have not been approved, and has approved the establishment of private schools for those who basically meet the setting standards to help them improve their schooling conditions. Schools that do not meet the basic requirements for running schools and have all kinds of hidden dangers will be

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cleaned up, and students will be properly settled to ensure a smooth and orderly operation. During the 11th Five-Year Plan period, Shanghai approved 158 private primary schools that mainly enrolled children of migrant workers, and closed more than 100 simple schools that were no longer needed or whose operating conditions did not meet basic requirements. At the same time for approval to give priority to in order to recruit children trailing run by the local primary school, the municipal government for the reform of educational facilities, and in accordance with the basic costs of running every year, subsidy funds, and increase year by year in non-government education management of non-government trailing support children elementary school, in 2016 for such subsidies standards of school cost them 6000 yuan. On the other hand, a certain degree of subsidies will be given to students who have difficulties in living. From 2008 to 2015, the central government set up a special award and subsidy fund for children living with their parents, allocating a total of 45.47 billion yuan to support local governments in providing compulsory education for children living with their parents. In 2015, the State Council issued the Notice on Further Improving the Funding Guarantee Mechanism for Compulsory Education in Urban and Rural Areas, establishing a funding guarantee mechanism for compulsory education that integrates urban and rural areas and focuses on rural areas. All children who move with them to public and private schools will be exempted from compulsory education and receive subsidies for their children’s education, so that the two exemptions and one subsidy and the benchmark quota of public funds per student can be carried with students as they move, thus effectively encouraging children who move with them to study in their destination cities. People’s governments at the provincial level should give full play to their overall planning role, formulate practical implementation plans and funding sharing methods among governments at and below the provincial level, improve the transfer payment system at and below the provincial level, and increase support to areas in difficulty within their own administrative regions. In 2017, the central government allocated 117 billion yuan for the mechanism to ensure funding for urban and rural compulsory education, an increase of 6.4% over 2016. Of this, public funds for primary and secondary schools totaled 75.48 billion yuan, an increase of 1.5% over 2016 (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Xie, 2012; Yuan et al., 2010; Lu & Wang, 2017).

1.3 Challenges and Problems of Migrant Children in Practice In recent years, with the transformation of China’s population flow mode, the number of floating children in cities increases rapidly. As a special population group in the society, they are highly concerned by the society. In particular, the compulsory education of migrant children has become a hot issue concerned by all sectors of society. Although local governments in China have also introduced a series of policies and measures to help them complete their compulsory education, they still face some problems.

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1.3.1 Definition of Migrant Children (“Floating Children”) According to the Interim Measures for Migrant Children and Adolescents schooling issued by the State Education Commission and the Ministry of Public Security in 1998, the so-called migrant children refer to “children and adolescents aged 6–14 (or 7–15) who live with their parents or other guardians temporarily for more than half a year and have the ability to learn.” Migrant children are also divided into two types: one is born in the place of household registration, because their parents work in the city and take them out of their hometown to live with them. The other are those who were born in cities where their parents work and have lived in cities all their lives. “Urban floating children” is referred to as “floating children”: when migrant workers work in cities, they take their children of compulsory education out of their hometown to live with them in their own cities where they work. They are characterized by lower parental income; Come from the countryside and live and go to school in the city; Registered permanent residence in rural areas. The rural population; Belong to the compulsory education stage age.

1.3.2 Causes of Migrant Children Existence The institutional reason that causes the education problem of migrant workers’ children to be difficult to solve is due to the defects of the current system. This “dual” system of urban and rural areas cannot be solved so far, which makes it difficult for migrant workers to enjoy the public services of the urban government. From the current national system, there is no reasonable system for rural labor to move to the city, which makes it difficult for migrant workers to settle down in the city, resulting in a large number of migrant workers working in the city, belonging to the countryside “urban and rural amphibious, back and forth” type of labor force. Compared with other countries, in terms of mobility and transfer, China implements the policy of separation of mobility and transfer. Due to the household registration and residence problems of migrant workers, migrant children come into being. Improving family life is the main reason why farmers leave the land to work in the cities. They not only want their families to live in better conditions, but also want to provide better financial support for the growth of the next generation. However, due to the institutional barriers of the urban government, when there is conflict between schooling and education for their children, they often choose to give up their children to go to school with their parents in the city, and “stay behind” their children to receive school education in the countryside under the care of their grandparents. However, they are mostly busy with farm work and “generational separation.”

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1.3.3 Social Integration in the Places of Entry is Poor The study found that the social integration degree of migrant children is significantly lower than that of other children. From the perspective of specific dimensions: First, migrant children are obviously weaker than other children in terms of family integration and education integration, which is embodied in family life atmosphere, communication frequency with parents, school learning atmosphere, peer communication status, and their own academic pursuit; Second, the scores of migrant children in cultural rules integration and social interaction integration are lower than other children, but there is no significant difference, indicating that the migrant children involved in the survey can basically abide by the traffic rules of the new city, the school discipline code, etc. Third, the floating children’s psychology scored slightly higher than the other children, that is different from this study’s preliminary assumption, but with existing research “floating children and normal children’s self-consciousness of no significant difference” point of view, may be affected by environment, children with more flow experience in terms of mental toughness is better. Based on data from the China Education Tracking Survey for the 2014–2015 academic year, the study found that migrant children’s social adjustment was average. Among them, psychological adaptation is better than social cultural adaptation; The social adaptation of “city-city” floating children is better than that of “rural-city” floating children. From the perspective of residential location, compared with the suburbs, living in the central and marginal urban areas has a greater role in promoting the social adaptation of migrant children; From the perspective of living environment, the higher the quality of housing and community, the more conducive for migrant children to adapt to urban life; From the perspective of the population composition of living space, the migrant children who live with their parents and live in the community of floating population have better social adaptation. In addition, the study also found that there were group differences in the impact of living space on migrant children’s social adaptation. Compared with “city-city” migrant children, the impact of residential space on the social adaptation of “rural-city” migrant children is greater; Compared with migrant children who do not live with their parents, residential space has a greater impact on the social adjustment of migrant children living with their parents. With the reform of housing system, the social inequality caused by the spatial differentiation of housing begins to appear, especially the rising housing price. As an important way of wealth accumulation, housing resources will affect the access of residents’ children to housing resources, which leads to the worsening of housing inequality in the transmission of generations. Migrant children’s occupation of living space resources largely depends on their parents’ accumulation of resources. However, due to the restrictions of the household registration system, the living environment of the floating population (especially the “rural–urban” floating population) is generally worse than that of the local people. This disadvantage of living space may be passed on to migrant children.

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1.3.4 Absence of Family Care and Supervision Family is the most familiar support for migrant children to enter the local cities and the guarantee for the establishment of “three views.” Family education is universal education with a purpose. From the children’s life and growth of all aspects of the penetration of children’s comprehensive development. The goal is to nurture habits that will last a lifetime. Family education mode is the core point of parents’ family education. Driven by national policies and social capital, the olive branch of all walks of life makes many rural laborers force themselves into cities. Urban functions gather high-quality resources such as medical care, education, and other infrastructure, attracting more and more floating population to choose to work and settle down in cities for a long time. One out of every six people in our country must be on the move. With the development of economy, the floating population will bring their partners and children to the floating place, and family companionship will be formed. In this state, they are full of troubles and doubts in family education. The floating population itself is faced with great pressure from life and work, and does not have much free time to pay attention to the growth of children; On the other hand, the educational level of parents in floating population families is generally not high, they lack specific and clear understanding of children’s education problems, and they know little about the methods of children’s education, so there are many difficulties in educating their children. The interruption of socialization, the change of social material conditions, and the lack of social relationship network that the floating families face all have a great impact on the educational methods that the floating parents choose in family education. In addition, migrant parents do not receive much education, and they lack the democratic and equal attitude and appropriate means to educate their children. As their children grow into different psychological periods, they cannot change their education methods, and often have communication problems with their children. Due to the lack of necessary communication between children and their parents in floating families, children distrust their parents. Inner lack of security, parent’s bad mentality, will also affect children. Zhao Juan put forward urban floating population education into practice, because of the limitation of the household registration, if floating children want to enjoy in the city the same education conditions as urban children, the parents have to pay more economic price, the floating children family’s economic pressure surges, parents face increased pressure to survive, must want to hard work, and then neglect the children’s family education, forming a bad cycle (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Fan et al., 2009; Lei, 2005; Liu & Guo, 2020; Lu & Wang, 2017; Xie, 2012; Yuan et al., 2010; Zhou & Rong, 2011).

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1.3.5 Migrant Children Generally Suffer from Poor Physical and Mental Health Migrant children’s parents are mostly workers and traders, and it is inevitably difficult to establish a foothold in the city, which cannot provide a superior learning and living environment for migrant children. The state has issued several policies to ensure the healthy growth of migrant children, but the progress of implementing these policies is not always satisfactory. When many migrant children have psychological problems, they lack timely guidance from professional social organizations or schools, and there are few relevant institutions and supporting organizations. Many parents have no relevant information sources and no way to seek help. Some urban schools discriminate against migrant children, believing that they have poor foundation and bad behavior, and are unwilling to accept migrant children for fear of affecting the enrollment rate. In the new era, the educational level of migrant children’s parents has been improved, but due to the pressure of urban life and busy work, there are still many blind spots in their children’s education. Many parents do not have the basic skills and knowledge to communicate with children, less daily communication with children, cannot timely understand the psychological status of children, and cannot think; The learning requirements are too high, only the score theory, only the learning theory, when the child’s academic performance drops, will be blamed; When the child faces weariness, fun and other bad behavior is blamed, not scientific correction. Some parents, because of great pressure in life, even take their children as punching bags. If the children are slightly disobedient or behave badly, they are beaten and abused. These have exacerbated the psychological problems of migrant children and are not conducive to their growth.

1.4 Problems Faced by Urban Migrant Children in Compulsory Education 1.4.1 It Is Difficult to Formulate and Implement Government Policies The Party and the government have formulated relevant policies for the compulsory education of migrant workers’ children, bringing hope for providing and greatly helping migrant workers’ children’s education. In the opinions issued in 2003, the government of the destination is the main one. However, the implementation of these policies is fraught with difficulties. For example, China’s current Compulsory Education Law stipulates that local governments are responsible for hierarchical management of compulsory education. The government of the place where the school-age children receive compulsory education is mainly responsible for allocating funds

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according to the number of registered students, which leads to school-age children leaving the place where they have registered. The local government would not be responsible for their education. In order to guarantee the compulsory education of these floating children, the government has issued a policy of “focusing on the floating children,” but the floating children in the floating areas belong to the “permanent population” rather than the “registered population,” which makes the floating government lack of education funds to solve this problem. The policy of shirking responsibility between departments cannot be well implemented.

1.4.2 Insufficient Financial Investment in Education The essence of cultivating talents is to invest in the economy of education. Now the city government allocates education funds based on the number of children enrolled in school. This creates a practical problem: if local schools enroll migrant children, they will have to pay for the school themselves. The large number of migrant children is undoubtedly a huge expenditure, which brings great economic pressure to the basic education in the destination. As a result, public schools have to charge migrant children high fees to maintain education, which shifts the financial burden onto migrant workers.

1.4.3 There Are Deficiencies in the Way of Schooling for Migrant Children First of all, it is difficult to attend public schools. In some destination governments, due to financial problems, they are unwilling to accept migrant children to study in public schools. In addition, the cost of studying in public schools is high, and the borrowing conditions are high. This brings economic burden to migrant worker families with low-income levels. Second, migrant schools are poor. These schools lack financial support from the state, resulting in inadequate teaching facilities, poor running conditions, weak teaching staff, and lack of teaching equipment, which directly affect the quality of teaching. Plus, there’s no legal status. Although the low cost of schooling meets the needs of most migrant children, the situation of schools is worrying.

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1.4.4 The Health and Safety of Migrant Children Deserves Attention Migrant workers have low income, harsh and complex living conditions, and most of them live in remote places, which may cause some personal safety risks. For migrant children in such an environment, they can take care of themselves in general, but they are easy to be cheated because of their immature psychology and poor awareness of prevention. According to statistics from the Ministry of Public Security, migrant children top the list of abducted children. Their safety needs the common concern of the society. In terms of the external system, the institutional barrier for migrant children to receive education in the destination has always existed, which has expanded from the initial stage of compulsory education to the stage of pre-compulsory education and post-compulsory education. Before the decision of the State Council on The Reform and Development of Basic Education in 2001 established the policy of “two priorities” for migrant children’s education, many schools would charge varying amounts of tuition fees for migrant children. He Ling and Li Bing (2007) sorted out the borrowing fees of Beijing, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and other cities. Taking Beijing as an example, before 2002, the average borrowing fees of primary school students in Beijing were 1200 yuan per semester, and that of junior high school students was 2000 yuan per semester. The central and local governments have yet to reach an agreement on providing equal public services to migrants and their families. Although many public schools have been opened for migrant children, a considerable proportion of migrant children are still enrolled in migrant schools with poor educational conditions and weak teaching staff. Feng Shuaizhang and Chen Yuanyuan conducted a questionnaire survey in Shanghai that controlled the endogeneity of school choice and still found that the academic performance of migrant children in migrant schools was significantly worse than that of migrant children in public schools. Existing policies and measures mostly focus on the school-age stage of compulsory education for migrant children, but not enough attention is paid to preschool and older migrant children. Lei Wanpeng and Yang Fan, based on their investigation and research in Wuhan, found that the educational needs of migrant children were undergoing structural transformation, from the initial equality of enrollment to the equality of education process and the expansion of the equality of post-compulsory education opportunities. However, the realistic education system could hardly meet the needs of migrant children’s transformation.

1.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Challenges and Problems Since modern China, with the development of economy, more and more people began to leave their hometown and work in cities. Some of the children of these people stay in their hometown and become left-behind children, and some of them come to

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the city with their parents and become migrant children. Because of the policy, such as the Beijing school-age children to a city census register school-age children or adolescents how entrance requirement is “in accordance with the district of the city census register school-age children or adolescents receive the compulsory education materials, the detailed rules for the implementation, by parents hold him in Beijing workers employment material, actual residence to live in Beijing, the whole family booklet of registered residence, the residence permit in Beijing, Go to the sub-district office where you live or the people’s government of the town to participate in the admission qualification examination, after passing the admission procedures.” As a matter of fact, migrant workers often live in remote areas with few good schools, which determines that their children cannot receive equal education with local children if they follow the principle of nearby schools. Therefore, corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are needed to improve this situation. In view of the above challenges, I propose the following four suggestions: From the perspective of local governments, schools can be set up in areas where there are many migrant children and excellent teachers can be attracted so that migrant children can enjoy quality education; From the perspective of policy, the government may formulate policies on both sides of the floating population, on the one hand limit of the floating population to bring their children to the city, in order to alleviate the pressure of the city education, on the other hand corresponding policy can be made in the hometown of the floating population, such as the unified management of the floating children, in the boarding school education, but also to introduce excellent teachers; From the perspective of families, families of floating population are encouraged to send their children to their hometowns for education, so as to relieve the pressure on the places where the population flows in. At the same time, local governments are given certain preferential policies, such as priority in school admission, reduction of tuition and miscellaneous fees, and granting subsidies. From the perspective of science and technology, with the development of online courses, educational resources on the Internet are greatly enriched. One measure is that teachers from famous universities give lectures to students in remote schools through online courses; the other is that teachers from famous universities provide Q&A for students. This measure can also promote educational equity (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Lei, 2005; Xie, 2012; Yuan et al., 2010; Lu & Wang, 2017).

1.5.1 Local Government: Set Up Schools Due to the national family planning policy, the urbanization process and the low quality of rural education, the number of rural schools and students are decreasing year by year, and compulsory education is not coordinated with the development of urbanization, resulting in the phenomenon of “weak villages and crowded cities.” It is also urgent to strengthen the work in the areas of migrant children, left-behind children, dropout control, and education guarantee. The measures of setting up schools in the receiving places of migrant children can effectively relieve the pressure of

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education in the receiving places. We will set up schools in places with dense floating population, so that floating children can attend schools nearby and attract excellent teachers to teach, so that floating children can enjoy equal education. There are three main difficulties in the implementation of this measure: first, the establishment of schools will increase financial expenditure, bringing pressure to the local finance; Second, it is difficult to ensure the enrollment of students even if schools are set up, because families tend to send their children to schools with better education rather than enjoy the convenience provided by nearby schools. Third, teachers are paid better in good schools than in bad ones, so good teachers are reluctant to teach in new schools. This can be done in the following ways: local governments can determine whether to establish schools for migrant children according to their own financial resources. Teachers from good local schools can adopt the post rotation system, and teachers from good schools can teach in schools on a regular basis. In this way, good educational resources can be shared among regions, the education gap can be narrowed, and educational equity can be promoted. We will strengthen the weak links in rural education and ensure that the national curriculum is well-developed by pairing urban and rural areas and providing integrated education, strengthening exchanges between principals and teachers on job rotation and training for rural teachers, sharing high-quality resources through information technology, and making enrollment quota for high-quality senior high schools more favorable to rural junior high schools. Give teachers certain preferential policies, such as granting allowances to attract teachers to teach in new schools. The creation of a new school is not only about hardware, but also about software. Teachers are one of them, and school management is the other. It is suggested to establish a reasonable management system for migrant children. For example, boarding system is adopted in schools for floating children. On the one hand, it is convenient for management. On the other hand, parents in families of floating children often work abroad and do not have much time to accompany their children, so schools should play a role of companionship. We will promote standardized development of compulsory education schools in urban and rural areas in a scientific way and run boarding schools well. We will promote standardized development of schools in a scientific way and improve standards for boarding schools and small-scale rural schools. By 2020, it was said that notable progress will have been made in standardizing rural primary and junior high schools, or nine-year schools and boarding schools, and small-scale rural schools (teaching centers) will meet corresponding requirements,. If children are in school for a short time and the family does not have the necessary time to accompany, the child’s educational effect will be greatly reduced. Schools can let teachers act as parents, giving students homework help and life guidance in addition to teaching courses. Such measures can make up for the lack of family education for migrant children, so that migrant children can enjoy better education (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Fan et al., 2009; Lei, 2005; Liu & Guo, 2020; Lu & Wang, 2017; Xie, 2012; Yuan et al., 2010; Zhou & Rong, 2011).

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1.5.2 Policy Perspective: Limit the Generation of Migrant Children and Solve Education Problems at Home Apart from leaving their children in their hometown: (1) Although children come to the city with their parents to receive education in the city, due to factors such as the place of residence, it is difficult for children to go to good schools, but they receive education in ordinary schools, which is not completely in line with the original intention of bringing children to the city to receive better education; In terms of population acceptance, floating population has both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, the influx of people will boost local development. The inflow of floating population will bring abundant labor force and purchasing power, which is conducive to economic development. Migrant children can promote local education demand, which in turn promotes the development of local education. On the negative side, although migrant children will promote the development of local education, they will also bring pressure to local education and compete with local children for admission opportunities, which is not conducive to the fairness of education. According to this situation, as floating children will bring pressure to the destination of population, relevant policies can be formulated to restrict floating population from bringing their children to cities. In order for their children to receive good education, many parents choose to work in cities. This kind of migration is purposeful. In order to limit migration, restrictions can be imposed: children who have worked in cities for more than three years can be brought to the city for education. In this way, short-term migrant workers will not occupy local education resources, and it can limit the number of people who migrate to cities in search of a good education. What the policy does not limit is people who have worked in cities for many years. The advantage of this policy is that migrant children can also enjoy excellent education, and it can relieve the pressure on local education. Article 6 of the Admission Notice for Ordinary Primary and Secondary Schools issued by the Ministry of Education in 2019 clearly states: “Places that implement the points system for children living with them should set up points conditions reasonably to ensure that children living with them who meet the basic requirements of the Interim Regulations on Residence Permits can be admitted to all places. Public schools providing compulsory education in places of residence should be open to eligible children living with them, and the children should not be concentrated in a few schools.” This policy is a good solution to the problem that children of floating population cannot enjoy high-quality education in cities (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Fan et al., 2009; Lei, 2005; Liu & Guo, 2020; Lu & Wang, 2017; Xie, 2012; Yuan et al., 2010; Zhou & Rong, 2011). Admittedly, such measures can reduce the pressure on the government, but they do not solve the root of the problem. For trailing children, the responsibilities of the government should further be strengthened, trailing their children’s compulsory

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education should be brought into the scope of urban development planning and financial security, establish a residence permit as the main basis of trailing their children to school policy, at the same time we need to simplify the process and optimize that the trailing children enter a school with a certificate required, only in this way, you truly think of floating population. However, restricting the inflow of population alone cannot fundamentally solve the problem. If only restricting the inflow of population, such measures are not conducive to educational equity. In order to solve this problem, local schools can be set up for the children who stay, and excellent teachers can be introduced to the management of boarding system. On the one hand, teachers should teach, on the other hand, they should act as parents and provide all-round care for the children. By improving education at both ends of the floating population, the financial input of the population can be reduced, and the hometown also shares part of the pressure. This can not only promote the development of education in the hometown, but also help alleviate the current situation that the floating population’s children are not around and cannot provide good family education. Home education is replaced by school. Although the effect is not guaranteed to be absolutely ideal, it can relieve parents’ anxiety about not being able to communicate with their children during foreign work hours. In addition to schools, the government should also take corresponding measures to manage left-behind children in their hometowns and ensure that they receive education. “We will establish a dynamic monitoring mechanism for preventing dropout rates and ensuring school attendance, and strengthen monitoring of key areas, key school segments and key groups such as rural areas, remote areas, poor areas, ethnic minority areas, middle schools, migrant left-behind children and poor children from families. Primary and secondary schools shall implement a system of persuasion, registration and written reporting for dropouts. If persuasion fails, a written report shall be made to the administrative department of education at the county level and the people’s governments of the towns and townships, and measures shall be taken to persuade dropouts to return to school.” The government should take such compulsory measures to ensure that children who receive education in their hometown can fulfill their education obligation.

1.5.3 From the Perspective of Family: Choose Wisely and Do Not Cause Trouble to the Government In fact, for every family, the original intention for migrant children must be to pursue a better education platform. They do not want their children to receive backward education in their hometown, so they choose to bring their children to the city to study. For parents to bring children to the city will increase the pressure to survive, survival pressure comes from the daily life of children, education, and other expenses, at the same time because the children coming to the city will also associate many problems, mainly children’s education problems, such as home address will influence school choice and often parents working can’t take care of children. Therefore,

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it will also bring the problem of lack of family education, whether children will have a sense of inferiority in school due to family reasons and other problems. So, it is not easy to bring your children to the city for education. But at the same time, if the child is left in the care of his grandparents in his hometown, there will be a lot of other problems. Due to the lack of family education and parents’ company, children will have many problems in their growth. For a family, both options have advantages and disadvantages, for example, in the case of the government, to stay at home will be smaller than the difficulties brought about by the move to the city: (1) if the children moved to the city, from the household registration, student status, and then to the allocation of education resources, it is a complex procedure, (2) it is trailing their children’s education resource allocation which may lead to social inequality problems; If they stay in their hometown to receive education, these children themselves are the students in the local education system plan, and there is no problem of student pressure. The only problem may be the education of left-behind children. So keeping the children at home is the best solution for the government and the families. To encourage children to stay in their hometown for education, local governments can take relevant measures, such as granting subsidies to families of left-behind children to attract floating population to stay in their hometown for education by means of subsidies. At the same time, some convenient conditions are provided for children’s enrollment. For example, they can have the right to choose schools without affecting other students’ normal enrollment. Tuition and miscellaneous fees, accommodation fees, etc., can be exempted in the school. Of course, this does not mean that migrants are completely restricted from bringing their children to cities. If the parents have worked in the city for many years and are familiar with the city life, they can also bring their children to live in the city, which will bring less difficulties to the families. For the government, if there are fewer students moving in, it will not bring much pressure, and it can also boost the local economy.

1.5.4 Science and Technology: Modern Technology Helps Share Educational Resources As far as the current situation is concerned, there is a certain gap between migrant children receiving education in urban schools and teachers in local schools with good education. This gap cannot be changed temporarily. Policy alone cannot solve the problem of promoting education equity so that migrant children can receive the same education as good schools. But with the development of science and technology, the rise of online courses, now there are conditions to use online courses to realize the sharing of educational resources. In more remote schools in the city, where teachers are not as good as local schools, online classes can be offered by teachers from good schools to teach students from other schools. To be specific, remote schools can have some courses taught by teachers from good schools through Internet connection, or teachers can record online courses as educational resources for students’ reference

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after class. Another way is that for good schools, each teacher can be responsible for several students in remote schools to answer questions after class, so that students can have the same after-class tutoring as students in well-educated schools, and at the same time, teachers in good schools will not bring a lot of teaching pressure. This is not only true for the places where the floating population flows in, but also for the places where the floating population flows out when the economy is backward. They can also adopt this approach to promote the development of local education and realize the sharing of educational resources. Schools can share educational resources from good local schools through online courses, thus realizing the development of education. “Using information technology to deliver quality educational resources. We will focus on improving the ability of rural teachers to use information technology and provide free access to the national basic education resource platform, so as to drive reform of education concepts and model innovation, and effectively improve the quality of education. In 2017, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the Guiding Opinions on Doing a Good job in After-school Services for Primary and Secondary School Students, requiring primary and secondary schools to universally provide after-school services. In 2018, issued by The General Office of the State Council ‘about specification off-campus training organization’s opinions on development, to perfect the service safeguard mechanism after class specific provision’: around the fiscal subsidies, charge service fees or collection charges and other way to raise money, and to participate in after-school teachers give appropriate subsidies in accordance with the relevant regulations. It is up to students and their parents to choose whether to attend after-school services.” Now (2019) the national total of more than 20 municipalities directly under the central government, provincial capitals and cities under separate state planning issued by the local primary and secondary school students after-school service work of the concrete implementation opinion, Beijing, Tianjin, Jinan, Qingdao, Shenyang, Changchun, Wuhan, and other cities have been basically realizing a complete coverage of urban primary school class service, 24 cities, i.e., nearly seventy percent of elementary schools to carry out the overall service after class. All 31 provinces and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps announced special work plans for off-campus training institutions, and identified 128,418 such institutions, 12,251 of which have been rectified. We surveyed 85,250 primary and secondary schools and reformed 272. As can be seen from the above measures and relevant data of local governments, the governments of major cities are fully promoting after-school services for students, which is conducive to education equity in big cities. As the main source of population inflow, these cities should take the lead in establishing an equitable education system. Only by doing a good job of education equity in the floating population inflow areas can the floating children receive education better. However, the development of after-school services is not only needed in big cities, but small cities also need to carry out after-school services and reform, so that the hometown of floating population can also have a good education system, so that floating population can have the opportunity to leave their children in their hometown. The problem of migrant children’s education cannot be solved by a few suggestions or policies. To truly solve this problem, we need the continuous development of society and the continuous improvement of educational

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equity. I believe that with the continuous improvement of the education system, one day, the education problem of migrant children will be solved by themselves (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Lei, 2005; Lu & Wang, 2017; Xie, 2012; Yuan et al., 2010).

1.6 Conclusion Through the analysis of literature and data, it can be seen that the country has made a lot of efforts for the education of migrant children in recent years, introduced a lot of effective policies, and invested a lot of funds to improve the education status of migrant children. However, there is no denying that there are still problems in the education of migrant children, such as enrollment, admission, and education quality. To solve the existing problems, we cannot just make a few suggestions and introduce a few policies. To truly solve the problem of migrant children’s education, it needs the continuous development of society, the continuous improvement of educational equity, the concerted efforts of the central and local governments, and the coordination and cooperation between the government and the masses, which can be overcome step by step. I believe that with the continuous improvement of the education system, one day, the education problem of migrant children will be solved by itself (Chen et al., 2010; Du, 2015; Fan et al., 2009; Lei, 2005; Liu & Guo, 2020; Lu & Wang, 2017; Xie, 2012; Yuan et al., 2010; Zhou & Rong, 2011).

References Chen, B., Li, Y., & Yuan, L. (2010). Class, mobility and reflection: Multiple logics of family rearing practice of floating population. Chinese Journal of Education, 17(03), 117–131. Du, X. (2015). Reflections and suggestions on protecting migrant children’s right to education after middle school from the perspective of freedom of migration. Educational Development Research, 35(6), 20–25. Fan, X., Fang, X., Liu, Q., & Liu, Y. (2009). Comparison of social adjustment between migrant children, left-behind children and ordinary children. Journal of Beijing Normal University (Social Science Edition), 20(5), 11–19. Lei, W. (2005) Educational policy choices for migrant children from the perspective of multiple needs. Journal of Central China Normal University (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition), 20(3), 12–19. Liu, Z., & Guo R. (2020). The influence of migrant children on local children’s academic performance: An analysis based on CEPS data. Peking University Education Review, 18(4), 22–28. Lu, C., & Wang, L. (2017). The influence of college entrance Examination policy on psychological capital and social integration of migrant children. Education Research, 38(5), 77–88. Xie, C. (2012). Ethical analysis of the evolution of education policy for migrant children in China. Educational Science Research, 20(5), 12–17. Yuan, X., Fang, X., Liu, Y., Lin, X., & Deng, L. (2010). The characteristics, influencing factors and effects of migrant children’s social identity. Educational Research, 31(3), 37–45. Zhou, H., & Rong, S. (2011). Research review of migrant children in China. Population and Economy, 20(3), 11–16.

Chapter 2

The Left-Behind Children Education Policy in China

This chapter examines the education policy development of left-behind children in China. With the acceleration of China’s urbanization process, coupled with the background of social transformation, population flow has gradually formed a huge vulnerable group—left-behind children. The emergence of left-behind children is the combination of social and historical phenomena, which is produced in the relationship between population flow and family migration and is the product of family migration in population flow. Nowadays, the phenomenon of left-behind children has become a huge educational and social problem. Left-behind children have experienced a long historical process, which is inevitable in the process of urbanization and industrialization in China, but also a unique phenomenon and problem under the special national conditions of contemporary China.

2.1 Literature Review 2.1.1 The Origin and Definition of Left-Behind Children The concept of “left-behind children” was first mentioned in the article Separated Generation Rearing and “Left-behind Children.” It refers to children left behind in China with grandparents or other relatives and friends in the late twentieth century because one or both of their parents studied abroad. According to this definition, the earliest left-behind children themselves have two important characteristics: one is parent–child separation, and the other is children. Therefore, left-behind children are those who live in a state of separation between parents and children for a long time. As the main body of China’s population flow changes, the extension of the concept of leftbehind children contains different groups and characteristics in different historical periods. Left-behind children can be divided into urban left-behind children and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 E. Xue and J. Li, Childhood Education Policy in China, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4683-7_2

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rural left-behind children according to their different living places. Urban left-behind children are urban children whose parents live in a state of parent–child separation due to the need of studying or working abroad. Left-behind children in cities and towns refer to those whose parents work out of town while their children stay at home. Leftbehind children in rural areas refer to children left behind in rural areas due to migrant work. The types of left-behind children can be further divided in detail according to the different ways their parents go out. Left-behind children whose parents both go out are regarded as completely left-behind children, namely left-behind children in the absolute sense: children whose parents go out are semi-left-behind children, which can be called left-behind children in the relative sense. In addition, left-behind children in broken families whose parents are divorced or widowed are referred to as single-parent left-behind children when their parents work in cities as guardians.

2.1.2 Review of Education Research on Left-Behind Children The education of left-behind children is a prominent problem brought about by China’s social transformation, so the research on left-behind children began in the early 1990s, shortly after the reform and opening. According to the existing literature, only some media reported the problems of left-behind children at the beginning, which did not attract widespread attention from the government and society. Until around 2005, the research on left-behind children has exploded. It can be roughly divided into the following categories. The number of left-behind children in the end, specific distribution in which areas, is the current assessment of the education of left-behind children. With the continuous development of society and the passage of time, the scale of left-behind children will also appear with new changes. However, it is certain that the education of left-behind children, a group with a large scale, has aroused widespread concern in the society. And it has three clear characteristics. First, the scale of left-behind children is huge, and the overall trend is on the rise. Second, the age composition of left-behind children is gradually changing, with the size of preschool children increasing rapidly. Third, rural left-behind children are highly concentrated in the central and western labor export provinces (He & Zhang, 2008; Ji, 2016; Tu et al., 2009; Xie & Yao, 2010; Zhou & Wang, 2021).

2.1.3 Research on the Impact of Left-Behind Experience on Children’s Education Left-behind children, as the disadvantaged group of education, have a long experience of their left-behind life. What impact this experience has on the education of left-behind children has always been the focus of academic research, which is also the basic problem that education research needs to solve. After investigation

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and research, scholars believe that left-behind life experience has a serious impact on children’s life, learning, emotion, safety, and psychology, with both positive and negative aspects. However, the negative impact is greater and deeper. These negative impacts further affect the study of left-behind children through various ways, and eventually lead to various educational problems, such as academic performance decline, loss of support for life, loss of safety, moral behavior anomy, psychological imbalance, personality distortion, and so on. At present, some representative domestic research results all hold the same or similar views. The research group “Research on Education problems of Left-behind Children in Rural China” of the Central Institute of Education Science conducted a questionnaire survey in five counties and cities in Jiangsu, Gansu, and Hebei provinces. The results show that parents’ migrant work has some negative effects on rural left-behind children, which leads to some problems in their development, mainly manifested as lack of guidance in learning, lack of care in life, psychological disorders, etc.

2.1.4 Research on the Causes of Education Problems of Left-Behind Children As for the problems existing in the education of left-behind children, many scholars are trying to reveal their causes. Many domestic researchers have analyzed this issue from multiple aspects of family, school, society, and system, and have formed a variety of explanations for the causes of left-behind children. Population mobility: The reasons for the education problems of left-behind children in rural areas are the reasons for the rural floating population, which makes the education problems of left-behind children in rural areas a derivative of the problem of rural population mobility in China. If no rural surplus labor goes out for work, the education problem of rural left-behind children will not arise. As Li Jintao believes, the phenomenon of left-behind children is the result of a large number of population flows in the process of China’s economic development. Lack of family education: This view holds that left-behind children in rural areas are in fact the most important reason and key factor for the life development of single-parent or non-family families. Quan De, Qi Jianying, and others believe that the education problems of left-behind children are the comprehensive embodiment of family structure fracture, family function disorder, family relationship weakening, and family lifestyle variation accompanying social changes. Family migration is impeded. This view holds that left-behind children in rural areas cannot move to cities with their parents, which is the main reason for left-behind children in rural areas. According to Lv Shaoqing’s research, there are three main factors affecting left-behind children. First, the family factors of left-behind children include the low income of their parents working in cities, less leisure time, and high education cost. Second, there are institutional factors, mainly the children of migrant workers cannot take the high school entrance examination and college entrance examination in cities,

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and the school education quality of urban migrant children is low. Third, there are social factors, which refer to the left-behind children’s need to stay at home to take care of the elderly and farmland after their parents go out to work. Fan Xianzuo said: “the reason of left-behind children education problem is very complicated, which involves to the school, family and society, etc., systematic research is needed to correct conclusion, in addition to the lack of family education, school education management out of control and error reasons, the most fundamental reason is the result of a long divided urban and rural dual system.”

2.1.5 Research on Countermeasures of Education Problems of Left-Behind Children The education of left-behind children is a realistic social problem that needs to be solved urgently. At present, the relevant solutions of the academic research on left-behind children can be roughly summarized into the following three categories: First, change the migrant work mode of parents of left-behind children in rural areas to realize family reunion. Measures should be taken to develop rural local economy, reduce rural migrant workers, attract rural surplus labor to return to work, and realize the reunion of parents and children, to change the status of left-behind children. Second, we should actively encourage left-behind children to move with their families and turn them into migrant children. To change the status of left-behind children and move with their families is the fundamental measure to solve the education problems of left-behind children. The key to solve this problem is to remove all kinds of obstacles to the transformation of left-behind children into migrant children, especially the urban–rural dual social structure based on the household registration system and its various subsidiary systems. Thirdly, based on reality, various educational measures should be taken to alleviate the educational problems of left-behind children. The idea that left-behind children group will exist for a long time. In our country bringing left-behind children into the stream of floating children could not fully be realized in the short term and left-behind children education problem needs to be solved. Based on reality, to take a variety of education measures to mitigate the problem are just temporary measures, but at least lets not continue to worsen the problem. Wang Ming thinks: the rural labor force in the city has been an irreversible inevitable trend, trying to make migrant workers return to the idea is not realistic; According to the spirit of the current compulsory education law and the current compulsory education management system, the basic direction of local enrollment has not changed, and it will not become the mainstream trend to change left-behind to mobile. In view of this, based on the reality, taking active protection measures to promote the healthy growth of left-behind children is undoubtedly an important policy choice to solve the education problems of left-behind children in rural areas at the present stage (He & Zhang, 2008; Ji, 2016; Tu et al., 2009; Xie & Yao, 2010; Zhou & Wang, 2021).

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2.1.6 Supporting Research on Left-Behind Children’s Education Left-behind children, as an important part of socially vulnerable groups, have received extensive attention and support from all walks of life. From the perspective of the supporting subject of left-behind children’s education, China’s measures for the healthy growth of left-behind children mainly include educational support from the government and support from all walks of life. Several Opinions of the Central Government on Strengthening and Improving the Ideological and moral Construction of Adults in 2004 gave important instructions on the ideological and moral construction of minors: “We should attach great importance to the compulsory education of children of floating population families; The government of the place where rural migrant workers are employed shall establish and perfect the working system and mechanism guaranteeing the children of rural migrant workers are employed in cities to receive compulsory education; The local government should actively cooperate with the service work; Party committees and governments at all levels should take strengthening and improving the ideological and moral construction of minors as a strategic task concerning the overall situation, put it into the overall plan of economic and social development, put it on the important agenda, and effectively strengthen and improve leadership”; The Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Minors in 2006 states: Parents or other guardians shall create a good and harmonious family environment and perform their duty of guardianship and upbringing of minors in accordance with the law; Parents or other guardians shall pay attention to the physical and psychological conditions and behavioral habits of minors, educate and influence minors with healthy thinking, good conduct and appropriate methods, and guide minors to engage in activities beneficial to their physical and mental health. If parents are unable to perform their duty of guardianship of minors due to migrant work or other reasons, they shall entrust other adults with the ability of guardianship to do so on their behalf. The whole society shall foster good manners of respecting, protecting, and educating minors, and take care of and cherish minors. People’s governments at all levels shall protect the right of minors to education and take measures to ensure that minors from poor families, disabled persons, floating populations, etc., receive compulsory education. From the family protection, school protection, social protection, judicial protection, legal responsibility, and other aspects of the protection of minors put forward legal principles and policy measures (He & Zhang, 2008; Ji, 2016; Tu et al., 2009; Xie & Yao, 2010; Zhou & Wang, 2021). At present, many local governments have generally recognized the importance of education and development of left-behind children to economic and social development and have given great attention and support to the education of left-behind children, highlighting the responsibility of the government. Many provinces and cities have introduced policies and measures related to the education and management of left-behind children. Although the forms are diverse and colorful, they also have many common characteristics. For example, Hubei province’s Opinions on

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Strengthening education and Management of Children of Rural Migrant Workers; Guangxi’s Several Opinions on Further Improving the Compulsory Education work of Migrant Workers’ Children in Our Region; Jiangxi’s “Opinions on taking care of Left-behind Children in Rural Areas”; Chongqing’s “Opinions on Strengthening work for Left-behind Children in Rural Areas”; and other local policies have included education and management services for left-behind children in the overall task of coordinating urban and rural development and building a new socialist countryside, and have deeply emphasized the important role of the government in the education and development of left-behind children. And basically, put forward: the relevant local government should solve the problem of education of the children of migrant workers left in their original place of residence; Education departments at all levels should give full play to the role of schools as the main field of education; The work of caring for left-behind children in rural areas has been incorporated into the construction of the “Three civilizations” by the civilization offices at all levels. Women’s federations at all levels should give full play to their advantages in family work and coordination, rights protection, education, and service. Other departments such as agriculture and civil affairs should also actively carry out their work within the scope of their duties.

2.2 Theory Tools Through searching and reading many literatures, it is found that in terms of leftbehind children, many scholars start from the origin of the term “left-behind children” to analyze its background, causes, problems, and corresponding solutions. There are also extensive studies on this topic in relevant literature, but few of them take “education” as the precise and meticulous perspective as the starting point, and most of them are assisted by other attributes, such as “Research on mental health education of left-behind children,” “Analysis of problems of left-behind children in rural areas,” and so on. Of left-behind children education related to the theoretical tools of also is not easy to find, after the screening, found some of the problem analysis Angle of view and theories, such as social support theory, sociology Angle of view, such as simplicity, no longer to the countryside to distinguish between the urban areas (in fact, mainly in rural areas), the following one by one on integration. The research on social support theory can be traced back to the 1970s, and it was first applied to the treatment of mental illness, and then turned to education research and social research. From the perspective of sociology, the research of social support theory aims to reveal the characteristics of social support of social groups and their influence on individuals. In terms of the education of left-behind children in rural areas, left-behind children are a vulnerable group, and their social support system is composed of guardians, parents of migrant workers, schools, governments, and other social support forces. Taking left-behind children as the center and dividing them between direct support and indirect support, the support sources related to leftbehind children are divided into two categories: proximal support sources and distal

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support sources. In the social support system for left-behind children, left-behind children are supported by guardians, parents, schools, governments, and other social support forces, among which guardians and schools are identified as proximal sources of support. Migrant parents, the government, and other social support forces were identified as remote support sources. There are also many studies on the causes of leftbehind children’s education problems in the literature. Fang Fang made a sociological analysis of the causes of the education problems of rural left-behind children and pointed out that the education problems of rural left-behind children are typical problems of unequal educational opportunities. She proposed that social difference is a phenomenon accompanying human society, which has become a consensus. As a social background of education, the impact of social difference mainly exists in the field of educational opportunities, which is manifested as the restriction of equal educational opportunities. “Equal education opportunity,” there are at least three in the sense of distinction, the first is “equal starting point,” (including the equality of educational opportunity and school conditions), the second is “equal” (including the equality of education content and the interaction between teachers and students), and the third is equal “results” (including academic achievement, final degree, and on the impact of education on social life in the future the opportunity equality (He & Zhang, 2008; Ji, 2016; Tu et al., 2009; Xie & Yao, 2010; Zhou & Wang, 2021). Hierarchy of needs: American psychologist Maslow put forward the famous hierarchy of needs theory in his book Motivation and Personality in 1954. Specifically speaking, the basic needs of human beings, from low to high, are physiological needs, safety needs, belongings and love needs, respect needs, and self-actualization needs. Yang Mei combined Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory to analyze the current situation of school education for left-behind children in rural areas as follows: Physiological needs: Physiological needs refer to people’s needs for food, water, air, sleep, and sex. They are the most important and powerful of all human needs. With the development of China’s economy, the income of rural migrant workers is stable and rising, while the living and learning expenses of left-behind children are basically guaranteed with the increase of their parents’ income. Therefore, the most basic physiological needs of left-behind children can be met. The need for security: The need for security is that people want stability, security, protection, order, and freedom from fear and anxiety. “If physiological needs are relatively satisfied, a new set of what we might call safety needs emerges,” Maslow said. “… A peaceful, safe, well-kept society often makes its members feel safe from wild animals, extreme heat, crime, attack, murder, tyranny, etc.” Through the renovation of dilapidated rural schools by the state in the past few years, most rural primary and secondary schools have basically eliminated the safety problems of school buildings, except for a very small number of extremely remote villages. In addition, “Nine-Year Compulsory Education Law” and “Law on the Protection of Minors” provide many provisions to protect students’ legitimate rights and interests, so left-behind children can be guaranteed when their basic safety needs are met at school. The need for belonging and love: Belongingness and love need refers to a person’s need to establish emotional connection or relationship with others. It refers to the

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individual’s desire to get care, love, and understanding from family, group, friends, and colleagues, and it is the need for friendship, trust, warmth, and love. The need for respect: The need for respect includes self-respect and the desire to be respected by others. The satisfaction of the need for respect will make people believe in their own strength and value and make them more capable and creative in life. Rural teachers lack opportunities for further study and training, with relatively backward education concepts, simple and traditional education methods, and lack of respect for students. Teachers often relax their responsibilities and obligations due to inadequate supervision of the guardians of left-behind children and fail to give timely encouragement and recognition to left-behind children. The need for self-actualization: As one of the highest needs in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-actualization has two meanings, namely, the realization of complete and full human nature and the realization of individual potential or characteristics. Left-behind children receive school education in order to pursue self-realization, that is, through school education, their value, potential, and personality can be fully and fully developed, or realized. Left-behind children, as school students, the most important way of self-realization is the good or bad academic performance. In 2006, the research group of Chongqing Jiangjin Municipal Committee concerned about the next generation conducted a questionnaire survey in three schools and found that 9% of the left-behind children had very good academic performance, 27.7% had good academic performance, 50.7% had average academic performance, and 12.6% had poor academic performance. The proportion of poor academic performance is nearly 5% higher than that of unleftbehind children (He & Zhang, 2008; Ji, 2016; Tu et al., 2009; Xie & Yao, 2010; Zhou & Wang, 2021).

2.2.1 Human Capital Theory Human capital theory is the center of the first generation of educational economics, which arose in the 1960s. However, as an economic thought, it can be traced back to the Classical British economist Adam Smith and the modern American economist Alfred Marshall. They believed that among all kinds of investment, the investment in human was the most valuable, but they did not further analyze the human capital factor and study how to invest in human. In the 1960s, human capital theory began to be studied systematically. In the process of research education contribution to economic growth, the theory of the establishment and development of a golden age, the main representative of Massimo Oddo, Schultz, Gary Becker, Edward Denison, Bauman, etc., respectively, from different points of view of human capital theory is studied, and their influential views are put forward. The basic content of human capital theory includes human capital exists in human body, which is the sum of knowledge, skill, and physical value. Human capital must be formed through investment and has the characteristics of initiative, timeliness, self-richness, and infinite development. According to its different purposes, it can be divided into human capital quantity investment and human capital quality investment. The channels of human

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capital investment mainly include education, training, medical care, and employment guidance. Among them, education and training are the most important ways to form human capital. Education plays a direct role in promoting economic development, and its investment rate of return can be calculated. The calculation principle is income/cost = rate of return. The theory of human capital holds that educational investment should be based on the relationship between market supply and demand and measured by the fluctuation of human capital price. The standard of human capital investment is the future income of human capital investment, including expected future personal income and expected future social income. This benefit should be greater than or equal to its cost, that is, human capital investment. Rural left-behind children are the main body of future new rural construction and important human resources to promote economic development. Educational investment in rural leftbehind children belongs to human development investment and is an important part and focus of human capital investment. For a long time, the country has used many measures and means at the governmental and social levels to solve this problem, but the situation is still grim because its number shows a trend of overall growth. Rural left-behind children problem is related to the development of the rural economy, related to the harmony and stability in the countryside, their healthy growth is a big problem of China’s development in the coming decades, there should be increased investment in education of left-behind children, improvement in the overall quality of the population, development to become the major force of economic construction of a harmonious society (He & Zhang, 2008; Ji, 2016; Tu et al., 2009; Xie & Yao, 2010; Zhou & Wang, 2021).

2.2.2 Multi-center Governance Model Based on the theory of polycentric governance model, this paper discusses the education problems of left-behind children. Polycentric governance theory is a public management research theory, which believes that the completely opposite relationship between government and public goods should be overturned, and advocates reducing government intervention and letting the market play the role of providing public goods. Its salient features are multi-center and complexity; The values of equity and participation; Diversification of governance tools; The goal of governance is to achieve good governance. Good governance is a process of social management that maximizes public interests. Its essential feature is that it is the cooperative management of public affairs between government and citizens, a new type of relationship between political state and civil society, and the best combination of the two. It is a polycentric governance process. The polycentric governance model shows a new concept and institutional arrangement, emphasizes the diversification of the supply structure of public goods, introduces the competition mechanism into the supply of public goods, and jointly exercises the subjective rights in various forms. The single center corresponding to the multi-center means that only the government

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is the only subject of the exclusive management of social public affairs. The significance of polycentric governance model lies in that it provides a new method and path for the diversification of public goods supply structure and supply mode. There are three types of problems in the education of left-behind children, which essentially include the provision of three types of public services: the first type is pure school education services, including teaching, school management, and supportive policies; The second category is nursing services, mainly for the guidance and management of various nursing models, as well as the discovery and development of various effective nursing services; The third category is to serve the environment, that is, to establish and maintain a good social environment for left-behind children by various means. The provision of pure public goods and services is the unshrinkable responsibility of the government and the legal basis of the existence of the government. On the other hand, quasi-public goods and services can be provided in a more flexible way, which is different from pure public goods. In this field, the government has extensive autonomy, which determines the flexibility of the government in adopting the governance mode. It is further pointed out that the government governance from the three aspects involved in left-behind children’s education must contain diversified subjects, including government, school, community, and market. Multiple operationalization of governance framework should be implemented to the use of governance tools, left-behind children education problem can adopt a more realistic way of classification, including control tools, economy, voluntary tools, organizational tools, and informational tools, and according to different governance body’s use of different governance tools in order to achieve benefit maximization. The specific classification follows.

2.2.3 Public Policy Perspective Woodrow Wilson, the founder of administration and an American scholar, believes that public policy is the laws and regulations formulated by politicians (with legislative power) and implemented by administrators (national civil servants). This definition mainly defines public policy from the perspective of policy formulation and policy implementation. Harold D. Lasswell, an American politician and one of the founders of public policy, proposed that public policy is “a large-scale plan containing goals, values and strategies.” This definition highlights the design function and targets orientation of public policy. It is emphasized that rational policy making should usually be based on scientific reasoning and reasonable procedures. David Easton, a Canadian American scholar, believes that “public policy is the authoritative distribution of the value of the whole society.” This definition understands public policy from the perspective of traditional political principles and focuses on the value distribution function of public policy. Value should be understood in a broad sense. It refers to anything of value, not only in kind, capital, and knowledge, but also in power, reputation, and service. This understanding implies the most basic assumption of political science, that is, interest and interest relations are the basis of human social

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activities, and the basic function of government is the social distribution of interest. Public policy is the main form of government to distribute social benefits, that is, to decide who gets what and how much. Thomas R. Dye, an American scholar, believes that “what the government decides to do or not to do is public policy.” This definition focuses on the actions and inaction of the government, highlights the behavioral characteristics of public policy, and indicates that public policy not only involves the actions taken by the government, but also actions that the government decided to stop and actions that it didn’t do at all.

2.3 Analysis of Policy Text 2.3.1 Education Policies for Left-Behind Children in China Before the 18th CPC National Congress Policies and measures concerning left-behind children in rural areas in China mainly include central policies and regulations, local policy texts, and typical care models. According to the sample data of China’s sixth Population Census in 2010, the number of left-behind children in rural areas reached 61,025,500, accounting for 37.7% of rural children and 21.88% of children nationwide. Among them, the number of preschool left-behind children in rural areas (0–5 years old) is 23.42 million, and the number of left-behind children in compulsory education is 29.48 million. Among them, primary school children (6–11 years old) and junior middle school children (12–14 years old) account for 32.01 and 16.30%, 195.3 million and 9.95 million, respectively. Older left-behind children (15–17 years old) account for 13.32% of rural left-behind children, and the number reaches 8.13 million (China Women’s Federation News, 201). China’s policies and regulations on left-behind children still have much room for improvement. Although the central government’s policies provide basic direction and institutional guarantee for the education and management of leftbehind children, there are no policies and regulations specifically for left-behind children. All provinces and cities have formulated a series of policies for left-behind children, but the implementation of policies in different regions is unbalanced, and some provinces and cities do not implement the policies in place. Some achievements have been made in the exploration of caring for left-behind children, but more areas lack substantial progress in caring for left-behind children. There are several reasons for the imperfection of current education policies for left-behind children. First, this is the first time that many left-behind children in rural areas appear in China, and China is still groping in practice because of lack of relevant experience. Secondly, demographic information of left-behind children is not complete. There is no accurate source of information about the number, sex ratio, age structure, and education of left-behind children in China, which makes it difficult to make scientific planning and prediction when formulating policies. Finally, in view of the left-behind children education policy, given their lack of emotional support, parents going out

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for a long time leads to lack of parental care and a series of psychological problems, these psychological problems impact children’s growth, and to solve these problems we need long-term follow-up studies and in a short period of time we can’t get the exact answer (He & Zhang, 2008; Ji, 2016; Tu et al., 2009; Xie & Yao, 2010; Zhou & Wang, 2021). In terms of legislation, most of the protection subjects are children, and few policies are formulated specifically for left-behind children. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council are very concerned about left-behind children and require that the work of left-behind children be done seriously from the perspective of the future of the nation, economic development, and social harmony. Left-behind children are also the flowers of our motherland, the future and hope of our motherland. We should provide them with a good environment for learning and growing up and give them care in various aspects to make up for their lost affection. Migrant workers are an important part of industrial workers. To solve the education problem of migrant workers’ children is an effective means to solve the worries of migrant workers in cities. The opinions on Strengthening the Care and Protection of Left-behind Children in Rural Areas emphasize four principles. Adhere to the family responsibility, the demand to strengthen the supervision and guidance of family guardianship and entrusted guardianship. For left-behind children, their psychology will directly affect their studies because of the lack of affection and care from their parents. The living conditions of left-behind children are generally divided into three categories: Live alone, live together with grandparents, and live together with others. The data show that the vast majority of left-behind children are with grandparents or maternal grandparents who have less education and more illiterate or semiliterate, their thought idea is relatively backward, so it is difficult to communicate with their grandchildren, duty of guardianship does not reach the designated position, therefore making the left-behind children the main cause of poor education situation. Adhering to government-led, left-behind children care protection work should be an important work at all levels of government. The government must be able to carry out the responsibility of each level, strengthen the supervision responsibility of the relevant departments, to establish and improve the left-behind children care service system and rescue protection mechanisms to protect the legitimate rights and interests of rural left-behind children, and provide health environment for the growth of left-behind children. Adhering to the care of the whole people, attaching importance to the positive role of mass organizations, social organizations, and volunteers from all walks of life, letting the public understand the group of left-behind children, letting everyone reach out to help them, solving the problems that left-behind children encounter in their life and growth, and creating a good atmosphere for the whole society to care for left-behind children is necessary. Rural left-behind children must be provided holiday care, extracurricular psychological counseling, and other care services. Stick to severely, helping leftbehind children live in care at the same time, provide more support for farmers work family support, promote the urbanization of rural migrant workers, promote farmers with a trend of people and their families, to provide housing subsidies, subsidies, etc., life for children of migrant workers in the local support to accept education, to participate in the entrance examination for secondary school or college, or lead to

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support migrant workers return home entrepreneurship employment, Accelerate the improvement of rural infrastructure construction, increase the opportunities for rural surplus labor to find employment near families, fundamentally reduce the number of left-behind children, increase investment in rural education, help rural schools retain and attract personnel, and improve the education situation of left-behind children. Strengthening the work of left-behind children is the responsibility of the government, the society, and the family, and it is difficult to do it alone. It is necessary to build a care and service system under the joint management of the family, the government, schools, and the society. In terms of administrative measures, the state guides the protection of the rights of left-behind children in rural areas by four major plans. The sixth Five-Year Plan of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee and the Ministry of Justice on Promoting Legal Publicity and Education among Citizens (2011–2015), National Human Rights Action Plan (2012–2015), Outline of the National Mediumand Long-term Plan for Education Reform and Development (2010–2020), and Outline of Chinese Children’s Development (2011–2020), proposed to strengthen the psychological, emotional, and behavioral guidance of left-behind children and improve the awareness and responsibility of parental custody of left-behind children. In light of their current economic and social development, many provinces and autonomous regions in China have issued local programs for the development of children and accumulated a lot of advanced experience in protecting the rights of left-behind children in rural areas during the implementation process. Left-behind children have the risk of committing crimes at a young age. Due to their overall low age, their emotion and reason are not sound, and they are easily influenced by the outside world, thus forming unhealthy personalities and psychological imbalance therefore committing crimes unconsciously. The psychological problems of left-behind children are more exposed to character defects, such as poor self-control, self-centeredness, monetarism, selfishness, inferiority, withdrawal, capriciousness, irritability, rebelliousness, and so on. Therefore, it is necessary to create a positive social environment with correct values and carry out healthy guidance for the healthy growth of left-behind children. The law and rules should be integrated into the daily life of rural areas, so that left-behind children can be immersed in such an environment for a long time and their risk of crime can be reduced. In terms of legal publicity and education, in a variety of ways the Franco Prussian education helps: in rural areas by law lectures and consultation and the guardians of the villagers, left-behind children in the form of education, and with songs, stories, and more commonly in the form of simple method and fully considering the villagers generally since their education level is not high; It is important to give full play to the propaganda and education role of schools, strengthen legal education for students and teachers, create a good atmosphere for law popularization, stimulate the active autonomy of left-behind children. In terms of management, importance must be given the construction of left-behind children information database, statistics of the basic situation of left-behind children, the implementation of dynamic management of left-behind children, convenience to find problems, timely solution to the problem, and promote the construction of rural left-behind children care service system. In terms of daily life, we provide subsidies

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to some left-behind children, always care about their mental health, and make up for the care they need in the growth process by helping them pair up. Meanwhile, various places attach importance to cultural life and organize a number of activities to encourage left-behind children to accept the influence of history and culture and encourage their development in various aspects (He & Zhang, 2008; Ji, 2016; Tu et al., 2009; Xie & Yao, 2010; Zhou & Wang, 2021).

2.3.2 The Deficiencies of Education Policies for Left-Behind Children Since the early twenty-first century, the central government and relevant departments have successively issued a series of policies and regulations to ensure the education of left-behind children and adopted a series of corresponding measures. It has issued several Opinions on Furthering the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education, Notice on Work Related to Left-behind Children, and Outline of the National Plan for Medium- and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010–2020), requiring local governments to take targeted measures to address the difficulties leftbehind children face in learning and living. To strengthen the safety protection of left-behind children, it is necessary to crack down on illegal and criminal activities that infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of left-behind children, pour a lot of manpower and material resources into the management of left-behind children, ensure that school-age children do not drop out of school, to ensure that left-behind children fair education and healthy growth has played an important role. However, from the perspective of reality and policy evaluation, left-behind children still have problems in learning, psychology, safety, conduct, and other aspects. First of all, an important cause of the problem is the unavoidable separation of parents and children. Parents are supposed to be the first teachers and guides in their children’s life. However, due to the early and long-term separation, family education is lacking, and left-behind children lack emotional communication and parent–child interaction with their parents. As a result, normal psychological attachment and belonging between parents and their children are unable to develop, resulting in psychological estrangement. And guardians of left-behind children mostly grandparents or maternal grandparents, cultural level being generally low, not only can’t they help the children in the study, but also may spoil and pamper grandchildren, resulting in lack of discipline and supervision. So left-behind children lacking a family can cultivate correct values, while neglecting learning may also give rise to “3 without” personnel in the society, And finally to fall. Many rural schools can provide highquality education and good growth environment for left-behind children, but there are also problems of out-of-control management and educational errors in the education of left-behind children. In boarding schools the condition is poor, many left-behind children are sent to live with relatives, so, school and living environment are formed between management’s out-of-control range. In this range, the child might pick up

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bad habits, spending weekends out of school at the same time, the time management is out of control, five days of learning at a discount because of the lack of continuity. Educational errors are caused by teachers not giving due encouragement and help or treating left-behind children as a different and inferior group, resulting in psychological problems in left-behind children. The school can maintain contact with the families of left-behind children, communicate with their parents regularly, and ensure that left-behind children can maintain a close relationship with their parents. Funding must be increased for rural schools. Schools should be built to ensure that left-behind children can study and live in a comfortable, suitable, and beautiful environment and minimize the risk of uncontrolled management. The ability to hire good teachers and make people want to stay; The school canteen must provide good food and pay attention to nutrition collocation to ensure the normal growth and development of left-behind children; Provide rich extracurricular activities for left-behind children to promote their interest development. Let the school completely serve left-behind children and do everything necessary for the healthy growth of left-behind children. We will strengthen the management of left-behind children. Daily learning should attach importance to the cultivation of self-discipline and initiative of left-behind children and watch their thought psychological condition. Establishment of a psychological consulting room is important targeting the left-behind children to carry out psychological counseling and guidance, to help solve their psychological problems, keep the left-behind children always in a positive state, to maximize the effectiveness of education. At present, there is a high level of social attention to left-behind children, but the care and appeal from all walks of life has not turned into concrete measures to solve practical problems and has not turned into tangible help. Policies should not only stay in slogans, but also be implemented into actions to help left-behind children (He & Zhang, 2008; Ji, 2016; Tu et al., 2009; Xie & Yao, 2010; Zhou & Wang, 2021).

2.4 Challenges and Problems in Practice In 2012, the Ministry of Education issued the Interim Measures for the Supervision and Evaluation of the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education in Counties, marking the establishment of the supervision and evaluation system for the balanced development of compulsory education in China. In 2013, the first batch of counties (county-level cities and districts) with balanced development in compulsory education were supervised, evaluated, and identified. By the end of 2020, 26 provinces and 2,809 counties had achieved balanced development of compulsory education at county level, accounting for 96.8% of the total. In 2021, the Education Supervision Committee of the State Council organized field inspections of 94 counties in the remaining provinces. This means that the nine-year national supervision, evaluation, and identification of the basic balance of compulsory education at county level has come to a successful end. The General Office of the Ministry of Education recently issued a notice on the Balanced Development of Compulsory

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education quality at county level, proposing to create a group of counties (cities and districts) in all provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) that take the lead in achieving the balanced development of compulsory education quality. “Notice” in particular, in the student education care, mental health education in particular on the question of existence system is not sound. The want to strengthen trailing children, left-behind children, children with disabilities, and other special student community education care system measures, strengthen the mental health education, and improve the students’ psychological health problems of regular screening assessment, early recognition, and intervention mechanism. With the pace of China’s urbanization process, under the background of social transformation, a vulnerable group—leftbehind children has been formed due to population flow. According to the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, “We will vigorously promote fairness in education, rationally allocate education resources, give priority to rural areas, remote areas, poor areas and ethnic minority areas, support special education, increase financial aid to students from poor families, and actively promote equal access to education for children of migrant workers, so that every child can become a useful talent.” Educational support mainly refers to the help and support provided by the state, social organizations, or individuals in terms of materials, funds, and services in order to guarantee equal educational opportunities for vulnerable groups. Therefore, carrying out research and provide necessary support for left-behind children’s education is an urgent need to avoid left-behind children’s education from becoming the laggard in the process of China’s educational modernization to promote the balanced development of compulsory education and realize social equity (He & Zhang, 2008; Ji, 2016; Tu et al., 2009; Xie & Yao, 2010; Zhou & Wang, 2021).

2.4.1 The Absence of Family Education In recent years, with the continuous development of China’s industrialization and urbanization, the number of migrant workers in cities is increasing. Some families choose one or both couples to go to the city, and the children stay in their hometown under the guardianship of one of the couple or grandparents or other relatives. The separation of parent–child guardianship causes long-term incomplete family life. Under the impact of population flow, the traditional family structure in rural areas is gradually deconstructed and reconstructed, the traditional family education function is weakened, and it cannot play an effective basic role in the education system. Moreover, since most of the parents of left-behind children have little contact with their children, their awareness of actively contacting school and cooperating with schoolwork is weak, which further affects the effective guardianship of temporary guardians for left-behind children. Because of the absence of the main body of family education, it is difficult to form a joint force between home and school, and the school’s management of left-behind children often falls into an unmanageable dilemma. The personalized needs of left-behind children, inclusive policies are often

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difficult to guarantee both, let alone school education; After school, holidays, and other leisure time, the school for the management of left-behind children is more powerless. The supplement of school education to family education is only a partial transfer and substitution of functions, which does not mean that school education can completely replace all the educational functions of family, and thus completely solve the educational problems of left-behind children in rural areas. The disconnection between family education and school education causes many educational problems in school education.

2.4.2 Equality in Education The balanced development of compulsory education is proposed in view of the imbalanced development of education. The purpose is to guarantee the realization of educational equality by providing relatively equal educational opportunities and conditions. From the perspective of social structure, education is seriously marginalized by politics and economy. From the perspective of the education system itself, rural education is seriously marginalized by urban education. The pressure of double marginalization makes rural education become the “outcast” in the modernization process, especially in the process of education modernization. When the whole rural education becomes “abandoned children,” then, rural left-behind children will undoubtedly become a more vulnerable group, in the process of balanced development of compulsory education without effective educational support, it is difficult to realize the real sense of education equity. Statistics show that in 2020, there were 14.297 million children of migrant workers receiving compulsory education in cities, accounting for 9.1% of the total number of students in schools. Among them, 80% are studying in public schools. Ensuring equal access to compulsory education for children of rural migrant workers in cities bears on education equity and the vital interests of the people. It is also an urgent requirement to adapt to China’s urbanization development and promote social equity. About 2016, the State Council issued the plan as a whole to promote the county in the integration of urban and rural compulsory education reform and development of several opinions (guo fa [2016] no. 40), clearly put forward the reform education mechanism for children trailing, strengthen government’s responsibility, adhere to the “two, two into” (namely, government management is given priority to public schools, we will include compulsory education for children living with their parents in urban development plans and financial support). We will establish an enrollment policy for children living with their parents, mainly based on their residence permits, to guarantee equal access to compulsory education in accordance with the law. Starting in 2021, local authorities will not be able to require parents to provide proof of family planning, over-age enrollment, and unsupervised residence registration, the ministry said. Unnecessary documents will be cut down and eligible places will be encouraged to apply only for residence permits. However, in the actual implementation process, due to the lack of support of new financial resources, the management system is still not free from the disadvantages of localized management,

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and there are also contradictions among the urban areas. By 2020, 99.4% of children of compulsory education age who moved with them were in school, basically the same as the previous year. In terms of schools, 81.5% of children of primary school age who moved with them are studying in public schools, down 1.9% points from the previous year. 12.4% are studying in government-subsidized private schools, 0.5% points higher than the previous year. 87.0% of the children of junior middle school age who moved with them are studying in public schools, 1.8% points higher than the previous year. 7.1% are studying in government-funded private schools, down 1.7% points from the previous year. As for children in compulsory education, 47.5% of migrant parents said they faced some problems in going to school in cities. Difficulties in local schools, high cost, and no one being available to take care of their children were the three major issues with the highest approval rates of 29.6, 26.4, and 21.5%, respectively. Among them, the acceptance rate of local school difficulty and high cost decreased by 4.6 and 2.5% points, respectively, and the acceptance rate of children without care increased by 6.0% points. The proportion of migrant workers who answered that the teaching conditions of schools were not good increased rapidly, 4.6% points higher than the previous year. There are many difficulties and problems for migrant children to go to school in cities. In addition to the enrollment difficulties caused by household registration problems, there are also problems such as the high cost of urban education and heavy burden, the pressure of competition for admission, and the difficulty in ensuring the safety of unattended children. These conditions may make migrant workers consider leaving their children behind in their hometowns, resulting in an increase in the number of left-behind children (He & Zhang, 2008; Ji, 2016; Tu et al., 2009; Xie & Yao, 2010; Zhou & Wang, 2021).

2.4.3 The Level of Rural Education Resources Needs to Be Improved Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the allocation of rural teachers’ resources has been improved, and the level of education and teaching ability has been steadily improved. However, in the face of the new situation, new tasks, and new requirements, there are still some problems in rural teachers, such as structural shortage, quality and ability to be further improved, relatively narrow development channels, and low vocational attraction. The resource allocation of rural teachers is in an unbalanced state, which is embodied in the unbalanced allocation of rural teachers’ quantity, structure, and educational background. Domestic studies show that the number of rural teachers is insufficient for a long time and the teaching pressure is great. Structural imbalance often exists, including the “aging” of the age structure, and the obvious lack of English teachers and psychological teachers in the discipline structure. The main reasons for the disequilibrium of educational background allocation are poor treatment of rural teachers, difficult living conditions, low degree of social recognition, high mobility of teachers, and easy loss of high-quality teacher resources.

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2.4.4 Rural Education Infrastructure Is Relatively Backward According to relevant field research, many rural school buildings are old and dilapidated, lacking in quantity and teaching aids. The lack of digital education resources, the scarcity of computers and multimedia equipment, the Internet era of standard functional classroom construction difficulties; The campus playground is small and even has no playground, and the related cultural and sports facilities and book resources are lacking. The backward infrastructure leads to the limited teaching quality and enthusiasm of teachers, and it is not enough to “open the whole course,” let alone “open the good course.” Attitude determines height, and the effect of learning attitude on academic performance is beyond doubt. Children’s enthusiasm for learning often comes from self-confidence and positive personality. For leftbehind children, good learning attitude and behavior habits are the key to improving their academic performance. Parents’ migrant work has a negative effect on a large part of left-behind children’s learning attitude, which seriously affects their learning attitude, and then affects their academic performance. Academic performance is the result of students’ own efforts, external environment, educational methods, and other external factors. When external factors such as external environment and education methods cannot be rapidly changed, the most important influencing factor is the degree of students’ self-recognition and efforts. According to relevant studies, leftbehind children are not confident in learning and have low self-satisfaction. The interview found that only a small part of left-behind children has high learning requirements on themselves, while the majority of left-behind children have low requirements on themselves, and even follow the trend, which reflects that left-behind children are obviously lacking in learning motivation and confidence. Learning habit is regarded as a kind of automatic learning behavior that individuals need. Developing good learning habits is conducive to stimulating students’ enthusiasm and initiative in learning, which is crucial for improving learning efficiency. In addition, in terms of learning guidance, rural parents generally offer less learning guidance to children than urban parents because of the backward educational level and narrow educational concept of the temporary guardians of left-behind children. Left-behind children with poor academic performance often do not ask teachers, classmates, nor parents when they encounter difficulties in learning, muddle along and take an avoidance attitude. With the gradual deepening of learning, the tendency of weariness and dropping out of school is prominent. On the other hand, when some left-behind children encounter difficulties in learning, they long for someone to help them, especially when doing homework, but the reality is that there is no one to help them when they are in need. On the one hand, rural left-behind children is a systematic project, that needs multiple main body participation, including the specific actors including ZhuanGan of township government, village in the children’s supervisor, director of the village in children, schools and social organizations part-time child counselor, professional social work institutions of social workers and volunteers. In reality, due to the obvious shortage of professional social work organizations and volunteer organizations, professional social workers are even more

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scarce, and the part-time jobs of administrative personnel mentioned above, social resources that can be mobilized are very limited. On the other hand, the voluntary learning guidance established under the policy advocacy of community and school cooperation and supported by nonprofit organizations is often a mere formality in the implementation, and there is a certain waste of resources (Tu et al., 2009).

2.4.5 Children’s Mental Health Problems The subjective self-support of left-behind children mainly includes subjective or emotional support, that is, the degree to which individuals experience being respected, supported, understood, and satisfied in the society. From the perspective of personality characteristics, left-behind children may be more inclined to be autistic than ordinary children due to lack of channels to talk and direct face-to-face communication with their parents for a long time. In the absence of family affection for a long time, left-behind children often have serious “hunger for family love,” which will lead to the corrosion of the natural family bond chain, which is thicker than water, until it is completely broken. Children feel that they are in a lonely world and are prone to feelings of loneliness, helplessness, and depression and other adverse emotional reactions. Due to the lack of social support, left-behind children tend to deal with problems in life and study with immature coping styles such as fantasy, rationalization, and self-blame. Living with parents, lack of paternal and maternal love, lack of communication with parents, makes them crave for more care than the average child. If the parent–child relationship is bad or artificially deprived, children lack the enthusiasm and care of their parents, it is difficult to get a good sense of self, have a sense of security, and lack self-esteem, resulting in psychological anxiety. Left-behind children, as the subject and object of educational governance, play their own subjective role is the key to solve their educational problems. But due to family function being weakened, guardians guardianship does not reach the designated position, especially the psychological health education lack of reasons, such as making it easier for the left-behind children as well as the formation of inferiority, closed, lonely personality characteristics, they often fall into “who am I,” “who I want to be,” and “who I can be” dilemma of self-doubt, affecting their social identity. On the one hand, left-behind children’s rural cultural identity is not high. With the advent of the Internet era, local culture has been greatly impacted. According to the 47th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), China had 989 million Internet users as of December 2020, an increase of 85.4 million over March 2020, of which 309 million were in rural areas. An increase of 54.71 million from March 2020. The survey found that many left-behind children kept their mobile phones at home. Apart from communicating with their parents, most of them used their mobile phones to play games, check social software such as Douyin, Kuaishou, or Weibo. Through the Internet, they understand the beauty of urban life and the gap between urban and rural areas. As a result, some left-behind children’s ideas, value pursuits, and ideals and beliefs

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are gradually “urbanized.” They just want to escape from the countryside as soon as possible and go to the city to “work” and live in the city. Low recognition of rural culture may affect their wrong understanding of rural education, resulting in school weariness and the idea of dropping out and working, which is not conducive to the long-term development of left-behind children and the improvement of cultural level in rural areas. On the other hand, left-behind children have low self-value identification. Left-behind children in the growth stage are more independent and sensitive. At the same time, influenced by new media such as Weibo, Kuaishou, and Douyin, left-behind children are prone to individualization and superficialization of entertainment, resulting in psychological problems and behavioral deviations, leading to different degrees of “left-behind children syndrome” (He & Zhang, 2008; Ji, 2016; Tu et al., 2009; Xie & Yao, 2010; Zhou & Wang, 2021).

2.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions The public welfare organization “On the Way to School” released the 2020 Blue Book of Left-behind Children and psychological Development Report of China’s left-behind Children in Beijing. According to the report, most left-behind children are “not very satisfied” and “relatively satisfied” with their grades, accounting for 43.1 and 38%, respectively. And 4.3% were “indifferent” to their grades. In order to improve the poor performance of left-behind children, it is necessary to make changes from family, school, and social education.

2.5.1 Create a Good Family Education Environment The family is the child’s first teacher, for the left-behind children whose parents are not around, their first teacher is particularly thin. Therefore, parents of left-behind children should maintain long-term contact with their children even if they are in other places and cannot meet each other often. They can use the Internet to make video calls to their children from time to time. In addition to regular contact with children over the phone extra care should be taken to understand their life and learning aspects, and give targeted advice.

2.5.2 Pay Attention to the Overall Development of Children Many left-behind children’s parents, due to the lack of consciousness of related inarticulate or with children only care about the stand or fall of its academic achievement, when on the phone this way of education is obviously not right, morality, intelligence

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and physique, us, fatigue, parents need to pay attention to all aspects of the child grow up, and the education they become an all-round development and personality healthy people.

2.5.3 Improve the Education Level of Left-Behind Children Education is an art. For left-behind children who lack family education, the role of schools and teachers becomes crucial. Teachers should give positive guidance to children with poor grades and give them equal or even more attention than those with excellent grades. These grades are not very good left-behind children usually attribute the cause of the “failure” for their lack of ability to learn, therefore, teachers need to guide them to the correct analysis, and on this basis, setting up high goals, set up their confidence, once you have the correct learning method and self-confidence, their performance will be improved. This requires a lot of patience and the ability of teachers to hit the spot. Therefore, targeted training should be given to teachers in rural schools so that left-behind children can get better education.

2.5.4 Cultivate Left-Behind Children’s Interest in Learning Teachers can describe the wonderful world to left-behind children, arouse their longing for a better future, help them establish a positive attitude toward life and learning, and bring them the real fun of learning instead of boring lectures. Teachers can tell the success stories of celebrities in class, so as to set an example in the hearts of left-behind children and give full play to the role of role models. Education is not only about subject knowledge, but more importantly about how to be a “person.” Therefore, schools need to carry out corresponding legal and moral education courses as well as safety education. For example, lead students to conduct safety drills, perform in French theater, tell stories about heroes, learn from examples around them, and so on. At the same time, the school should also strengthen the guidance of values, so that left-behind children can establish correct three views, buckle the first button of life, and lay a foundation for their physical and mental health growth.

2.5.5 Create a Good Social and Educational Environment Government departments should enhance the level of supervision and management, strictly control the nature of various literary and artistic works, improve the classification system for different ages, classify games, movies, and TV programs according to their ages, prohibit the opening of entertainment venues around schools, and strengthen the development of various entertainment programs suitable for children.

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Relevant publicity units should do a good job in advocating entertainment programs full of positive energy, set up an example, and create an ideal social and educational environment for the healthy development of left-behind children. From November 2016 to January 2017, the floating Population Department of the Former National Health and Family Planning Commission, in cooperation with UNICEF, organized a survey to assess the health service needs of left-behind children in poor rural areas in 27 counties (districts) in 12 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central government). The survey found that left-behind children were more likely than non-left-behind children to feel lonely, depressed, want to leave home, and self-harm. Among them, 23.1% of left-behind children in the first grade of junior middle school “thought of running away from home,” and 16.8% of them reported “self-harm.” It is urgent to solve the mental health problems of left-behind children.

2.5.6 Coordinate Regional Economic Development Basically, rural left-behind children problem is the periodic problem in China’s economic and social development. It is due to the unbalanced development between urban and rural areas, public service is not equal, imperfect social security and other issues caused by the social phenomenon, therefore, to solve this problem, there is need to publish relevant policy, reduce the gap between urban and rural areas, improve the level of rural public service, improve the social security system for left-behind children, actively play the leading role of government in the people’s livelihood and education, through the policy of economic and education input, narrow the gap between urban and rural and regional development, improve the education level of rural and remote areas, for the rural left-behind children to create a good education and social environment, reduce the likelihood of left-behind happen, let the child’s parents come to the workplace and care for the children, let children grow up healthily under the care and company of their parents. In recent years, the government has made a lot of efforts and attempts, such as encouraging people to return home to find jobs and start businesses. Some workers who used to work in cities are returning to their hometowns to find jobs, which to some extent solves the problem that some leftbehind children are not effectively supervised. Left-behind children generally lack the warmth of family love and the care of parents, so their main psychological problems are self-abasement, depression, like self-isolation, withdrawal, and not fitting in with others. Some children have the abnormal mentality of hatred, and even the tendency of violence. Strengthening contact with relatives is beneficial to the psychological problems of left-behind children, and only appeals or moral constraints can have little effect on this problem. Therefore, relevant laws should be improved to make guardians truly shoulder the responsibilities of parents. Opinions of the State Council on Strengthening the Care and Protection of Left-behind Children in Rural Areas emphasize the need to strengthen the responsibility of family guardianship. Migrant parents should try their best to live with their minor children together, or one

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parent should stay at home to take care of them. Those who do not have the above conditions should entrust their children to relatives with guardianship ability (He & Zhang, 2008; Tu et al., 2009; Zhou & Wang, 2021).

2.5.7 Strengthen the Construction of Social Support System In addition, the government should improve the social security system. At present, the systems put into effect include left-behind children’s file registration system, guardian contact system, family communication system, surrogate parent system, home-school co-education system, and so on. We have established special files for left-behind children in rural areas, classified registration and filing of left-behind children, and master the learning and living conditions of each left-behind child. We can not only contact the parents and guardians of children at any time, but also supervise the parents and guardians of left-behind children. At present, the surrogate parent system is one of the most effective solutions to the problem of left-behind children in China. It consists of caring teams formed by caring people in the local society to help the children “one to one,” with little investment, strong operability, and gradual promotion. According to Liu Minghua, a deputy of the National People’s Congress, about one-third of the children surveyed in each region have established friendly relationships with urban families, strengthening their ability to resist external temptations under the watchful eye of urban parents. Rural people have felt the warmth of grassroots Party organizations in the spread of “surrogate patriarchy,” and at the same time, the system has narrowed the distance between urban and rural areas. In some places, the teacher as a parent reduces the distance of left-behind children and teachers, and widens the left-behind children communication platform. Let the teacher come into the child’s inner world, this sets up the learning confidence, correcting bad life learning habits, step by step into collective life, on the track of his childhood. Visible, the acting paternalism is a certain level of left-behind children have played an important role in love, but it also has some problems, the biggest problem is that part of the parent is difficult to shoulder the responsibility of the children, because many parents are cadres and people of the town they can hardly have time to attend the school organization of PTA or intimate contact with the child, Material help alone cannot fill the left-behind children’s longing for family love. It is also an effective solution to set up nurseries and boarding systems. Left-behind children in rural areas can live and educate together, so that they can enjoy a stable life and education in collective life, and can also enjoy professional psychological guidance teachers. The government needs to take effective measures according to the actual situation. To provide a good environment for the growth of rural left-behind children, we will improve the scientific management system for left-behind children.

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2.5.8 Organize Mental Health Education Activities Community and township governments should actively carry out mental health education activities to create a good social environment for rural left-behind children to solve psychological problems. For example, we can carry out one-to-one psychological counseling public welfare activities, in which volunteers communicate with left-behind children one-to-one. Volunteers can help left-behind children understand and deal with possible psychological problems emotionally and give them love and care. At the same time, it can also play a guiding and motivating role in life and promote the healthy growth of rural left-behind children. Communities can also publicize to the parents of left-behind children how to properly treat their children, how to carry out psychological education for their children, how to communicate with their children, and so on, so as to become parents’ teachers. In addition, parents should pay attention to the comprehensiveness of education, which should not be limited to cultural classes, but also to educate children about the world outlook. Parents should also constantly enrich themselves, through reading or real-life accumulation, improve their comprehensive quality and cultural level, the formation of correct values, at the same time, to set an example, set a good example. To their own attention to life and education to infect children, let children realize the meaning and value of life, and have a healthy psychological atmosphere.

2.5.9 Carry Out Rich Extracurricular Activities What left-behind children need most is the nourishment of “love.” Schools can carry out various activities, such as holding birthday parties for left-behind children, encouraging them to participate in variety shows and other cultural and sports activities, etc. Teachers can also encourage left-behind children to become good friends with their classmates and actively create conditions to guide them to make more friends. The increase in the number of friends will be conducive to left-behind children’s identity and physical and mental health development. With the teacher’s care and the friendship of the students to nourish the heart comes the formation of a sound personality. The school can invite some moral models or parents who go out to work to give reports to the school, to convey positive energy, to educate students with their own experience, to develop their collective spirit and positive self-improvement spirit. In addition, teachers can communicate with the parents of left-behind children and ask them to call them more, so that the left-behind children feel that they are also “cared about.” Social care in various forms is of course important, but the most important thing is to let them learn to love themselves and learn to manage themselves. Let them discover their own unique, irreplaceable place, thus self-esteem, will not easily degenerate. So that left-behind children learn self-discipline, develop good living and learning habits, consciously resist the temptation of the outside world. Schools can offer targeted courses according to the characteristics of left-behind children in rural

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areas. Such as moral education, mental health education, safety education and other aspects of the curriculum. Schools, where conditions permit, may set up psychological counseling teachers to help left-behind children with various psychological problems, solve their puzzles, cultivate their sound personality, establish correct values, outlook on life and world outlook, and develop good learning habits so as to enable them to develop healthily. To help them abandon bad ideology and form healthy ideology, this needs psychological counseling teachers with certain professional knowledge and ability, needs rural schools to strengthen the teaching force, and needs the strong support of the government (He & Zhang, 2008; Ji, 2016; Tu et al., 2009; Xie & Yao, 2010; Zhou & Wang, 2021).

References He, X., & Zhang, J. (2008). On the construction of the educational management mode of left-behind children with full participation. Modern Education Science, 20(8), 101–102. Ji, C. (2016). Research on educational support for left-behind children based on empirical investigation—Taking X area in Central Jiangsu Province as an example. Global Education Outlook, 45(3), 34–47. Tu, X., Ye, Z., & Tu, J. (2009). Rural left-behind children education plight and government-led governance. Modern Education Management, 20(2), 19–21. Xie, S., & Yao, L. (2010). Analysis on the status quo of left-behind children’s right to education—A case study of a town in Shanxi Province. Rural Economy and Technology, 32(1), 266–268. Zhou, A., & Wang, Y. (2021). Education equity of left-behind children and its governance countermeasures. Hunan Social Sciences, 20(3), 146–154.

Chapter 3

The Ethnic Children Education Policy Development in China

This chapter explores the education policy of ethnic children development in China. China is a unified country with many ethnic groups. In the big Family of the Chinese nation, the Han nationality has the largest population, accounting for over 90% of the total population. The other 55 ethnic groups have smaller populations and are called ethnic minorities. According to the results of the seventh national census released on May 11, 2021, the Han population is 128.631 million, accounting for 91.11%, and the ethnic minority population is 125.47 million, accounting for 8.89%. Chinese minority population is less, but distribution is very wide, in the form of a large decentralized, small settlement living in all parts of the country, especially in the southwest, northwest, and northeast China is, and many typical ethnic minority areas and more focused on the frontier of our country, the mountains, or remote areas, due to reasons such as history and environment, economic development is slow, education level is not high. Ethnic education is an important part of China’s education cause and important content of China’s ethnic work.

3.1 Literature Review 3.1.1 The Historical Development Since the set up until the present the founding of the Communist Party of China in one hundred, in the long journey of the Communist Party of China has always attached great importance to the development of national education, working in different historical periods on the basis of different ethnic and national education career development needs, implemented a series of related national education policy measures, in the national work and promote national unity and maintain national unity. It has made outstanding contributions to the development of education in © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 E. Xue and J. Li, Childhood Education Policy in China, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4683-7_3

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China. In July 1922, the Second National Congress of the Communist Party of China adopted the Declaration of the Second National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and clearly put forward the policy of “improving the education system, implementing the popularization of education” and developing the cause of ethnic education, training minority cadres, and other measures. In 1926, the Communist Party of China proposed in the Resolution to Solve the Problems of Miao and Yao, that “Miao Yao simple schools should be established,” which is the earliest expression of the Communist Party of China on the development of education for ethnic minorities. During the Soviet Republic of China, while issuing specific measures to promote the cultural and educational work of ethnic minorities, it ensured and promoted the development of ethnic education by means of laws. For example, the Outline of the Constitution of the Soviet Republic of China issued by the Communist Party of China in early 1934 emphasized that the Soviet regime guaranteed the right of the toiling masses to receive education, implemented completely free education to the extent possible, and guided the youth of all ethnic groups to participate in political and cultural life so as to develop new social forces. During the Anti-Japanese War, the Communist party of China still did not ignore the development of national education, clearly put forward “improve the level of people’s national consciousness” education goals, and a clear requirement for all national education and national work, namely, full respect for minority languages, cultural tradition, life custom, etc., helping the development of ethnic minority culture education career. In 1937, the Party School of the CPC Central Committee opened classes for ethnic minorities, mainly to train students from ethnic minorities who arrived in Yan’an with the Red Army’s Long March. In August of the same year, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China established Shaanxi Northern Public School in Yan’an. In 1939, the Party School of the CPC Central Committee opened training courses for Hui cadres. The Working Committee for Ethnic Minorities in the Northwest Bureau of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee has opened training classes for Tibetan cadres. Shaanxi Northern Public School set up Mongolian youth study class. In the spring of 1941, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China established the Ministry of Nationalities in Shaanxi Northern Public School. In October 1941, Yan’an Institute for Nationalities was founded. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, ethnic education developed more rapidly. In September 1951, the First National Conference on Ethnic Education of the Ministry of Education was held in Beijing. In November of the same year, the State Council approved the Report of the First National Conference on Ethnic Education. Ethnic education policies in this period clarified the general policy of ethnic education [4]. Respecting the forms and characteristics of ethnic minorities in running schools; Equality of spoken and written languages among ethnic groups; Preferential treatment and financial aid are given to ethnic minority students; Importance is attached to the construction of teaching staff of ethnic minorities; Set up a special fund for education subsidies for ethnic minorities; Set up special administrative institutions for ethnic education. In 1956, the second National Conference on Ethnic Education was held, at which the school tenet of “training political cadres

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and training professional and technical cadres at the same time” was put forward by ethnic colleges and universities, which normalized the higher education of ethnic colleges and universities gradually, which was a leap forward in the development of ethnic higher education. At the same time, it also puts forward the goal of making the educational undertakings of ethnic minorities gradually approach and catch up with the level of the Han nationality, the specific content of which is to systematically carry out the work of literacy and popularize compulsory primary education in ethnic minority areas. In order to solve the problem of teachers in ethnic minority areas, the meeting also proposed new methods to increase the proportion of teachers in primary schools among border migrants and to train teachers for junior middle school students and unemployed intellectuals in mainland China. The meeting issued the Instructions on Educational Expenses for Ethnic Minorities. Although the central government appropriated funds after 1956, the subsidy for ethnic education was still allocated, and the support for teachers in ethnic border areas was increased. The preferential policies for enrollment were further materialized, which laid a foundation for the leap-forward development of ethnic education. The period from the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee in 1978 to the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012 marked a new historical period for China’s reform and opening up and the building of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Vigorously strengthen national unity education, promoting the coordinated development of all kinds of education, reform and perfect the examination recruitment system of preferential policies, the use of high-quality education resources for mainland Tibetan classes (school), XinJiangBan, implementation of high-level backbone talents of ethnic minorities, colleges and universities hold MinZuBan, prep school, intensify education partnerships is the period of the construction of the ethnic education policies in China. The main embodiment of the effect were a large number of manpower, material resources, financial input, for the development of education in ethnic areas to help. In 1987, the former State Education Commission issued the Notice on Paying attention to the Party’s Ethnic Policy and Strengthening Ethnic Unity Education in Schools at all levels, which explicitly stated that positive education on ethnic unity should be strengthened in schools at all levels. In 2008, the General Office of the Ministry of Education and the General Office of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission jointly issued the Guidelines for Ethnic Unity Education in Schools (Trial), requiring primary and secondary schools across the country to set up ethnic unity education courses. The outline has become an important basis for further strengthening the educational work of ethnic unity in schools (Duo et al., 2014; Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Sun et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022; Zhu, 2005). In 1992, the Opinions on Several Issues concerning The Strengthening of Education for Ethnic Minorities pointed out: “We should vigorously strengthen basic education and actively create conditions for the implementation of nine-year compulsory education.” “Actively develop multi-level and diversified forms of vocational and technical education and adult education”; At present, the College of Nationalities should not only focus on disciplines and majors with ethnic characteristics, but also train cadres of ethnic minorities, etc. In 2002, the Decision of the State Council on Deepening Reform and Accelerating the Development of Ethnic Education further

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pointed out: “Give prominence to the priority of the ‘two-basic education’, increase input, concentrate the forces of all sectors of society, accelerate the ‘two-basic education’ process,” “strive to improve the school running and living conditions of boarding primary and secondary schools. We should support ethnic minorities and western regions in running demonstration high schools and developing high school education.” “Efforts should be made to run institutions of higher learning in ethnic minority areas and ethnic higher learning institutions.” Thanks to the strong support of the state, local governments at all levels have also given varying degrees of financial support and preferential policies to ethnic minority education, which has greatly improved the conditions for running basic education for ethnic minorities and greatly promoted the process of realizing the goal of “two basic education” in ethnic minority areas. In 1978, colleges and universities stipulated that the minimum admission threshold and admission threshold for ethnic minority examinees in border areas could be relaxed. In 1981, when enrolling students, institutions of higher learning further stipulated that examinee of ethnic minorities living scattered in Han areas would be given priority in admission under the same conditions as examinees of Han nationality and proposed a policy of allocating quotas on a proportional basis. Since 2006, the preparatory policy for ethnic minorities has mainly focused on “additional score admission.” In 1984, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) promulgated the Directive on Training Talents for Tibet in Running Schools in the hinterland, officially starting to run schools in Tibetan areas in the hinterland. In 2010, the Ministry of Education and other ministries and commissions issued the Opinions on Setting up Inland Tibet Secondary Vocational Classes in Some Inland Provinces (municipalities) and began to set up inland Tibet Secondary Vocational Classes. In 1999, the Ministry of Education and other ministries and commissions issued the “Opinions on Further Strengthening Personnel Training in Ethnic Minority Areas” to enable students from Xinjiang to receive better senior high school education in inland areas. In September 2011, the Ministry of Education and other ministries and commissions issued the Opinions on The Establishment of Xinjiang Secondary Vocational Classes in the Mainland, which started the establishment of Xinjiang Secondary Vocational Classes in the Mainland. In order to implement the Party’s policy on ethnic minorities and speed up the implementation of the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education and the strategy of developing the western region, the Ministry of Education and other five ministries and commissions jointly issued the Opinions on Vigorously Training Highlevel Backbone Personnel of Ethnic Minorities and the Implementation Plan of the Plan for Training High-level Backbone Personnel of Ethnic Minorities from 2004 to 2005. In 2006, the Ministry of Education issued the Administrative Measures on The Enrollment of High-level Backbone Talents of Ethnic Minorities program and the Notice on Strengthening basic Training for High-level Backbone Talents of Ethnic Minorities Graduate Students in 2006 in order to guide colleges and universities to do a good job in related training. In 2008, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the Opinions on The Employment of Graduate Students with High-level Ethnic-Minority Backbone Talents in order to facilitate the employment of the first

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batch of high-level ethnic Minority backbone talents (Duo et al., 2014; Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Sun et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022; Zhu, 2005). In order to speed up the training of high-level personnel from ethnic minorities, the Ministry of Education issued the Notice on the Trial Opening of Ethnic Minority Classes in Some Key Institutions of Higher Learning in 1980, and decided to open ethnic Minority classes in Five key institutions of higher learning including Peking University. In March 1984, the Ministry of Education and the State Ethnic Affairs Commission issued the Opinions on Strengthening Leadership and Further Running Ethnic Minority Classes in Institutions of Higher Learning, emphasizing the need to continue to run ethnic preparatory classes well. In July 2002, the Decision of the State Council on Deepening reform and Accelerating the Development of Ethnic Education proposed to speed up the construction of ethnic preparatory education base. In June 2005, in order to greatly strengthen the administration of ethnic Preparatory Classes in colleges and universities, the Ministry of Education issued the Measures for the Administration of Ethnic Preparatory Classes and Ethnic Classes in Colleges and Universities (For Trial Implementation), which clarified the definition, status, and role of ethnic preparatory classes and made detailed provisions on various aspects of ethnic preparatory education. Most of these high-level talents play a leading and backbone role in the socialist modernization of the country and ethnic minority areas and have made significant contributions to the prosperity and development of all ethnic groups. In April 2000, the General Offices of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the Notice on Promoting the Work of Pairing Support for Schools in the Eastern and western regions. Subsequently, the Ministry of Education and other six ministries and commissions jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on School Pairing support in eastern and western regions. In 2001, the Ministry of Education issued the Notice on the Implementation of the “Plan of Pairing Support for Higher Education in western China,” which officially launched the “Plan of Pairing Support for Higher Education in western China.” In 2006, the Ministry of Education, The United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, and the State Ethnic Affairs Commission jointly issued the Opinions on Further Strengthening The Work of Pairing Education Aid to Tibet, providing guidance on further improving the work of providing education aid to Tibet in the future. In March 2010, the first national Work Conference on Pin-up Assistance to Xinjiang was held in Beijing, marking the launch of a new round of pin-up assistance to Xinjiang (Duo et al., 2014; Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Sun et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022; Zhu, 2005). Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the cause of ethnic education has entered a new stage. In September 2014, the Central Conference on Ethnic Affairs was held, which made plans for ethnic affairs, including the development of ethnic education. In August 2015, the Ministry of Education and the State Ethnic Affairs Commission jointly held the sixth National Conference on Ethnic Education, making comprehensive plans and arrangements for ethnic education in the new era. Prior to the meeting, the State Council issued the Decision on Accelerating the Development of Ethnic Education, which pointed out the direction for the development of ethnic education and provided a guide for action. The Decision on Accelerating the Development of Ethnic Education is the most important, systematic, and comprehensive policy

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and regulation on ethnic education in China, which provides an important basis and directional guidance for the development of ethnic education in China and the construction of ethnic education policy. In 2017, after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the ethnic education policy focused on solving the new problem of how to solve the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate educational development in ethnic areas and people’s demands for diversified high-quality education, centering on the main line of building a strong sense of community of the Chinese nation. The value pursuit of ethnic education policy in this period was to make the achievements of reform and development benefit the people more fairly. In 2020, the CPC Central Committee’s Proposal on the Formulation of the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-term Goals of 2035 proposed to accelerate the construction of highquality education system, which changed the focus of ethnic education policy from the pursuit of education scale, quantity and speed to the pursuit of education quality connotation and quality (Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Zhang, 2022).

3.1.2 Establishing a Regular Mechanism for Ethnic Unity Education First, we should pay more attention to establishing a regular mechanism for ethnic unity education and solidify the sense of community of the Chinese nation. In 2015, the Decision on Accelerating the Development of Ethnic Education issued by the State Council clearly stated that teachers and students of all ethnic groups should lay a solid foundation for the thought of community of the Chinese nation, actively cultivate and practice core socialist values, and establish a regular mechanism for ethnic unity education. In December 2018, the General Offices of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the Opinions on Comprehensively, Deeply and Consistently Carrying out the Work of Ethnic Unity and Progress to Create a Strong Sense of community of the Chinese Nation. We will guide the people of all ethnic groups to enhance their recognition of the great motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the Communist Party of China, and socialism with Chinese characteristics. Second, we should pay more attention to ethnic education and scientific research and the cultivation of endogenous driving forces in ethnic education. In 2012, with the attention of the Central government, the Development Center for Ethnic Education of the Ministry of Education was officially established, and ethnic education and research has since become a state-level research institution. In 2014, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the National Program for Ethnic Education and Research (2014–2020), which is the first program for ethnic education and Research issued in China since the founding of the People’s Republic of China and has played an important role in guiding and promoting the national work of ethnic

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education and research. In August 2014, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the Notice on the Establishment of the National Committee of Experts on Ethnic Education, marking the establishment of the first state-level high-end think tank for ethnic education since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. In 2015, the Decision on Accelerating the Development of Ethnic Education issued by the State Council stressed the need to strengthen scientific research on ethnic education. State institutions for ethnic education and research shall establish transregional platforms for ethnic education and research, make overall plans, coordinate and guide them, and organize and carry out major theoretical and policy studies on ethnic education. The governments of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities should attach great importance to the work of ethnic education, scientific research, and teaching research, strengthen the building of their ranks, and comprehensively improve the ability of ethnic education, scientific research and teaching research to serve the development of ethnic education. With the continuous strengthening of educational institutions and teams for ethnic minorities, ethnic education and scientific research have developed vigorously throughout the country. Third, pay more attention to poverty alleviation through education in ethnic minority areas. General Secretary Xi Jinping has stressed that “ethnic minority areas are the main battleground in the tough battle against poverty” and “education is an important means to block the transmission of poverty between generations.” In Jinping’s new era under the guidance of the thought of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on education poverty engines work the important deployment, issued “about fight poverty tough decision,” issued by The General Office of the State Council “about education poverty alleviation project implementation opinion,” the Ministry of Education and other departments issued “crucial” much starker choices—and graver consequences—in planning education out of poverty and so on policy documents. The key contents and main tasks of poverty alleviation through education have been clarified (Duo et al., 2014; Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Sun et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022; Zhu, 2005).

3.2 Theoretical Tools Education is an effective way to cultivate and exercise mutual understanding among people of different cultures. Since education has the function of transmitting, explaining, and creating culture, we can find ways to promote intercultural understanding and communication in setting educational goals, constructing educational systems, designing teaching contents and means, etc. The early research on educational policy tools mainly focuses on theoretical research, including the definition of educational policy tools, the application of specific situations, and the analysis based on relevant data and relevant documents of China’s education. The selection of policy tools for ethnic education has the following characteristics: first, it directly adopts the analytical framework of foreign scholars’ policy tools, such as McDonnell and Elmore, Ingram and Schneider, Howlett and Ramish; The second is the localization

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of the classification of policy tools by reference and combination of foreign scholars. Around 20 years, new changes appeared in research methods, that is, from qualitative theoretical research to quantitative research, and the use of quantitative research methods gradually increased. Since the 1980s, the research upsurge of multicultural education in China’s educational circle, especially in the field of ethnic education, has been produced under the influence of the western trend of multicultural education, but it is the inevitable result of the domestic historical tradition and the actual social development needs, and has been deeply branded by localization from the very beginning. Although the western multicultural education theory is of great significance in emphasizing the cultural status and rights of minority groups, it is deeply rooted in the social and philosophical soil of western liberalism and relativism, which is far from the history and culture of our country and the real society. From a historical perspective, our country ancient times with the old adage “and but different,” to “fix its teaching is not easy to the customs, JiQiZheng not easy the appropriate” national policy, this is China’s historical and cultural foundation of multicultural education in “and” but its purpose, its premise stressed that “teach JiZheng,” rather than the negative culture from the epistemology, epistemology of advanced and backward.

3.2.1 Multicultural Education Banksy, a famous American scholar, proposed to divide multicultural education into five stages. That is, the “monoethnic learning” stage, which takes the culture of specific minority groups as the curriculum content; The stage of “multi-ethnic learning” integrating various ethnic group cultures; The stage of “multi-ethnic education” aimed at improving the whole educational environment; Multicultural education, which includes not only ethnic minorities but also weak cultural groups such as women, the disabled, religious groups, and residents of remote areas; And the “institutionalized” phase, which combines the above phases. Multicultural education in Britain began with the large increase of “colored” immigrants from India and Pakistan after the 1950s. Since the early 1970s, “multi-ethnic education,” “multiethnic education,” and “multi-cultural education” have been put forward. The multicultural education in Britain started from the adaptive education to integrate the children of non-white immigrants into British society, and then expanded to multiethnic education including immigrants, and then to the multicultural education that emphasizes the culture of ethnic groups based on race relations. Another example is Germany’s multicultural education, which began in the early 1980s and was put forward mainly with the influx of foreign immigrant workers. Although the German authorities have shown great enthusiasm for bilingual and bicultural education, and have taken a series of assistance measures, and even encouraged immigrants to hire teachers from their home countries to teach their children their mother tongue and culture. But as some scholars in Germany have pointed out, one of the hidden lines of this policy is to make it easier for some children of migrants to return to their home countries in the future. Thus, the concept of multicultural education is not

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immutable. Including countries in theory and practice, there are a lot of useful experiences for reference in our country, but the important thing is according to China’s specific national conditions, give full consideration to all ethnic groups in China in the particularity of many aspects, such as culture, history, multicultural education of our country may be an objective and scientific definition, for our country’s national unity and contributed to common development. Multicultural education is different from general national policies and policies. As a kind of education, it must be operable. Therefore, it involves a series of problems such as textbook compilation, teaching methods, teachers, and educational system. It should be said that it is an extremely complex system engineering. There are plenty of difficulties to overcome in implementation (Duo et al., 2014; Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Sun et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022; Zhu, 2005).

3.2.2 Policy Management Framework for Ethnic Education The framework of education policy management is constructed and combined according to certain internal logic. The first-level indicators include education subject, education intermediary, and education management. According to the content characteristics of ethnic education policy, Pan Jinxian constructed and optimized the management framework of ethnic education policy. The subject of education refers to the “people” in the educational management framework, that is, teachers and students. The secondary indicators of teacher management are set according to the management content of teachers in the ethnic education policy, under which teacher training is developed. Educational intermediary refers to the sum of all methods and means that play the role of media and subject and object in the process of educational activities. Educational intermediary mainly includes three parts: educational process, educational funds, and educational environment. First, the education process develops its three-level indicators according to the teaching process of education objectives, teaching implementation, and teaching feedback. As a level 4 index, teaching tools refer to the things that affect students in the teaching process, including teaching materials and technology. Teaching organization is the indicator of teaching practice, in accordance with the overall guidance of teaching activities by the superior, as well as the selection and application of teaching contents, teaching methods, and teaching terms. Second, the education funds refer to the capital investment needed in the process of education, according to the investment main body, the national (the central government, local government), the educatees, social donations development level 3 indicators, including national main body formed by the central government and provincial and municipal governments, so the education development of the central government and local government education expenditure. It should be noted that there is a phenomenon that the secondary index of education funds does not specifically distinguish subjects in policies, so the “education funds” that is not specifically differentiated is also counted as a tertiary index in statistics. Scholarship is financial support in the country to the next level

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indicator, belonging to the central and local government spending under the index, due to the backward minority areas economy, family difficulties’ students, in order to support these students complete their studies smoothly, in the policy document mentioned many times family system of students and set up a scholarship funding difficulties, therefore its important meaning, so, It was counted as a four-level indicator. Finally, educational environment refers to the system which is centered on education and plays a role of restriction and regulation to the emergence, existence, and development of education. Campus environment includes campus material environment and cultural environment. The cultural environment closely related to the ethnic education environment is mainly the respect for the customs and religious beliefs of ethnic minorities and the strengthening of ethnic communication and unity. The material environment mainly includes campus infrastructure construction and teaching equipment construction. Educational management mainly involves ethnic education policy makers’ overall planning, management, and evaluation of the entire educational development, as well as the rights and responsibilities of policy implementors. Therefore, two secondary indicators, leadership management and education evaluation, are developed in educational management. Leadership management includes policy makers’ leadership of values to policy implementors and the use of the authority of state organs to promote the implementation of ethnic education policies. Education evaluation includes the government and relevant departments to supervise the policy implementors to strictly implement the policy of ethnic education and organize relevant units to evaluate the level and quality of education of ethnic education. At the same time, to further promote the development of ethnic education, education management and teaching experience are constantly summarized (Duo et al., 2014; Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Sun et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022; Zhu, 2005).

3.2.3 Introduction of Policy Tools In order to make a scientific analysis of policy documents, it is necessary to choose a highly compatible classification standard of policy tools. At present, many scholars at home and abroad have classified policy tools according to different classification standards, such as the relationship between policy objectives and policy choices, Lorraine M. McDonnell and Richard F. Elmore divide policy tools into command tools, incentive tools, capacity building tools, and system change tools. According to the behavioral hypothesis of policy tools, Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram divide them into authority tools, incentive tools, capacity building tools, symbol and persuasion tools, and learning tools. Rothwell and Zegveld divide policy tools into supplyoriented policy tools, demand-oriented policy tools, and environment-oriented policy tools according to different levels of policy tools. Although there are different types of policy classification, considering the applicability and compatibility of different policy classification standards and ethnic higher education policies, this study adopts Rothwell and Zegveld’s classification method, mainly based on the following two

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considerations: First, ethnic higher education policies involve more subjects, such as the government, schools, students, parents, society and enterprises. At the same time, based on the push–pull theory, the development of ethnic higher education not only depends on the support of national policies, but also depends on the active participation of ethnic colleges and universities, and is deeply affected by the surrounding social environment. Second, the classification is currently the most widely recognized and applied classification method for policy tools. Education for ethnic minorities mainly relies on the input of authority, information, wealth, and available organizational resources owned by the government to promote development. Therefore, authoritative tools (organizational tools, management tools, command tools), symbol and admonishment tools, incentive tools, capacity building tools, and systematic reform tools are basically defined. On this basis, according to the unique ethnic unity communication and theoretical research of ethnic minority education, as well as the self-input of the educatee, the communication and learning tools and voluntary tools are determined. Each tool has its own advantages and disadvantages. Authoritative tools rely on political authority to promote policy implementation, including well-organized government departments at all levels, and laws, rules and regulations, codes of conduct, and orders to influence policy implementation. To be specific, organizational tools are used by top-down management departments at all levels when they are required to have clear responsibilities and cooperate to complete policy implementation. Their advantage is that they can use established authoritative organizations to implement policies. The disadvantage is that too many vertical levels and horizontal departments in an organization tend to lead to inefficient and distorted policy implementation. If the responsibilities of departments at all levels are unclear, it is not conducive to accountability. Management tools ensure the effective implementation of policies by formulating laws, regulations, codes of conduct, and management systems, which has the advantage of guaranteeing the legal system and standardization of policy implementation. The disadvantage is that most of the code of conduct and management system used, debugging scope is small, policy effectiveness is weak. The command tool requires the policy executor and the target to implement the policy content. The advantage of command tool is to highlight the policy content that the policy maker wants to implement most, which reflects the authority. The disadvantage is that being full of coercive color can easily lead to conflict between policy implementer and target, and only fulfill the basic requirements of policy, affecting the optimal effect of policy implementation. The capacity building tool is a policy tool that needs long-term investment, and its advantage is a necessary tool for the development of ethnic education to ensure the continuous investment of material, human and technical resources. The disadvantages are that the policy effect cycle is long, and it is difficult to measure in the short term. In addition, the total amount of resources invested in general is large. When the defects of the policy are found, it is difficult to adjust the policy. Communication and learning tools are policy tools used according to the educational characteristics of ethnic minorities, in line with the basic national conditions of China’s unified multiethnic country, and conducive to promoting ethnic unity and cultural exchanges. At present, the application of this tool has achieved certain results, but it still needs

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to be further improved in various forms of communication, deepening of ethnic theoretical research and effective communication. Voluntary tools are policy tools used according to family, individual, and society, which make full use of social resources to promote the development of education. Due to the characteristics of policy text management, the frequency of this tool is low in selected policy texts, but in practice, families and individuals need to invest huge material resources for personal education, so the effect of this tool is huge. When the existing organization cannot produce the desired policy effect, it is necessary to establish or reform the organizational structure to redistribute authority in order to achieve the policy goal. This tool conforms to the law of the policy cycle, that is, policy termination or change is one of the policy processes in which the withdrawal, change, or creation of the policy organization may be accompanied (Duo et al., 2014; Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Sun et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022; Zhu, 2005).

3.3 Analysis of Policy Text The prosperity of economy and culture and the progress of society in minority areas all depend on the development of education and the cultivation of talents in minority areas. National education is not only a simple educational issue, but also a political issue related to national equality, national unity, and common prosperity. Therefore, the Party and the state have always attached importance to the development of minority education. In the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy, and other important laws and regulations, the guiding ideology of attaching importance to and helping ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas develop education has been clearly put forward. The author consulted the embodiment of ethnic minority education development in relevant laws and summarized the following aspects:

3.3.1 Attaching Importance to and Helping Ethnic Minorities and Ethnic Minority Areas Develop Education Guiding ideology on the Development of Ethnic Minority Education in the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy. Article 5: The superior people’s governments and their functional departments when making long-term economic and social development planning, national autonomous areas shall be heard and the opinions of the department of national work, according to the characteristics and needs of the national autonomous areas, support and help national autonomous areas to strengthen the construction of infrastructure, human resources development, expand the opening to the outside world, adjust and optimize the economic structure, rational utilization of natural resources. We

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will strengthen ecological improvement and environmental protection, accelerate the development of economy, education, science and technology, culture, health, sports, and other undertakings, and achieve comprehensive, coordinated, and sustainable development. Article 9: Finance at higher levels shall support the finance of ethnic autonomous areas in ensuring the normal operation of state organs in ethnic autonomous areas, the payment of wages and salaries of financially supported personnel on time and in full and the normal expenditure of basic education. Article 19: The State helps ethnic autonomous areas popularize nine-year compulsory education, eliminate illiteracy among young and middle-aged people, constantly improve conditions for running schools and vigorously support ethnic autonomous areas in running boarding schools in key areas. When regular middle schools in developed areas set up classes or middle schools for ethnic minorities, their operating conditions, teaching, and management level must meet the standards and standards of local schools. The State has adopted measures to support ethnic autonomous areas in developing vocational and adult education in light of local conditions, developing regular senior high school education and modern distance education, and promoting the coordinated development of basic education, adult education, and vocational education in rural areas. The state encourages and supports nongovernmental forces in running schools in ethnic autonomous areas in various forms, and actively organizes developed areas to support them in developing educational undertakings. Article 20: People’s governments at various levels shall include compulsory education in national autonomous areas in the scope of public finance guarantee. The central government will allocate special subsidies for ethnic minority education, and local governments will allocate corresponding subsidies for ethnic minority education. The State has actively created conditions to give priority support to compulsory education in border areas, poverty-stricken areas, and areas inhabited by ethnic minorities with small populations in ethnic autonomous areas, and has gradually introduced free compulsory education in rural areas of ethnic autonomous areas. In view of the relatively insufficient financial resources of ethnic education, the Party and the state adopted special support policies mainly manifested in two aspects: on the one hand, the special subsidy funds for ethnic education were set up to solve the special difficulties of ethnic education. Although in different historical periods, the establishment and management methods of special subsidies for ethnic education have varied due to changes in the state financial management system, they have never been canceled. In accordance with the spirit of the central government setting up special subsidies for ethnic minority education, some provinces and autonomous regions have also set up special subsidies for ethnic minority education. On the other hand, multi-channel investment in ethnic education should be increased. First, mobilize the enthusiasm of governments at all levels and the broad masses of the people in running education, adhere to the principle of combining state support with self-reliance, and increase input in ethnic education through multiple channels. The

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second is to strive for a part of the minority subsidies from the funds to do education; Third, we will seek support from all sectors of society for the development of ethnic education. At present, reverse discrimination does not violate the fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. According to Dworkin’s equality principle and Posner’s information economics analysis approach, reverse discrimination is reasonable. Reverse discrimination is very similar to the preferential policy of minority education in China. At the same time, according to Dworkin’s equality principle, Posner’s information economics analysis approach, and Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory, China’s preferential policies for minority education are reasonable.

3.3.2 Strengthening Leadership Over Ethnic Education The state has set up administrative organs for ethnic education to strengthen its leadership over ethnic education. Since the early 1950s, the Ministry of Education of the Central People’s Government and the education administrative departments of the people’s governments at various levels have established educational institutions for ethnic minorities or designated special persons to take charge of the work of education for ethnic minorities. At present, the Ministry of Education has a Department of Ethnic Education, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission has an Education Department, and some provinces and autonomous regions with large ethnic minority populations have ethnic education departments (sections) in the education departments, and ethnic affairs commissions of all provinces and autonomous regions have cultural and education departments, formed from the central to local ethnic education administration system. This principle is fully reflected in the Circular issued by the Ministry of Education on September 1, 2021 on the Measures for the Administration of Teaching Materials in Ethnic Minority Languages for Primary and Secondary Schools. Under the guidance of the state’s major policies on education, giving full respect to the autonomy of ethnic autonomous areas in developing education is conducive not only to the implementation of the system of regional ethnic autonomy, but also to the healthy development of ethnic education based on local conditions. Therefore, the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China clearly stipulates that the organs of self-government of ethnic autonomous areas are given the right of autonomy to manage their own educational undertakings. The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy makes further specific provisions in this regard: The organs of self-government of ethnic autonomous areas decide, in accordance with the state’s educational policies and legal provisions, their local educational plans, and the establishment, length of schooling, forms of running schools, contents of courses, terms of instruction, and enrollment methods of schools at various levels and of various types; The organs of self-government of ethnic autonomous areas independently develop ethnic education to eliminate illiteracy, run schools of all kinds, popularize compulsory primary education, develop secondary education, run normal schools for ethnic minorities, secondary specialized schools for ethnic minorities, vocational schools for ethnic minorities and colleges for ethnic

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minorities, and train professional personnel of all ethnic minorities. The organs of self-government of ethnic autonomous areas may set up public primary schools and middle schools mainly for ethnic minorities in pastoral areas or in mountainous areas of ethnic minorities that are in financial difficulties and live scattered. Schools with students mainly from ethnic minorities shall, where conditions permit, use textbooks in the languages of ethnic minorities and give lectures in such languages (Duo et al., 2014; Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Sun et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022; Zhu, 2005).

3.3.3 Implementing the Education Mode of Combining Ethnic Language Teaching with Bilingual Teaching Article 22 of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy: The State protects the freedom of all ethnic groups to use and develop their own spoken and written languages and supports the standardization and information processing of the spoken and written languages of ethnic minorities. Promote the use of putonghua and standard Chinese characters commonly used throughout the country; Citizens of ethnic groups in ethnic autonomous areas are encouraged to learn spoken and written languages from each other. The state encourages the gradual implementation of national autonomous areas of minority language and Chinese language teaching “bilingual teaching,” supports the minority language and Chinese language teaching material in the research, development, compiling, and publishing, support to establish and improve the minority teaching material compilation and censors, help to develop knowledge of ethnic minorities and Han Chinese language teachers. A series of laws and regulations of the state have clearly stipulated that the education mode of combining ethnic language teaching with bilingual teaching should be implemented in ethnic schools. The specific implementation methods are as follows: The decision shall be made mainly by the provinces (autonomous regions) in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China and the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy, and in accordance with the will of the majority of the people and the local language environment in accordance with the principles conducive to the improvement of the quality of education, the development of the ethnic groups and scientific and cultural exchanges among the ethnic groups. In order to better implement the teaching of ethnic languages and improve the quality of teaching, the state also attaches importance to and strengthens the construction of teaching materials in ethnic languages and has formulated a series of specific policies. First, it strengthens the planning and management of the compilation and publication of teaching materials. The second is to establish the examination and approval system of teaching materials in ethnic languages and formulate the working regulations of the examination committee of teaching materials in ethnic languages; The third is to formulate the evaluation and award system and methods for teaching materials in

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ethnic languages and unify the evaluation conditions and standards so as to guide and improve the compilation quality of teaching materials in ethnic languages.

3.3.4 Establishing Schools for Ethnic Minorities at Various Levels and of Various Types Article 21 of Law of the People’s Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy: The State assists and supports ethnic autonomous areas in developing higher education, and runs well ethnic preparatory and ethnic classes in ethnic colleges and universities and in regular institutions of higher learning. Special policy support shall be given to institutions of higher learning in ethnic autonomous areas and colleges and universities for ethnic minorities in their discipline construction and postgraduate enrollment. In order to thoroughly implement the spirit of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the third and fourth Plenary sessions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Central Conference on Ethnic Affairs, and comprehensively implement the outline of the education plan, give full play to the experts and scholars in ethnic preparatory education of institutions of higher learning in the teaching and management work guidance, ethnic minority preparatory education of institutions of higher learning and improve the teaching quality and management level, through research, decided to set up institutions of higher learning minority preparatory education teaching and management guidance work committee (hereinafter referred to as the preparatory steering committee). Issued in 2018, the general office of the Ministry of Education about earnestly the minority preparatory students’ training work notice to fall semester started from 2018, the central department of preparatory students in colleges and universities implement independent culture, provincial college preparatory students enrolled in principle by the provincial education administrative departments according to the actual situation. It is independently trained or centrally trained by the school (excluding students from Xinjiang province). In order to develop education for ethnic minorities, the state, in addition to vigorously establishing schools at various levels and of various types in ethnic minority areas, has also set up ethnic minority schools at various levels and of various types to enroll students from ethnic minorities. China’s ethnic schools include secondary education, higher education, ethnic schools for a single ethnic group, and ethnic schools for several minorities. The College of Nationalities is a comprehensive institution of higher learning specially trained by the Party and the state for senior professionals of ethnic minorities. Ethnic class is a special measure to develop ethnic education, which makes full use of the advanced conditions of teachers, equipment, and other aspects of ordinary schools and specially recruits minority students for training. Boarding primary and secondary schools for ethnic minorities are a special form of schooling set up by the State to recruit ethnic minority students in rural areas, pastoral areas, and remote mountainous areas in ethnic minority areas and economically underdeveloped areas, and to popularize ethnic primary education.

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The establishment of schools for ethnic minorities at all levels has accelerated the development of ethnic education and trained a large number of professionals for ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas.

3.3.5 Improving the Teaching Staff of Ethnic Minorities The Circular of the General Office of the Ministry of Education on Issuing the Enrollment Plan for High-level Backbone Ethnic Minority Graduate Students in 20XX, issued by the Ministry of Education every year since 2006, stipulates the proportion of backbone ethnic minority teachers and plans to recruit 5,000 teachers, including 1,000 doctoral students, and 4,000 master students. Qualified enrollment units may enroll no more than 10% of Han examinees to improve the comprehensive quality of teachers from ethnic minorities. Strengthening the construction of teachers is the key to developing national education and improving the quality of education. The Party and the state have always attached great importance to the construction of teachers in ethnic education. First, vigorously develop national normal education and train qualified teachers of ethnic minorities; Secondly, strengthen the training and improvement of in-service teachers; At the same time, improve the treatment of ethnic teachers, and strengthen the construction of teachers in the hinterland to support ethnic areas. Since the founding of The People’s Republic of China in 1949, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have paid great attention to the training and use of ethnic minority personnel and adopted a series of special measures to train a large number of ethnic minority party and government officials and professionals. Especially since the third Plenary Session of the eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), while vigorously supporting the development of education in ethnic minority areas, the state has intensified efforts to train various kinds of talents for ethnic minority areas. Since the 1980s, ethnic minority classes and preparatory classes have been set up in some key colleges and universities nationwide and in colleges and universities in relevant provinces and autonomous regions. Since 1984, Tibet classes (schools) have been set up in mainland China, since 1987 Xinjiang ethnic classes and preparatory classes have been organized in colleges and universities in mainland China. Held since 2000, the mainland high school classes in Xinjiang, and so on, these special policies and measures have greatly promoted the ethnic minority areas of economic development, social progress and promote the ethnic unity and cohesion, to safeguard the national security and border to consolidate, embodies the superiority of the socialist system in our country, has an extensive and far-reaching influence both at home and abroad. But due to reasons such as society, history, natural, compared with the developed coastal and inland areas, ethnic minority areas of social economy, science and technology education, and cultural development of various undertakings, such as there is a larger gap, social development is still slow, is still relatively low development level of productive forces, the worker quality needs to be improved, especially the doctor, master degree of high-level backbone talents are scarce, It is an important factor restricting

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local economic construction and social development. According to relevant statistics, professionals of all kinds in the western region account for only 20.4% of the national total, senior professionals and technicians only 13.6%, and academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Sciences only 8.3%. Academicians of ethnic minorities are especially rare. Among the professional and technical personnel in ethnic minority areas, only 15.4% are engineers and 8.8% are scientific researchers. Taking special measures to vigorously train high-level backbone talents of ethnic minorities has become an urgent political task concerning the common prosperity and development of all ethnic groups in China and safeguarding the long-term stability and unity of the country. Our country gives special care to minority students in enrollment and living. On the one hand, special enrollment policies have been implemented for ethnic minority students in the entrance examinations of ordinary higher and secondary specialized schools, mainly by relaxing the age limit for applying for the examination, relaxing the standards of admission scores, and allowing ethnic minority students to take examinations in ethnic languages. On the other hand, the policy of taking proper care of students from ethnic minorities has been implemented. As many ethnic minority students come from remote and poor ethnic minority areas, the local economic foundation is backward, and the family economy is relatively difficult. Therefore, ethnic minority students receive preferential treatment in their daily life, mainly by reducing or exempting fees and granting grants. To accelerate the development of education for ethnic minorities, the coastal areas, inland areas, and economically developed areas need to give vigorous support in addition to the self-reliance of ethnic minority areas and the policies and measures adopted by the state to support them. In 1956, the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China issued a notice on the Issue of Inland Support for Teachers in Primary Schools in Border Areas, requiring Sichuan, Shaanxi, and other inland provinces and cities to support teachers in neighboring border provinces and regions. In the 1950s and 1960s, institutions of higher learning in the border areas with minority nationalities provided some teachers and teaching equipment urgently needed for the establishment of institutions of higher learning in the Mainland. Since the reform and opening up, the counterpart support for education in minority areas has been more extensive. Since the 1990s, in accordance with the spirit of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council’s “Notice on printing and Distributing the Outline of China’s Education Reform and Development,” the provinces and municipalities in the interior have earnestly organized and implemented pairing support for education in ethnic minority areas. At present, there are three main items of pin-up support for education in ethnic minority areas. One is to provide intellectual aid to Tibet by mobilizing resources from all parts of the country to fully pin-up support for education in Tibet. Second, the counterpart support and cooperation between inland colleges and universities and Xinjiang; Third, we will organize coastal provinces and cities with developed economies and cultures to provide educational assistance and cooperation to poverty-stricken ethnic minority counties (Duo et al., 2014; Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Sun et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022; Zhu, 2005).

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3.4 Challenges and Problems Based on census data in 2016 in China, China’s population of 6 years old and above, each ethnic minority education in primary school education stage, the population proportion are below the national average level, which in the primary stage, while the minority percentage is higher, but from the point of view of “has not been to school,” “has not been to school” in the ethnic minorities accounted for 11.23%. In China, 7.33% of people have not attended primary school, which means that the minority people who have not received basic education account for much more. At the same time, there are also educational inequities among ethnic minorities. For example, the educational level of urban areas is higher than that of rural areas, the educational level of unleft-behind children is higher than that of left-behind children, and the educational level of non-migrant children is higher than that of migrant children. At present, there are four main problems in ethnic children’s education: high dropout rate, bilingual teaching difficulties, ethnic cultural inheritance difficulties, and limited development.

3.4.1 High Dropout Rate According to the implementation data above, junior middle school has the largest proportion of students in China, while primary school has the largest proportion of ethnic students, which means that since primary school, the decline of ethnic students is greater than the national average level, that is, the dropout rate of ethnic students is higher than the national average level. Take Fa Sa village of Yanfang Township, located in the high mountains with inconvenient transportation, as an example. There are only 2 vocational high school graduates in the village of more than 200 people, and only 10% of the children can graduate from primary school. School education is in a state of lack or semi-lack. The reasons for the high dropout rate are as follows: first, some ethnic families are in extreme poverty, unable to support their children to study, and their children drop out of school early to work for family subsidies; Because even to normal school, but national students before school use of mother tongue, and went to school (if into ordinary schools), use the Chinese language difficulties, can lead to learning difficulties, caused by a lack of part of the ethnic minority areas economic strength at the same time, the population outflow is serious, left-behind children and floating children is more, no parents and take care of the relationship between in time. Children’s mental health is also difficult to ensure, thus affecting their learning, and learning difficulties will affect children’s confidence in learning, directly or indirectly lead to students entering the labor market too early; Third, partly because of its remote location and lack of information, the society does not pay enough attention to education. Parents hope their children can make money early and give up studying. Fourth, it is difficult to carry out bilingual teaching in ethnic schools (especially ethnic primary schools and junior middle schools), and

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the teaching quality is also difficult to be guaranteed. In addition, due to insufficient funds, it is difficult for schools to attract or cultivate excellent teachers, so there may be a gap between students’ abilities and those of ordinary schools. In the end, ethnic students and ordinary students are compared in the same arena. Even with the extra points policy, the teaching difficulty of universities is the same for everyone. Ethnic students need to make more efforts to adapt to the study in ordinary colleges and universities. At the same time, the value system and evaluation standard formed by ethnic family education and social family are also different from mainstream culture, which will bring difficulties for ethnic students to adapt to college life. And these difficulties will further lead to ethnic college students drop out. At the same time, according to a 2007 survey of economic development and vocational education in western minority regions, the gap between the number of graduates size is larger, high dropout rate actually doesn’t have a lot of labor in the ethnic minority areas, means that in addition to the national education elementary stage and advanced stage of the existing problems, there is a problem in the vocational education stage. In 2004, the GDP ranking of Liangshan Prefecture rose from 11 to 9, but from 2003 to 2005, the enrollment of vocational schools in Liangshan Prefecture (including ordinary technical secondary schools, secondary teachers’ schools, technical schools and vocational high schools) declined. These vocational schools are small, inefficient, closed in management, and short of human resources. It is also worth considering how to construct qualified vocational schools and find a second way for ethnic students.

3.4.2 Bilingual Teaching Is Difficult The use of minority languages in China is characterized by a wide variety of languages. The total number of languages used by various ethnic groups in China is about more than eighty, but only some of them have their own scripts. Second, the use of different languages is not balanced, with uneven distribution in regions and the same ethnic group differentiates into different languages in different regions. At the same time, the number of speakers of each language varies greatly, with some millions of people and some only thousands of people. Language vitality is measured by using statistical data and fuzzy variables that indicate the degree of language use in the social domain. Some languages, such as the Tatar nationality, have less than one-tenth of the vitality of Chinese because they do not have or are not applicable to their own languages. Fourth, there are also many differences in the use of Chinese among different ethnic groups. For example, the vast majority of Tujia and Oroqen people switch to or use Chinese concurrently, while only a small part of Kazak and Tatar people use Chinese concurrently. Therefore, the complexity of language use in various ethnic groups leads to a geometric increase in the difficulty of bilingual teaching. At present, there are two basic modes of bilingual teaching in China. One is to teach each subject in its own language and set a Chinese course. Second, all subjects are taught in Chinese, and there is another national language course. Under the two basic modes, there are three more detailed teaching modes: “Teaching In

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Chinese with national language assistance,” “Science Chinese and other subjects with National language,” and “teaching a foreign language in addition to the above three languages.” For example, in the execution data, most of Xinjiang implemented the second teaching mode in the refinement mode, while only the language of ethnic groups without written language, their national language can only be used as auxiliary teaching language. Therefore, according to different regions, different ethnic languages, and population, it is necessary to develop different teaching modes. The suitable teaching mode needs to be explored step by step in practice. In addition to the complexity of teaching language and teaching mode, bilingual teaching is also faced with a difficult problem that different languages should have different teaching methods. There are more than eighty languages in China, which belong to five of the nine language families in the world. There are great differences in the teaching methods and ideas of different language families. However, in the early bilingual teaching, many of the language teaching methods of our own ethnic group were copied from Chinese teaching ideas and methods, so the teaching effect is not good. Therefore, it is very important for the research and development of bilingual teaching materials. Since 2003, the national and ethnic autonomous prefectures, all put on the bilingual education research of manpower, material resources, financial resources, such as the bilingual teacher training base of Xinjiang, Guizhou establish eight national normal schools, ethnic minorities in Yunnan province to set up the national language committee, the Inner Mongolia normal university teaching and research section specializing in bilingual teaching and research. However, from the actual situation, take the implementation of “bilingual class” in Kashgar, Xinjiang as an example. As for the bilingual teachers and their training, many schools in Kashgar reported that the number of bilingual teachers with senior teaching ability was insufficient, and only 9.6% of teachers had participated in the bilingual training. Moreover, the teachers who have participated in the training class have doubts about the course content, teaching methods, and the professional level of the teachers. As for the textbooks used in the bilingual class, some teachers complained that the contents of the Chinese textbooks were too difficult, and the ethnic textbooks compiled by the autonomous region were too simple. For bilingual class management, there are also some difficulties in the specific implementation process, such as the lack of unified standards for curriculum standards and class hours, some students’ tuition burden is too heavy, and rural teachers have to double administrative teaching tasks (Duo et al., 2014; Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Sun et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022; Zhu, 2005). Therefore, the difficulty of bilingual teaching lies not only in its complexity and diversity, but also in the implementation of various practical problems encountered in the process of establishing a standard bilingual teaching system and improving the curriculum content and standards of bilingual teaching.

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3.4.3 Difficulties in Cultural Transmission In bilingual education, the poor teaching effect is caused by the copying of Chinese, which is actually a miniature of the loss of national characteristics in school education without considering the characteristics of each ethnic group in the process of national education construction. For a nation to inherit and develop, the most important thing is that its culture can be preserved. There are many carriers of culture, such as characters, handicrafts, songs and dances, customs, and so on. Education is the most effective way of cultural transmission, including family education, social education, and school education. For ethnic groups with a low degree of Sinicization, the inheritance of ethnic culture mainly depends on family education and social education (social education here refers to the ethnic community), and the inheritance of ethnic culture includes the inheritance of knowledge, values, and abilities. Knowledge including the “ecological environment” and “life,” “folk customs,” “social history,” “traditional science,” “national art,” and “language and literature,” house of liangshan yi branch of culture, for example, parents elders will be in the child at the age of seven to tell children family tree, children also proud of can recite the family tree. Schooling is more about mainstream culture and modern science; For ethnic groups with a higher degree of Sinicization, family education and social education play a weaker role in inheriting ethnic culture. At this time, schools need to exert subjective initiative and effectively internalize ethnic culture in school education. However, in the actual ethnic education, the above two situations are faced with their own problems. First, ethnic groups with a higher degree of Sinicization will ignore the education of ethnic culture if their schools focus on mainstream culture education. Taking Basha Primary School, Guizhou ethnic school as an example, Basha Miao village is in Congjiang County, Qiandongnan Prefecture, Guizhou Province. It is the last “gunner” tribe in China and the “living fossil” of Miao culture. However, there are no professional art teachers among the only 15 teachers in the school. At the same time there is also the question of the introduction of the school too rigid, for national culture teaching limited to textbooks or to emphasize the folk art “scarcity” and “difficult,” is not actually the real appearance of the culture and cultural kernel presented to students, and lack of national culture of audio and video data, if not a positive school and community life. If students participate in more practical activities, the so-called introduction and inheritance is just empty talk. Second, the conflict between ethnic culture and mainstream culture is more serious in the ethnic group with a lower degree of Sinicization. House of liangshan yi branch of cultural inheritance, for example, the home team culture heritage rely mainly on family education and social education, family elders for that word of mouth of genealogy, telling stories, and school of modern education value system, evaluation system, learning motivation and the home of the traditional culture have some different, the different students will bring loss of cultural adaptation, In terms of the same behavior criterion, likely in school education idea, the behavior is inappropriate, rude, and the culture in the home, this kind of behavior is bold and uninhibited, this kind of the conflicts of values education is unfavorable to the student, and in terms

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of learning motivation, school education and parents, the home is not the same, the family expectations may be to get married, earn money, and run the household, and the thought of the mainstream culture is reading, inner shape effects on people’s mind and read to create the possibility of future, but in fact, in the process of school education, especially in the early elementary education, there is no importance to the role of the reading, then students will naturally think that reading is also in order to make money, why don’t I go early to earn money? Why waste those years? Or what am I learning about this for? After all, in primary education, most of us read just for the sake of reading, and when we leave our cultural background, the choices we make are not necessarily 12 years of hard work. Of course, at present, learning Chinese can indeed be a way out for ethnic students, most ethnic areas also attach importance to the study of Chinese. As a part of China’s 56 ethnic groups, ethnic minorities should not only learn Chinese as a “foreign language,” but more importantly, learn about our country and the Chinese nation. Similarly, students of Han nationality should also learn more about the culture of their ethnic minority classmates. Cultural integration should not only be unilateral Sinicization, but also mutual learning. However, in the process of national integration, there will inevitably be cultural conflicts. How to effectively retain national cultural characteristics in the process of national integration needs us to think and solve (Duo et al., 2014; Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Sun et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022; Zhu, 2005).

3.4.4 Limited Development However, in multi-ethnic countries, when the main ethnic groups occupy the majority, the economy of ethnic minorities is often non-mainstream economy, and its development is difficult to synchronize with the economic development at the national or regional level. At the national level, according to the national PER capita GDP data from 2016 to 2020, regions with large ethnic population distribution, such as Tibet, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Gansu, have a much lower level of economic development than the eastern coastal provinces. At the regional level, Guangdong and Fujian are coastal cities with rapid development, while the She and Yao people living in eastern Fujian and western Guangdong live in a traditional agricultural society. Their residents are mainly engaged in agricultural production, and their low income means that the economy of ethnic minorities is different from that of ethnic minority areas. On the one hand, in ethnic minority areas, as most of the population of ethnic minorities is distributed in farming and pastoral areas, their employment rate in modern sectors is low and they are in a marginal position in regional economic development. It is also difficult for them to obtain direct economic benefits, mainly some spillover and redistribution benefits. Secondly, some large-scale projects and resource development projects built in ethnic minority areas are not directly involved in them. While they rarely gain economic benefits, they may also lose the basic development conditions, worsening their production and living conditions and further increasing

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the degree of poverty. And the lack of economic strength will bring a lot of negative effects. First, the infrastructure of some areas, namely, school construction and supporting facilities are not perfect. Economic strength is relatively weak in Tibet, for example, the whole, in the country and help from all walks of life, the whole Tibetan ethnic areas education infrastructure has been basically perfect, but in other diaspora ethnic areas in the states there are still problems with the education of infrastructure, such as part of the national minority rural belongs to high altitude, the ground remote mountainous areas with poor natural conditions, such as less the construction cost and dilapidated buildings of school buildings are on the high side, and the historical credit is too much. Even if the reconstruction funds are in place, the reconstruction is difficult. It is difficult to attract and cultivate excellent teachers, most national schools in ethnic minority areas, lagging economic development, less government funding, low level of teachers’ salaries, teacher’s quality of life is hard to guarantee, the possibility of teacher flow increase, despite the counterpart aid for teachers and volunteers, rarely stay the aid force, its help is short and limited. Third, the serious outflow of population leads to the increase of left-behind and floating children. Local economy development lags behind, young population outflow, the aging of the population increasingly serious, the ensuing is more and more left-behind children, migrant children, the children not only unsafe, compared to have parents to accompany children, were also more likely to conduct, problems in study, their mental health is difficult to secure. In addition to the weak economic strength restricts the development of education in minority areas, its natural environment is also an important part of the economic development in minority areas. For example, the five autonomous regions of Guangxi, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Ningxia are characterized by poor geographical conditions, frequent disasters, lagging behind the national level in economic development, a high proportion of resource-based industries, a high proportion of agricultural and animal husbandry output and employment, and a large number of poor people (Duo et al., 2014; Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Sun et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022; Zhu, 2005).

3.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions After many references, the dropout rate of ethnic children has been high. The reasons for the high dropout rate include the facts that poor families cannot afford to support children, caused by difficulties in language learning difficulties, more psychological health problems of left-behind children and floating children, the society not putting enough emphasis on education, the national school (especially) ethnic elementary school and junior high school teachers, incomplete development of vocational education, the difficulty of college life, etc. The above problems can be mainly summed up in cultural and economic aspects. Due to the unique cultural customs of ethnic minorities, there are some difficulties in the process of communication with the outside world, some traditional cancer concepts and feudal thoughts still have residual influence on generation after generation of ethnic people, become the reason for the ethnic

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children to go to school. Affect the development of the national children’s education is another reason why the economy, part of the nation in a relatively remote location, almost no communication with the outside world, traffic inconvenience, industry development is slow, the economic development of ethnic areas, which is very backward, some education aspects of support can only rely on national finance, it cannot fundamentally solve the problem of national children’s education. Poor local economic development is bound to affect talent training, lack of educational resource allocation and poor salary treatment cannot retain young teachers and talents, which is also an incentive for the education problems of ethnic children. In addition, due to the poor economic development in ethnic areas, a small number of students who can receive higher education will have a large gap in college life, and the difficult college life and the resulting mental health problems will also increase the dropout rate, affecting the educational development of ethnic children. In the following paragraphs, feasible and detailed countermeasures and suggestions are put forward for the better development of ethnic education.

3.5.1 Supplementary Life Education and School Education People in ethnic minority areas generally have unique cultural customs, and the inheritance of their unique cultural customs depends on a unique, eclectic, and integrated way of life, which has a strong inheritance. Religion, assembly, and family are ways of education and inheritance for ethnic minority people. This kind of inheritance will antagonize the school education to a certain extent. Ethnic minorities are remote and may not be able to accommodate modern ideas well. Fits a pattern of modern education, education mode with the local culture is very likely not fit, adjust completely dependent on the teacher’s method is not realistic, and it also brings great challenge to teachers, a professor of, so the education policy needs to consider the local ethnic folk culture, and then corresponding can receive school education courses, On the basis of the existing local life education, to build a bridge for ethnic children’s life education and the future of higher education, but never implement “one size fits all.” Retained on the basis of modern education to the implementation of the rich local national folk culture and outward extension, lets the student in the process of learning to understand the connotation of life education, and motivate them to the outside world yearning, and excited at the same time, and let this group of children not forgetting bear the mission, keep the uniqueness of life education; So that parents can receive school education with a low level of education, so that parents can unite with the school through some life education, so as to improve parents’ support for school education. We will ensure that life education and school education are integrated and so that children of these ethnic groups can receive appropriate education that meets their own needs. And put forward a few practical suggestions, such as: selective compilation of teaching materials, let school education and life education have a certain intersection, let students in school learn consciousness and life education together, to achieve life education and school education; Through radio, television,

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and other media, the ethnic minorities live in penetration will be part of the school education content, on the one hand, help students to consolidate the content, on the other hand show all the unique and diversity of school education, but also potentially education designated the direction for the life, is advantageous to the school education and life education, and improve the parents support of school education (Duo et al., 2014; Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Sun et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022; Zhu, 2005).

3.5.2 Implement Preferential Policies to Strengthen Teachers for Ethnic Education A very important reason for the high dropout rate of ethnic education is the poor quality of teachers. Teachers play an irreplaceable role in the process of guiding students to learn and integrating ethnic education with school education. Although the number of teachers in ethnic education has been growing in recent years, it is still lower than the national average after many checks. Moreover, the qualified rate of teachers in ethnic education is also low, which is more obvious in remote and poor ethnic areas. It is no wonder that the number of teachers in ethnic education is weak for several reasons, including poor living conditions, low salary, lack of educational resources, parents with low educational level who do not support education, and lack of enough space for personal improvement. Most ethnic education areas suffer from low economy, unable to meet the requirements of some teachers for living standards, which is inevitable and cannot be demanding of teachers. To solve this problem, the local government needs to develop economy and attract more excellent young teachers to devote themselves to local education, and it should also introduce talents from more aspects and retain talents. The current measures generally make some college students or young teachers volunteer to teach in some poor areas through voluntary or involuntary means, including some ethnic education areas. Although this method can promote sufficient local teacher resources to a certain extent, there are still some disadvantages that cannot be avoided: Frequent changes of teachers will affect students’ learning patterns and increase the time for teachers and students to get along with each other, thus affecting teaching; In addition, some young teachers cannot integrate into local customs and habits, which has a great impact on the personal life of teachers. Moreover, teachers may not understand local life education, which leads to the conflict between school education and life education in the education process. Frequent separation between teachers and students after the end of volunteer teaching will also cause certain adverse effects… Therefore, the society needs to invest more resources to make up for the shortage of teachers in ethnic education. Specific practical suggestions are as follows: The national level, it is necessary to the development of national economy of the area education, improving teachers’ salaries, improve the living standard of local schools, let more young teachers have the backing of the perfect quality of life, dedicated to the education career, to improve

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the development of the national teacher education area space, to consider the future of the young teachers, adopt some policies to improve its treatment; At the social level, it is necessary to guide young teachers to establish correct values and outlook on life, promote ethnic education, express appreciation to ethnic education teachers, and improve the willingness of young teachers to carry out ethnic education; At the ethnic level, we should maintain a positive and open attitude, guide young teachers in foreign places, accept their living habits, and popularize ethnic customs and knowledge, so that young people who devote themselves to ethnic education construction can better integrate into ethnic areas, and better integrate ethnic education and school education and teach them to students. At the individual level, young teachers should revise their self-values, strengthen their understanding of ethnic customs, do as the Romans do, accept and tolerate local customs, devote themselves to national ethnic education construction, effectively integrate school education and life education and teach them again, improve the self-pass rate, and teach local students more effectively. Through various literature review, the limitation of the development of minority areas is also an important factor leading to the backward educational development of minority children. Some remote ethnic mountainous areas due to remote geographical location, inconvenient transportation, language communication difficulties caused by the educational conditions of the entire region behind, unable to attract talents, backward teachers, and then lead to the education of ethnic children limited. Economic impact on the lifeblood of a country, a nationality, caused by factors such as nature, culture, and social economic level is limited, leading to the limit in its development in national regions, areas of young people development is limited, young people generally go out to work, can’t attract enough talents construction in the region, leading to the development of backward, cultural heritage. Weak cultural inheritance will lead to the decline and fall of the nation, which in turn will lead to part of the cultural defects of the whole country. Only by allowing the development of ethnic groups themselves can the educational cause of ethnic minorities be better developed, and the development of the educational cause of ethnic minorities will drive the development of the whole nation. Therefore, improving the development level of ethnic minority areas also indirectly improves the educational level of the entire ethnic children, enabling them to play the actual competitiveness, and thus the nation can be better continued. The most direct impact of economy on ethnic education is teaching resources and teachers’ salary. In addition, natural environment also has a great impact on the allocation of educational resources and the attractiveness of teachers. In the following paragraphs, feasible countermeasures and suggestions are put forward for the better development of ethnic education.

3.5.3 Improve the Allocation of Educational Resources On the one hand, the allocation of educational resources depends on the subsidies of national finance and on the other hand comes from the support of local economy. However, due to natural conditions, cultural customs, and other factors, it is difficult

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to improve the local economy in some ethnic education areas, so the main allocation of local education resources is largely dependent on national financial subsidies. However, such allocation of educational resources relying solely on national subsidies obviously has great limitations for the development of local ethnic education. Therefore, local areas should develop their own advantages and improve their own economic development, which is the only sustainable way. On the one hand, the allocation of educational resources in hardware reduces the gap between students going out of ethnic minority areas for higher education, helps teachers to carry out better classroom teaching to a certain extent, improves the efficiency of classroom teaching, and improves the learning and living environment of teachers and students. There may be many problems in the allocation of educational resources, but education is the top priority for a region, so economic investment in education is inevitable and essential. Ethnic governments should also overcome all difficulties to solve the problem of hardware allocation of educational resources and improve the willingness of talents to stay. “To do a good job, you must sharpen your tools.” The consummation of hardware education resource allocation will certainly help to improve the upper limit of teachers’ teaching achievements, and also drive the development of education level in the whole ethnic areas. Educational resources include not only all kinds of hardware measures that can be supported economically, but also cultural inheritance and other aspects. All ethnic groups have developed and inherited for a long period of time, so ethnic groups have unique cultural and educational connotations. How to excavate and develop rich local ethnic educational resources is also a very important aspect of ethnic education. It is not entirely dependent on the unified educational content. Within the specified educational scope, each ethnic group should extensively integrate local culture and integrate ethnic knowledge into the classroom so that students can understand the ethnic culture. Besides learning the knowledge in books, students can also feel the extensive and profound ethnic culture of the Chinese nation. Integrating national culture into students’ thoughts, on the one hand, students can better remember national culture in the process of going out of the mountains and marching into the world, so that national culture can have a long history; On the other hand, encouraging these ethnic children to stay in the ethnic group when they grow up, to build and repay the ethnic group, also solves the problem of lack of ethnic education talents, and highlights the advantage of local talents being more familiar with ethnic culture. Some practical suggestions can be put forward as follows: it is necessary to develop local economy to improve the allocation of hardware education resources. Extensive publicity of the unique ethnic culture and customs and the unique landscape architecture in ethnic areas can effectively increase the income of local tourism.

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3.5.4 Strengthen Communication and Enhance the Importance of Education A very important factor that restricts the development of ethnic minority areas is poor natural geographical conditions, frequent disasters, economic development lagging behind the national level, high proportion of resource-based industries, high proportion of agricultural and animal husbandry output value and employment population, and a large number of poor people. For places with extremely remote geographical location, inconvenient transportation, and closed information, the overall social development is slow and the social concept is relatively backward, and the implementation of modern education in these areas is more difficult, facing not only the difficulties in construction, but also the uncooperating of some people. First, it is difficult to improve the physical geographical conditions and remote geographical location, and the parts that can be improved need to be improved as much as possible, such as multiple roads. However, for the inconvenient transportation, the information of the local need party cadres more efforts to carry out the necessity of universal education to improve the people’s attention to education. In the face of such poor ethnic areas, it is very important to strengthen communication. Communication is divided into external and internal. Externally, such remote mountainous areas will have more advantages in air quality and natural landscape, as well as the unique cultural customs of minority areas. If roads are properly built, tourism is developed and publicity is intensified, it is likely to help people in minority areas get rich. The benefits of tourism development not only lie in economic development, but also can improve local ethnic minority residents’ concept of education and other aspects to some extent through the arrival of foreign tourists, so that ethnic minority children can hope to go out and receive higher education. Internally, it is necessary to carry on the power of the party members and cadres, the party members and cadres need to play our own strength personally to the countryside, people communicate face to face with people of all nationalities, and the importance of universal education, since most of these party members and cadres from the region, when communicating more can obtain the trust of the local ethnic people, let them understand the necessity of education and support education gradually, let the education of ethnic children reduce family barriers. Some practical suggestions can be put forward as follows: Carry forward teachers and party members and cadres to visit home, communicate with parents face to face, let them feel the importance of the country and society to them, but also let them gradually understand the necessity and importance of education. In terms of economy, it is necessary to give full play to the unique cultural and environmental advantages of ethnic groups, actively develop tourism and other industries, contact TV stations, newspapers, and other media, and carry out extensive publicity in ethnic areas. Develop traffic, break the barriers of communication between ethnic areas and the world, let outsiders “walk in” to visit, feel the unique cultural atmosphere of the nation and the incomparable wonderful environment; Local peoples ability to “go out,” engaged in the education industry, improve the student’s quality, perfect the

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relevant teaching resources, narrow differences in poor ethnic minority areas and developed areas, take the appropriate policies to reduce national children out of the mountain of difficulties, and to encourage national children to learn after returning home to make up for lack of talents in national regions. The establishment of radio stations, newspapers, and so on, with the help of the media to promote the necessity of education to the people of ethnic areas, improve the ethnic children to learn knowledge yearning degree. Encourage young teachers or college students to participate in local volunteer teaching, so that ethnic children feel the world’s advanced, and encourage them to go out of the mountains, and accept higher education. The communication between the nation and the rest of the world should be strengthened, so that the nation can break through geographical restrictions and connect with the world for better development (Duo et al., 2014; Li, 2003; Lu, 2016; Ma, 2008; Sun et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022; Zhu, 2005).

References Duo, P., Zheng, X., Jiang, T. et al. (2014). Development and application of local ethnic education resources to promote ethnic unity. China After-School Education (The Next Ten-Day Issue), 20(Z1), 965–965. Li, S. (2003). The dilemma and countermeasures of minority education: A case study of Miao School education in Yanfang Township, Zhanyi County. Chinese Journal of Education, 20(9), 11–18. Lu, L. (2016). An analysis of the population, family characteristics and educational Status of Minority Children in China: Based on the Sixth Census Data. Population and Development, 22(1), 83–93. Ma, R. (2008). The development of ethnic education in Xinjiang and the practice of bilingual education. Peking University Education Review, 20(2), 2–41. Sun, Y., Xu, T., & Chen, J. (2013). Ontology construction method and application of ethnic education resources. Journal of Yunnan Normal University (Natural Science), 33(6), 6–11. Zhang, X. (2022). The predicament and optimization strategy of poverty alleviation in education in ethnic minority areas in the post-poverty alleviation era. Continuing Education Research, 20(2), 109–113. Zhu, X. (2005). Can underdeveloped regions attract and retain talents? Talent Development, 20(6), 56–57.

Chapter 4

The Special Children Education Policy in China

This chapter explores the educational policy for special children in China. Special education policy plays an important role in guiding the development of special education. This paper focuses on the education policy of special children and holds the special education policy after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China through literature analysis, policy text analysis, and executive data analysis. Results show that special education in China is getting more and more national attention, followed in the special education school and mutual support the development of special education, the integration of education and inclusive education increasingly development, but there are studied along with the class teaching quality is not high, lack of special education teachers, special children’s future and we also put forward the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions.

4.1 Literature Review In recent years, with the development of China’s economy and society, special education, as an important part of education, has attracted more and more attention from all walks of life and the government. However, due to many factors such as teachers, outdated ideas, and relevant policies, special education is facing unprecedented challenges and tests. To make the group of exceptional children enjoy the same right to education as other ordinary students and solve the problem of students’ way out, this paper collected 15 relevant literatures and summarized them into a literature review according to the viewpoints of various scholars. Firstly, the concept and definition of exceptional children were summarized. Then it collects and integrates the acceptance of special children’s groups, analyzes the management problems in the process of special education, and also sorts out the relevant methods proposed by scholars in the quality monitoring of special education, so as to provide relevant reference for further research on special education. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 E. Xue and J. Li, Childhood Education Policy in China, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4683-7_4

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4.1.1 The Concept and Definition of Exceptional Children Some scholars have pointed out that we should recognize that every child is special because each child has different personality traits and needs from others. And it is not difficult to find in the observation, even if the children of the same age, the individual differences between them are obvious, such as some children are talented and different from ordinary people, and some children are relatively dull; Some children are good at communication and verbal expression, while others are quieter and more introverted. So, what kind of features or manifestations are normal and what kind of features or manifestations are not normal? Which children are ordinary children, and which are exceptional children? In this regard, different scholars have different definitions of the group of special children and the concept of special education. Special education refers to the kind of education in which general or special teaching methods and means are adopted according to the physical and mental characteristics and educational needs of children with special needs so as to maximize the potential of the educated and enable them to increase their knowledge, acquire skills, possess good moral character, and improve their adaptability. Exceptional children and adolescents are students who are special in their educational Settings (individual differences are particularly significant), may have special learning difficulties (especially in ordinary classes) and need special education programs. They argue that exceptional children should be defined from the perspective of education and that physical defects do not constitute sufficient conditions for exceptional children. Exceptional children can be understood in two ways: one is in a broad sense, that is, to include all kinds of children other than normal developing children; The other is a narrow sense, specifically refers to the physical or psychological development of defective disabled children. Although these definitions vary in terms, the central concepts are “physical or mental impairment” and “different from the average developing child” (Deng & Yan, 2016; Guo & Zhong, 2016; Li & Huang, 2021; Li & Xin, 2019; Liu, 2021; Zhang & Ge, 2019; Zhang & Wang, 2021; C. Zhang, 2021; H. Zhang, 2021).

4.1.2 Acceptance of Special Children Special education is not only an important part of education, but also an indispensable part of high-quality education system. In terms of the acceptance of special children, as an important part of education, it is necessary to improve the relevant legal system to guarantee the right of special children to receive education, so as to improve the quality of special education and help special children and adolescents better integrate into society. Many scholars have studied and summarized the acceptance of special children in recent years. China and the United States differ in many aspects in improving their legal systems related to special education. In the legislative process, the special education legislation of the United States started

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early, and its special education law “Disabled Education Act” has been amended and improved for many times, forming a complete legal system, and thus becoming the most important part of the special education law of the United States. However, China’s special education started relatively late. In the process of continuous revision and development, a set of Chinese laws and policies conforming to the current situation of China’s special education has been formed. However, compared with this, there is no effective connection between the previous and the previous, which is relatively scattered. In terms of legislative concept, the United States focuses on students with disabilities to promote the common development of students and create a development environment of cooperative contribution. From the humanitarian point of view, China takes various measures to make up for the defects so as to achieve relative fairness. In terms of service objects, the United States is open to all children and follows the “zero rejection principle.” However, the scope of special education in China is limited, and the educational rights and interests of most disabled groups cannot be effectively guaranteed. Universal compulsory education for children with disabilities is a top priority, and the equal right of children with disabilities to receive education should be guaranteed. Based on consolidating the existing achievements in compulsory education, the action Plan for the Development and Improvement of Special Education in the 14th Five-Year Plan proposes to accelerate the extension of pre-school and post-high school education services. The Ministry of Finance has taken measures to ensure basic education, strengthen areas of weakness and promote equity, increased input, improved the spending structure, and supported and guided local governments to run special education well to protect disabled students’ right to education (Deng & Yan, 2016; Guo & Zhong, 2016; Li & Huang, 2021; Li & Xin, 2019; Liu, 2021; Zhang & Ge, 2019; Zhang & Wang, 2021; C. Zhang, 2021; H. Zhang, 2021). The social policy of education for special children in China is ambiguous in its text, object, and subject of implementation. The policy level is not high and the authority is not enough; Policy following a strong sex, the innovation is weaker, uneven regional development policy three questions, and the special education policies of both Britain and America one after the other for reference and thinking: special children’s education and social policy formulation needs the participation and strengthen the authority, pay attention to policy coordination development, at the same time also need to learn from international experience, to promote the practice of inclusive education. From the perspective of historical institutionalism, it is found that the change of China’s special education policy is still dominated by the state, showing obvious characteristics of path dependence. It also puts forward the concrete support path: the change of policy goal, the optimization of policy system and the guarantee of teacher professional development.

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4.1.3 Administration of the Process of Special Education In the management of special children, we follow the principles of equality, respect, harmony, and common progress, and set different learning goals suitable for each person according to the different characteristics of children. The goal is to include special children in the mainstream of education, physical environment, and social life. In the process of implementing integrated education, different scholars have carried out relevant research and summarize the aspects of teaching mode, teachers, and learning resources. At the same time, because of special education teachers are faced with the difficulty of disabled children education work, the complexity of the education and rehabilitation and education success or lack of sense of worth, wages and there is no obvious advantage in the attraction of the profession is low, the teacher’s quantity seriously insufficient, turnover is higher also, especially in the rehabilitation training class teachers are scarce. This situation cannot guarantee the improvement of the quality of special education, nor can it improve the sense of happiness and gain of disabled children and their families. China should draw on advanced experience to build a multi-level and collaborative service model based on China’s national conditions. At the same time, because of Chinese special education is the most outstanding one of the weak links of the lack of professional talents, and talent training mechanism is not sound, so to strengthen the team construction related services personnel, it is necessary to promote the comprehensive ability of special education teachers, carry out special education services to professional courses, and meet the demand of special children’s diversified services. The development model of special education in China must be based on the unique national conditions and cultural traditions of our country, and the localization research of integrated education should be strengthened. In the future, the empirical research on educational intervention for special children should be strengthened and the procedures of existing intervention methods should be gradually standardized. Researchers should pay more attention to the effect of intervention methods; teaching effectiveness is the basis to measure the quality of special education. Through the analysis of the characteristics, mode and curriculum of higher special education, this paper emphasizes the importance of training excellent teachers in special education.

4.1.4 Quality Monitoring of Special Education The purpose of special education quality monitoring is to understand the learning and physical and mental health status of special children in the process of implementing integrated education, and grasp the relevant factors affecting students’ development, so as to help special children integrate into the mainstream society and develop their potential. Based on the analysis of relevant data of informatization of special education in China, this paper proposes: In order to promote the sharing of data between different database systems and increase interoperability between systems, realize

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resources widely shared, and for the learners and educators to search, assessment of education resources, access and use to provide support and guarantee resources construction can satisfy the needs of disabled students (content should pay attention to potential development and defects on compensation; Strengthening vocational skills and employability training of disabled students; Technical defects should be compensated, etc.), and special education resource construction standards should be formulated to unify the behavior of resource developers. It has formulated an evaluation index system for special education resources and established a resource evaluation mechanism that combines users’ online evaluation and experts’ review. Monitoring of special education has become an important means to improve the quality of special education in developed areas. However, there is a lack of relevant research in China and insufficient attention has been paid to the quality monitoring of special education. Based on the analysis of the necessity of establishing the special education quality monitoring index system, combining with the actual situation of the development of special education in China, this paper uses the CIPP model to preliminarily construct the special education quality monitoring index system in China, and longitudinal monitor education administration, school management, teachers, and students. Horizontal monitoring of the operation of various special education organizations at all levels. To sum up, China’s legislation on special education has many problems, such as late start, relatively scattered legal system, and unbalanced development of special education in different regions, which need to be constantly revised and improved, and learn from other countries’ more mature legislation on special education, so as to effectively protect the right to education of special children. At the same time, China has improved the management of special education in terms of teaching mode, teachers, and learning resources, and truly integrated special children into the mainstream of education, physical environment, and social life. In terms of quality monitoring of special education, it is also necessary to establish a set of perfect education evaluation system to evaluate special children and special education in various aspects, so as to develop more personalized learning objectives (Deng & Yan, 2016; Guo & Zhong, 2016; Li & Huang, 2021; Li & Xin, 2019; Liu, 2021; Zhang & Ge, 2019; Zhang & Wang, 2021; C. Zhang, 2021; H. Zhang, 2021).

4.2 The Theoretical Tools Special education refers to the education of adolescents with physical and psychological development disorders. Exceptional children are still a part of the social group although they are not as healthy as normal people physically and psychologically. To help children with special needs grow up healthily and realize their personal value with their limited body and knowledge is a requirement for realizing human rights equality and contributing to the harmonious development of society. To achieve this goal, we must take education as a means, according to the physical and psychological characteristics of special children, to guide them correctly, to help them break through limitations, self-development. Special pedagogy thus arises. Special education is a

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branch of pedagogy and a science to study the phenomena and laws of special education. As an integral part of education, special children (adolescents) are taught with general or specially designed curricula, teaching materials, teaching methods, organizational forms, and equipment to achieve general and special training goals. But individual people are different, and children are no exception. Because of the different growth environments and intellectual development of each child, their personality, interests, abilities, and learning needs are also different. This requires us to fully consider these characteristics and needs of the wide range of differences in the design of special education systems and educational planning. Therefore, special pedagogy in a narrow sense is also called science to study the educational phenomena and laws of children with disabilities. According to the specific research object, it can be subdivided into pedagogy of blindness, pedagogy of deafness, and pedagogy of intellectual backwardness. From the perspective of the development history of education, ordinary education has a history of several thousand years, but the development of special education is only more than 200 years, starting relatively late. Special education originated in Europe, because the capitalist economy was booming in Europe at that time, which provided a relatively sufficient material basis for the development of education. At the same time, after the Renaissance, humanitarianism began to prevail in Europe, and the disabled living in difficulties gradually attracted the attention of the society. Compassionate teachers, doctors, and pastors set out to pioneer special education. By the middle of the twentieth century, the concept of special education was expanded, and the research object was expanded from school-age disabled children to early diagnosis and educational training of preschool disabled children. At the same time, special education extends to secondary and higher education and vocational education for young people with disabilities to a large extent. A variety of disciplines such as pedagogy, psychology, medicine, sociology, linguistics, philosophy, electronics, audiology, etc., in the research and education for disabled children, and combining the psychology and rehabilitation and cross, special education needs makes special education development research of the law of the development of an interdisciplinary, edge, emerging disciplines (Guo & Zhong, 2016; Li & Xin, 2019; Liu, 2021; Zhang & Ge, 2019). In China, the teaching content of special pedagogy is arranged in the higher education stage, and it is set as special education major, which is a secondary subject under pedagogy. Students of this major mainly learn basic theories and knowledge of psychology and education of children with special education needs, and also receive basic training in education and research of children with special education needs and have the basic ability to carry out practical teaching and theoretical research. The undergraduate curriculum is different because of the different emphasis of each school, generally including three types of courses, one is pedagogy courses, such as pedagogy, psychology, curriculum theory courses: Second, theoretical courses of special education, such as introduction to special education, characteristics and education of all kinds of special children, etc. Methods of special education, such as teaching methods, sign language, braille, etc. There is no specific research direction at the undergraduate stage, and students can develop their own research direction according to subsequent learning and teaching practice. At the theoretical level, the

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discipline system of special education is constantly developing and improving, but its practice depends on the development mode of special education in various countries. China has a large number of disabled people in the world. According to the total population of the sixth national census and the second National sample survey on disabled persons, there are about 85 million disabled persons in China, and currently there are more than 33 million disabled persons with licenses. Guaranteeing the right to education for such a large number of disabled people is a huge challenge for any government. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China 70 years ago, with the unremitting efforts of the CPC Central Committee and the Government, China’s special education has made remarkable achievements and basically formed a special education development model with Chinese characteristics that suits China’s national conditions.

4.2.1 The Evolution of China’s Special Education Policy It can be divided into three stages of institutional change: gradual (1949–1978), radical (1979–2009), and fractured (2010–2016). The development of special education policy in these three stages is deeply influenced by the deep structural factors such as social and economic development conditions, national governance mode, and social policy concept in each stage. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the country was still in a situation of internal troubles and external aggression due to the hostility of foreign forces led by the United States. Therefore, a highly integrated party-government and government-society system was implemented politically. In such a centralized social system, the development of special education policy should follow the principles of nationalism, political supremacy, and socialism, and adopt the school running and administrative mechanism guaranteed by the government. According to the Decision of the State Council on Reforming the School System (1951), “People’s governments at all levels should set up special schools for the deaf, dumb and blind to educate children, youth and adults with physical defects,” and the education of children with disabilities was transformed from charity to national welfare. By this time, special education had been incorporated as an integral part of the national education system. Since then, various policy guidance has been given to the development of special education in the aspects of administration, school system, curriculum, teachers, and funds, which has made the preliminary development of special education in China. Since the implementation of reform and opening up in 1978, China’s economic system has gradually changed from a planned economy to a market economy, and the demand for scientific and technical personnel is constantly expanding, which stimulates the state to constantly strengthen the importance and support of education. As a part of the education system, special education also ushered in new development opportunities at this time. In 1979, the state included mentally retarded children in its policy and began to set up schools for mentally retarded children on a trial basis, extending the target of special education from blind and deaf-mute students to mentally retarded children. In 1982, the

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newly revised Constitution stipulated that “the state and society help arrange the work, life and education of blind, deaf, mute and other disabled citizens,” which in essence officially confirmed in the supreme law that the state is the main body responsible for providing special educational welfare for the disabled. The 1985 “decision on reform of the education system of the central committee of the communist party of China” specified in “the nine-year compulsory education at the same time, try to develop preschool education, development of blind, deaf, dumb, residue, and the special education for mentally retarded children,” for the special education then become part of the system of compulsory education to provide the policy basis. While the reform and opening-up policy has brought innovation to all aspects of the country, it has also brought special education to an institutional stage of development. In the twenty-first century, China’s comprehensive national strength continues to increase, education has also been booming, special education currently to a new level of development. However, the main task facing the development at that time was to coordinate the development and balance of special education among regions, schools, and disabilities. Since 2010, according to the national medium and longterm education reform and development plan outline (2010–2020), special education and preschool education, compulsory education, high school education, vocational education, higher education, continuing education, national education together is listed as one of the eight major development tasks, and to “protect the rights of the education for the disabled” into its policy goals, to improve the special education system and security mechanism as the basic path. This marks that China’s special education policy and general education policy have entered the development stage of integration and interbedding, and finally formed a modern special education system with Chinese characteristics and entered a new stage of development (Deng & Yan, 2016; Guo & Zhong, 2016; Li & Huang, 2021; Li & Xin, 2019; Liu, 2021; Zhang & Ge, 2019; Zhang & Wang, 2021; C. Zhang, 2021; H. Zhang, 2021). Throughout the development of special education in China, the national will is the leading force and strong power to promote the development of special education. With the change of the party’s ruling idea and the country’s overall educational system, the development of special education presents a new situation and stage characteristics. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, to promote the construction of people’s livelihood and build a well-off society in an all-round way, the development of special education is undoubtedly an important field and path to promote the protection of the rights and interests of the disabled. Under the background of continuous improvement of the national education system and social welfare system, the development of special education also needs to step into the fast track of highquality development. The Action Plan promulgated in the new era still follows the principle of government-led education and special education and calls for targeted and classified implementation of policies to achieve scientific assessment and education for children and adolescents with disabilities. Continuing the previous goal of promoting equity and realizing sharing, it also proposes to respect differences and realize diversity and integration, so that children and adolescents with disabilities can grow up healthy and happy and can excel in life just like ordinary adolescents. This

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vividly reflects China’s people-oriented educational values. Under the development of the new era, more attention is paid to the personalized and diversified development of special education.

4.2.2 The Development of Special Education in Non-compulsory Education To achieve this goal, the Action Plan also defines three major tasks and measures, requiring the expansion of school services, the development of special education in non-compulsory education, and the increase of access to school for children and adolescents with disabilities in all school segments based on consolidating the achievements in the popularization of special education in compulsory education. Expanding the duration of special education will not only provide a sounder system for special education, but also help disabled children and adolescents can have good guidance at all stages of their growth. The second is to promote integrated education and improve the quality of special education. Compared with ordinary children and adolescents, disabled children and adolescents have certain physical and psychological defects, which cause a lot of obstacles to their growth. Meanwhile, it is required that the implementation of special education must conform to the special situation of disabled children and adolescents. Therefore, the development of special education should not only be limited to the teaching of theoretical knowledge in books, but also promote the deep integration of vocational education, medical rehabilitation, and information technology to provide more comprehensive guidance for their growth. A sound education system needs solid material support. The Action Plan also calls for improving the guaranteed mechanism for special education, improving the conditions for running special education, and strengthening the construction of barrier-free facilities in schools. In addition, the construction of special education resource centers will be promoted, public subsidies for special education students will be increased, the construction of special education teachers will be strengthened, and the professional quality of teachers will be improved. In the new era, the demand and requirements for talent development are also constantly improving. Disabled children themselves have limitations for it is more easily at a disadvantage in social competition, countries called to improve the quality of special education development in the mental and physical healthy growth of the disabled children at the same time, also for the development of special education industry to develop more new opportunities, gain more and more social attention, and are vulnerable to promote the harmonious development of the society. As an integral part of education, the planning and implementation of special education need to be regulated and led by the Party and the national government, which fully embodies the political foundation of education policy. Training qualified successors to socialism is the fundamental goal of China’s education development. Under the leadership of the Party and the state, special education helps disabled children and adolescents

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develop talents, contributes their own personal value to the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and reflects China’s pursuit of equal human rights. Of course, the development of special education not only needs the state’s investment in funds and political support, but also needs correct teaching methods to effectively improve the social survival ability of special education students. In recent years, the number of special education schools in China has been increasing, and the educational ideology and philosophy have been constantly updated, but special education is still the most difficult aspect of the education system to develop. Because the objects of special education are subdivided into many different objects due to the physiological and psychological differences, which have higher requirements for the personalized design of education and teaching methods, it is extremely necessary to explore the teaching methods of special education. Special education theory system is very large, special education should not only study the knowledge such as psychology, pedagogy, rehabilitation, and the fusion, observation of special education in the operating practice of the behavior and psychology, and through the analysis to understand their different physical condition and the demand, for their special education program. This undoubtedly has a higher requirement for the professional accomplishment of special education workers. However, although the theory of special education in China is becoming more mature, the training of teachers in special education schools is far from meeting the growing needs of special education. The lack of high-quality teachers is the dilemma facing the development of special education at present. The subject of special education teaching is very important. Because of the physical and psychological particularity of disabled children and adolescents, teachers need to pay more attention to their mental health, protect their personal dignity, and cultivate their ability to overcome obstacles in autonomous learning. With the development of modern science and technology, we can make use of modern multimedia technology to enhance the attraction of teaching. Medical technology can also be used to help students perceive the outside world with their defective bodies (Guo & Zhong, 2016; Li & Xin, 2019; Liu, 2021; Zhang & Ge, 2019; Zhang & Wang, 2021).

4.3 Analysis of Policy Text 4.3.1 The Historical Process of China’s Special Education Policy Incorporation of Special Education into the Legal System (1978–1986): The Constitution and the Law on Compulsory Education provide legal support for the education of special children. As stipulated in the 1982 Constitution, “the State and the community assist and arrange for the daily life and education of blind, deaf, dumb and all other disabled citizens.” The Compulsory Education Law of 1986 states that “local governments at all levels shall establish special education primary schools for blind, deaf, dumb and mentally retarded children.” It shows that the state has

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incorporated compulsory education for blind, deaf, dumb, and mentally retarded children into the legal system. “The interim Provisions on the Basic Requirements for Universal Primary Education in 1983” stated that “most of the mentally retarded children are now studying in ordinary primary schools,” which undoubtedly showed that the general curriculum system at that time had included a considerable number of mentally retarded children. In 1986, the Interim Provisions on the Basic Requirements for Universal Primary Education explicitly stipulated the establishment of special education schools, as well as special courses in general schools. Moreover, children with disabilities who do not interfere with normal learning should also be enrolled in regular primary and secondary schools. This changed the previous situation of relying only on special education schools for education and expanded the way of special education. Promoting the Popularization of special Education in compulsory Education (1987–2000): Compulsory education for children with special needs is gradually being properly protected. In 1988, the Five-year Program for the Work of The Disabled in China explicitly stipulated that “the enrollment rate of blind and deaf children in schools shall increase from less than 6 percent at present to 10 percent and 15 percent.” In 1996, the “Ninth Five-year Plan for The Implementation of Compulsory Education for Children and Adolescents with Disabilities” explicitly stated that “by the year 2000, about 80 percent of children with visual, hearing, language and intellectual disabilities will be enrolled in school.” At the same time, the further development of teaching object scope are expanding in particular, in the previous full based on the blind, deaf, and mentally handicapped children, gradually began to take care of the body of the disabled children, children with learning, language, emotional disorders, such as autism, such that the former state education commission in 1989 “about several opinions for the development of special education put forward clear stipulation,” around the higher learning schools should, on the original basis, further create conditions to actively absorb children with physical disabilities and children with learning disabilities, language barriers, emotional barriers, and other adolescents to school. In 1996, the Ninth Five-year Plan for The Implementation of Compulsory Education for Children and Adolescents with Disabilities covered “children with comprehensive disabilities, autism and other disabilities” (Guo & Zhong, 2016; Li & Xin, 2019; Liu, 2021; Zhang & Ge, 2019). Special Education shows public service (2010–present): In 2011, “China undertakings for disabled persons” twelfth five-year “development plan,” “disabled special duty to provide education work included in the basic public service system,” in 2016 the “much starker choices-and graver consequences-in plan to accelerate the process of the disabled well-off” and “children’s opinions on security work on strengthening predicament, will pay special attention to the disabled children benefits the improvement of service level, to improve The level of children receiving special compulsory higher education. National Ministry of Education of the special education program” and “the second phase of the special education promotion plan were clearly put forward,” “build financial dominant, community support, captures and smooth traffic convenient special education service security system,” “improve the

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special teaching protection service ability,” “perfect special higher education discipline support system,” thereby special education gradually becomes a public service. At the same time, social integration and inclusive education have also received high attention. In 2014, it was stipulated in the Special Education Promotion Plan for the first time that “inclusive education should be promoted comprehensively so that every child with disabilities can receive appropriate higher education.” In 2016, the Outline of the 13th Five-Year Plan for Accelerating the Well-off Process of Persons with Disabilities, the Regulations on Education for Persons with Disabilities, and the Second Phase of the Special Education Promotion Plan in 2017 stipulated that compulsory education will be integrated into compulsory education and proposed more measures to improve the integration into compulsory education. At the same time, the special form of family education also constantly became enriched, such as “China undertakings for disabled persons” twelfth five-year “development plan,” “the social education, class door, cross-regional recruit students, set up professional colleges and universities, and other forms of severe limb movement disabled schoolage, severe mental intelligence disability and a variety of disabilities, autism, cerebral palsy children special duty family education.” This shows that China’s special education is gradually moving toward equality, justice, and respect for individual differences (Deng & Yan, 2016; Guo & Zhong, 2016; Li & Huang, 2021; Li & Xin, 2019; Liu, 2021; Zhang & Ge, 2019; Zhang & Wang, 2021; C. Zhang, 2021; H. Zhang, 2021).

4.3.2 China’s Special Education Policy Structure System China’s special education policy is based on the Constitution, with the Education Law, The Compulsory Education Law, and the Law on the Protection of Persons with Disabilities as its core content and formulated with the Interim Regulations on Special Education Schools and the Regulations on The Education of Persons with Disabilities as its overall special policy. The Constitution is the fundamental law and provides the highest effective basis for the formulation of national special education policy. The Education Law, The Compulsory Education Law, and the Law on the Protection of Persons with Disabilities are the second level of general policy measures to refine the Constitution from the perspective of higher education and disability. The Regulations on the Education of persons with Disabilities are the third level and are formulated exclusively. Basic policies refer to policies and regulations with highlevel and certain strategic significance. National basic policy is in the middle of concrete policy and our country’s overall policy. The basic national policy is based on the general policy, serves the general policy of our country, is the embodiment of the general policy in the actual implementation, and is the basis of specific policies. The basic state policies are mainly based on the opinions and programs issued by the Central government and The General Office of the State Council as the core basic policies and are mainly based on the long-term and comprehensive opinions and programs issued by the Ministry of Education at a certain stage, and the Five-year

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Plan for the Development of the Cause of the Disabled in China. To central committee and the State Council approved the national medium and long-term education reform and development plan outline and “about the advice to promote the development of undertakings for disabled persons” as the core, according to the opinion of “about strengthening the construction of special education teachers,” “China undertakings for disabled persons” twelfth five-year “development plan” and “special education promotion plan” made a specific arrangement. Specific policies and measures for the implementation of special teaching refer to more specific implementation of basic policies and measures for special teaching in different ways and contents within the areas specified by basic policies and measures for special teaching. Specific policies and measures for the implementation of special teaching are promulgated under the guidance of national basic policies and measures for special teaching. The Ministry of Education issued three kinds of teaching Plans for special students, Experimental Plans for Compulsory Education Curriculum, and Special Education Promotion Plans, which are the specific policy documents for the implementation of special children’s education in China (Guo & Zhong, 2016; Li & Xin, 2019; Liu, 2021; Zhang & Ge, 2019).

4.3.3 Analysis of Special Education Policies Since the 18th CPC National Congress The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China explicitly proposed “support for special higher education,” which means that the policy of special higher education will enter the top-level government discourse system of China. In 2014, the state chairman Li put forward the importance of the protection of rights and interests of disabled children education equality instructions, and the national Ministry of Education on the study and implement premier Li Keqiang and other leading comrades of the State Council about special education important instructions and speech spirit notice also mentioned that “push deep into special quality education reform as educators integrated priority change, as to promote Equal access to higher education, as a key systematic project to ensure and improve people’s livelihood,” indicates the transformation and upgrading of the policy on children’s education with characteristics. The second phase of the promotion plan defines the overall design development goals for the vigorous development of national special education in the near future, the long-term development direction of special education, and the specific deployment of national special education management in the next three years. The three main tasks of the special education Promotion program are to increase the number of disabled children and adolescents who receive compulsory education. From 2013 to 2016, the total number of special schools in China increased from 368,000 in 1933 to 492,000 in 2008. More than 90 percent of children and adolescents with visual, hearing, and intellectual disabilities are enrolled

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in school. Secondly, the modern concept of special education began to be established, and a cooperative contract was signed to “run special education well.” More than 150 local documents have been formulated in 37 national experimental areas for special education reform, establishing relevant policies and regulations for the development of special education in China, and establishing a working mode of cooperation with various ministries and commissions. Third, people’s governments all over China attach great importance to and support the development of special education. People’s governments at all levels have greatly increased their investment in special education and raised the requirements for special colleges and universities to integrate teaching with mainstream ones. Fourth, in accordance with the regulations for special education teachers issued by the Ministry of Education, the construction of teachers and the training of professional skills have been further strengthened, and the services of special education teachers have been basically realized. Fifth, we should give full play to the connotation of special education and improve the quality of teachers’ courses by implementing the curriculum standards of compulsory education in three special primary schools. Sixth, do a good job in top-level design, establish a sound local special education information management platform, and strive to promote the establishment of local special education guarantee system. Finally, a local special education guarantee system with reasonable layout, school docking, employment integration, medical and teaching integration, and teachers staying at home will be established. In 2015, The General Office of the State Council stated in the Statement on Accelerating the Process of Promoting well-off Life for Persons with Disabilities that “a healthy society without disabilities is not a truly prosperous society in an all-round sense.” This opinion consists of the following three parts. The general requirements of the first part define the guiding ideas, principles, and overall objectives for further promoting the process of affluence in China’s disabled society. This opinion is related to China’s overall development goal of building a central national city and improving the national disability social insurance system and service system. Carrying out tolerance and in the organic integration of special treatment condition, organic integration of security and employment, classification guidance phase equilibrium, the organic integration of public and community security, to 2020 disabled economic self-reliance development and society organically combined with the principle of, further improve the disability income level, improve the quality of survival, and strengthen the social sustainable development, and make the national disability to live and work in peace and contentment, no Worry about food and clothes. Disability affairs and economic development coexist in harmony, supporting disabled people to achieve social development goals of “equality, participation and division.” The second part is the key content, which defines the key tasks for the government to promote the health process of the disabled. The first is to further improve the level of social security for the disabled. The government has further improved the minimum guarantee, basic housing, cash benefits, social welfare, and social security systems to ensure that persons with disabilities “have food, clothing, shelter and transportation, as well as support for the elderly.” Second,

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to enhance the economic and social services for the disabled. By raising the employment rate and treatment and enhancing the prevention of disability and rehabilitation level, through the enrichment of disability energy to daily life and culture, to promote the quality education, security disability can afford medical services and higher education, actively promote the establishment of community barrier-free environment, make the disabled realize “there are opportunities to leave home, to participate in the community, with the corresponding energy and cultural survival.” Third, we will improve the environment for the development of disability programs. By growing disability charity, booming disabled volunteer rescue service, develop disability services, use of government power to buy public services, establish a unified leadership by the government, the social from all walks of life to actively participate in the disabled social affairs system, provide the healthy development of various undertakings may continue to push disability of benign environment. The third part is the protection measures, highlighting the government organization and leadership work, and ensure the implementation of key tasks. This focus includes strengthening organizational leadership, increasing input, strengthening rights protection, and strengthening public opinion (Deng & Yan, 2016; Guo & Zhong, 2016; Li & Huang, 2021; Li & Xin, 2019; Liu, 2021; Zhang & Ge, 2019; Zhang & Wang, 2021; C. Zhang, 2021; H. Zhang, 2021). Dilemma refers to the children because of poor families, medical treatment, such as school life difficult children, because of their disability rehabilitation and health care. Health care and children’s social integration is difficult, because of the lack of family care or improper care for the ones who have suffered abuse, abandonment, accident, illegal acts that lead to personal safety being threatened, or abusing children. The education of children in need must be strengthened. Therefore, it is suggested that the government should implement the policy of teaching allowance and “two exemptions and one subsidy” in compulsory education for children from poor families. We will set up a support mechanism for children with disabilities and offer preferential policies such as free tuition for college entrance examinations and free secondary vocational training to children of migrant workers and other permanent residents in different regions. It supports preschool education in special education institutions of higher learning, rehabilitation and training institutions for disabled children and child welfare institutions, as well as special education training in children’s social welfare organizations, to provide special education for disabled children in the community. In order to ensure the education of special children, it is necessary to establish a threelevel network of county, township, and village; Establish department cooperation linkage mechanism; Give full play to the role of mass organizations; Encourage and support the participation of social forces. Teaching is the main activity of cultivating people. Therefore, special education, as the main part of national teaching, must take the cultivation of builders and successors of the ideal cause of socialist development as the basic tasks of special education. File explicitly put forward under the State Council, promote virtue, and to cultivate special talents, promote the disabled children’s development, intelligence and physique, us, fatigue and further requirements across the country will of the people’s government of the teaching profession as a focus, strengthening standardization construction of special education and the

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connotation construction, to further promote the reform of course teaching, innovation characteristic education system and improve the teachers’ team construction. The ideological and moral character, scientific and technological thought, cultural quality, and mental health of persons with disabilities have improved significantly. First, we will standardize the construction of special education schools. In order to ensure the development and operation of special education, the central government has actively promoted the construction of special education colleges and universities in the central and western regions, and the total number of special education colleges and universities in China has exceeded 2,244. Built to enter China’s comprehensive modern socialist country in the new era, according to the national modernization and the comprehensive quality of higher education system of the country’s new needs, “planning” in demand all over the country actively does a good job in special education schools standardization construction, gradually completes the conditions for offering education from the original low standard’s transition into standardization, modernization, and development. Specific terms, in terms of teaching operation requirements, according to the physical characteristics of different categories of the disabled children and the latest development trend of higher education technology revolution, according to our country’s modern special education school construction standards, better teaching and barrier-free facilities, reinforce teaching auxiliary information, data analysis, artificial intelligence, and so on into the depth, content, and information education, the positive push to build high-quality modern special education colleges and universities, and strive to establish national special education colleges, local integrated teaching professional technical support resource centers and regional government cooperation education demonstration colleges and universities. Second, it is to continue to improve the internal management mechanism and various system establishment modernization, make our teaching organization, talents, cultural property fully into the orbit education according to law school, such as all-round normative our school activities, continue to strengthen campus environment specification management, improve school management level, and education quality of teaching on campus. Second, further strengthen the curriculum teaching reform, innovation, and development of characteristic teaching. Teaching is the core element of talent training, and teaching is also the most important way to improve the quality of talent training. To this end, the document of the State Council requires all localities to carry out new courses, adjust new textbooks, further reform education, teaching, and research, so as to form a cooperative teaching mechanism among colleges, families, and society. First, in accordance with the latest requirements put forward since the 19th CPC National Congress, we will fully implement the Party’s policies and regulations on basic education, implement the national curriculum standards for special education and the new curriculum standards, and actively promote the all-round development of schools with disabilities. Secondly, the school should do a good job in the reform experiment and research of special education, innovate talent training, pay more attention to the important function of family education and community in school talent training, and gradually form a new mechanism of interschool collaborative teaching. Special education has been integrated into families and society through comprehensive reform of primary education, family education,

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and social services. Third, according to the second National Action Plan for The Standardization of Sign Language and Braille, universal sign language and National Braille should be popularized as soon as possible. Special education institutes (mainly blind and deaf schools) should strengthen the standardized use of classroom language and enhance the standardization and effectiveness of curriculum. We will strengthen the training of teachers for special education. Teachers are the cornerstone of highquality development of special education. To this end, The General Office of the State Council made it clear in the document that the construction of special teachers should be strengthened in the “14th Five-year plan” period to further enhance the professional ability of special teachers. First of all, in the context of teacher training, it is necessary to strengthen the construction of teacher colleges and universities, constantly innovate teacher training methods for specialized courses, and improve the quality of teacher training. Secondly, it is necessary to strengthen the training of special education teachers in the workplace and improve the teaching ability and quality of special education teachers. Third, strengthen the moral training of teachers, award titles and awards according to relevant laws and regulations, improve the treatment and social status of special education teachers, improve the leadership of teachers, form a development incentive mechanism, and guide special teachers to further improve their academic standards. The fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee clearly improved the special education service guarantee mechanism. The first is to implement the people-oriented concept of social development, always regard special education work as the main means to improve the living standards of the disabled, awareness, attention, and help, and then strengthen the unified leadership of the Party and the government on special education work, in order to achieve China’s special education and other public funds in place. Second, a political mechanism has been set up to provide financial support for schools for the disabled, including government agencies that provide financial support for preschool education and graduate programs, and financial help for disabled children with financial difficulties. Third, we will further improve the construction of special education personnel, financial and material supply capacity, and resource centers in the region, and provide special teaching assistants, special learning tools, rehabilitation training services and barrier-free support for disabled learners. To strengthen the supervision of special education, provide a supervision and restraint system that effectively encourages and protects the development achievements of special education, and improve the government’s supervision and evaluation of the quality of special education services, to promote the overall improvement of the quality of special education services. Publicity and education should be strengthened to create a favorable social atmosphere for people to pay attention to and support education for persons with disabilities (Guo & Zhong, 2016; Li & Xin, 2019; Liu, 2021; Zhang & Ge, 2019).

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4.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions 4.4.1 There Is a Shortage of Teachers for Special Education, and the Comprehensive Quality of Teachers Should Be Improved In recent years, China’s social and economic development is fast, but the development of special education is far behind the economic development. At present, with the great development of education in China, special education has been given great importance. In the field of special education, teachers are an important factor. If we want to develop special education vigorously, we must strengthen the training of teachers. Special schoolteachers face special students, who have obvious particularity. To vigorously develop special education in our country, we must have a team of high-quality special education teachers. However, China’s special education lacks many teachers, therefore, we should strive to improve the overall level of special education teachers, increase the training of special education teachers. At present, there are still many problems in the faculty of special education in our country, and the overall quality level of teachers needs to be further strengthened and improved. Only by creating comprehensive education talents with comprehensive quality, professional knowledge, theoretical knowledge, and subject quality, can China’s special education have better development. To improve and solve some problems in the field of teacher strength and comprehensive quality, increasing the attraction of the industry and cultivating and developing talents and systems in many aspects can undoubtedly solve some of these problems. The education for special education field, many students in the process of choosing a major, students should not only consider the face is “special” students, need more effort to teaching and students get along with, will also consider an important question, is the treatment and social status, the two problems is often a stumbling block to students at selected professional. Is different from the ordinary primary and secondary schools, special education school often school system, teaching system, imperfect management system and salary system exist, leading to teachers’ residence, income is not ideal, education students tend to be more willing to other ordinary primary and secondary schools as a teacher, can get along with normal students, and to receive the treatment such as better income. Therefore, in order to increase the attractiveness of the post and make more education professionals willing to engage in special education, it is necessary to increase the income and treatment of special education teachers. The national salary policy for teachers, local governments, and education departments should formulate specific policies to earnestly implement the improvement of the income treatment of special education staff, as well as improve various social welfare in addition to income. The weakness of teachers and the imperfection of the comprehensive quality of special education teachers have always hindered the development of this field in our country, but the negative consequences of the backward development have always affected the disabled children and students. The embodiment of comprehensive quality is not only

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reflected in the disciplinary professional quality and other aspects, but also reflected in the communication, which enables to get along with those children and students, and the ability to smoothly carry out teaching. Comprehensively improve the quality of special education teachers and their team, “professional, so the knowledge to reassure also,” for students, all aspects of the teacher, professional knowledge, manner, ability, and moral cultivation, for students will have the influence of osmosis, precept, especially for special children, this is different from other normal children, there is a greater demand for the comprehensive quality of teachers. Nowadays, the comprehensive quality of special education teachers is uneven due to various hindrance factors in the development of special education, so the comprehensive quality of teachers should be strengthened. To strengthen the cultivation of special education teachers’ moral cultivation, instill the people-oriented teaching concept, treat every special child equally, organize to formulate teacher training plans, actively carry out various comprehensive quality training, normal colleges and universities should increase the comprehensive quality training of special education teachers. We will give full play to the role of normal colleges and universities in the field of special education and actively encourage young teachers in special schools to continue their studies through joint education. Through training to enhance teachers’ professional ability, the process of education for special children can play a more professional ability, promote the improvement of teachers’ comprehensive quality, and organize regular teachers to practice teaching work, such as more than the actual communication, communication with the disabled children, to get along with, teach them knowledge, in practice to learn more about the need of the students learning and life. Children observe teachers attentively to feel the heart of the most essential thing, and listen to them, understand them, therefore to teach these children, education experience and method can enhance their own professional ability, making it more and more effective to improve their comprehensive quality, to strengthen special education teachers (Deng & Yan, 2016; Guo & Zhong, 2016; Li & Huang, 2021; Li & Xin, 2019; Liu, 2021; Zhang & Ge, 2019; Zhang & Wang, 2021; C. Zhang, 2021; H. Zhang, 2021).

4.4.2 With the Shift, System Is Difficult to Implement—Low Quality Today, more and more special children join in the class system to receive education, enjoy the same education as other normal students, the class system of teaching gradually began to be implemented everywhere. However, a series of problems that come with it hinder the broader development of the shift system, making it difficult to implement and of low quality. To better implement the class system, it not only needs the change and help of the system, but also needs the care, understanding, and help of teachers, students, and the whole society for this special group. From the experience of special education teacher training at home and abroad, it can be concluded that it is

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the inevitable trend and trend of special education teacher training in China to move from monism to pluralism. Nowadays, the training of special education teachers in China is still dominated by special education normal colleges, while the recruitment and training efforts of comprehensive universities and ordinary normal colleges are not enough. China’s special education normal colleges and universities focus more on the training of special children and students with various physical disorders, but the knowledge reserve of disciplines and various aspects is insufficient and needs to be improved. Special education training schools should be combined with ordinary normal colleges and universities and comprehensive universities, which has the advantage of students although there is nothing specific in the professional field for special education except training and study, but have a good base for discipline and other knowledge reserve, relatively strong comprehensive ability, students study in comprehensive discipline and discipline of teachers at the same time. To learn theories and professional knowledge related to special education spontaneously and obtain special education qualification certificate, so as to cultivate more educational talents with corresponding educational ability for special children and profound professional subject knowledge, which is conducive to the special training of ordinary school teachers. Will “discipline theory knowledge” and “special education professional theoretical knowledge” organic union make the development prospect of this field and broader road, provide more opportunities for students to choose major and job, making it better to fill the gaps in jobs, for those children bring better teacher and students in the education field to build more excellent talents. The shortage of teachers is also attributed to the lack of training channels for special education teachers. At present, there is still a big gap in the demand for special education teachers in many regions, and more educational talents are needed to carry out special education. Therefore, universities, especially normal universities, should increase the recruitment of special education majors, strengthen the cultivation of professional knowledge and ability in undergraduate and even graduate years, cultivate professional talents, and strengthen the practical learning of students in their majors, such as teaching practice in some special education schools in summer and winter holidays. There is still a single situation in the form of teacher training. The training form should be diversified from all aspects and various forms of teacher training, holding various forms of education to carry out the training (Deng & Yan, 2016; Guo & Zhong, 2016; Li & Huang, 2021; Li & Xin, 2019; Liu, 2021; Zhang & Ge, 2019; Zhang & Wang, 2021; C. Zhang, 2021; H. Zhang, 2021).

References Deng, M., & Yan, T. (2016). A review of the progress of western special education research. Education Research, 37(1), 77–84. Guo, J., & Zhong, W. (2016). Special education Informaionization environment construction and application present situation investigation and stud. Journal of Electrochemical Education Research, 20(4), 26–35.

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Li, H., & Huang, W. (2021). British new special education services of China and the United States policy comparison. Journal of Education, 20(5), 156–169. Li, G., & Xin, T. (2019). The Focus of large-scale education quality Monitoring Project on students with special education needs and its enlightenment: A case study of PISA, NAEP and NAPLAN. Chinese Journal of Special Education, 20(2), 3–8. Liu, Y. (2021). A study on the education and placement of children with special needs. Nanjing People’s Government Bulletin, 20(6), 24–31. Zhang, H. (2021). Research on the status quo of special education talents training in Chinese universities and colleges. Educational Theory, 20(3), 178–179. Zhang, C. (2021). The context, experience and prospect of the development of special education. Curriculum. Teaching Methods, Materials, 29(12), 101–108. Zhang, X., & Wang, K. (2021). Special education law of China and the United States compare and enlightenment to our country. Journal of Law and Society, 20(4), 160–161. Zhang, Y., & Ge, Y. (2019). Discussion on the theoretical basis and basic framework of special education quality monitoring index system construction. Education Tribune, 20(11), 68–73.

Chapter 5

The Boarding Schools’ Children Education Policy in China

This chapter examines the education policy development of boarding school children in China. Small-scale rural schools and boarding schools in towns and townships are the main bodies of rural schools. Running these two types of schools well is a basic requirement for implementing the rural revitalization strategy and promoting equal access to basic public services in urban and rural areas. Township boarding school has strategic significance in solving the problem of “going to school far away” and “left-behind children care,” which is the most important part of rural education.

5.1 Literature Review 5.1.1 Mental Health of Students in Rural Boarding Schools In the 12 western provinces of China, the mountainous geographical environment and the shrinking of students caused by the children of migrant workers determine many problems such as fewer students, less school layout, dangerous roads to school, and long journey time. The lack of financial resources at the county level makes local administrative departments prefer to keep small-scale schools and report boarding schools. For safety reasons, rural schools mostly do not set up school buses, but adopt boarding schools to ensure the safety of students. However, the policy of “merging schools and withdrawing schools” is accompanied by many problems while solving “far to go to school” and “difficult to go to school.” By 2020, the number of rural left-behind children in compulsory education reached 12.8967 million. Although the number of left-behind children in rural areas has decreased from 15.5056 million in 2017, it is still a huge number, and up to 80 percent of rural children are still under the custody of other generations or temporary custody of relatives and friends. They are faced with many problems such as poor academic performance, psychological © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 E. Xue and J. Li, Childhood Education Policy in China, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4683-7_5

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imbalance, loss of affection, and loss of safety. Solving the problem of psychological and behavioral education of left-behind children is not only to solve the problem of future labor force, but also the only way to educational equity required by China’s national system of government.

5.1.2 The Ruin of Boarding In addition to the academic and emotional problems mentioned above, students in rural boarding schools also suffer from more secretive and unspoken school bullying, which has significantly affected students’ mental health, resulting in depression, anxiety, social withdrawal, and low self-esteem. Efforts have also been made in recent years to improve the situation in rural boarding schools. First, the children’s place in rural schools can complement and expand the educational function of schools, reconstruct space, time, teachers, and curriculum, make fixed teachers, students, and curriculum flow in an orderly way, and organically combine the quality education of rural students with the care of rural left-behind children. The second is to give full play to the social power through the full integration of social and educational resources inside and outside the education system. Recruiting volunteers and practitioners for the society, communities, and normal colleges in the province to open interest and activity courses for left-behind children in rural areas; The third is to set up mental health courses to popularize mental health knowledge to students and improve selfadjustment ability; Fourth, set up psychological counseling rooms, equipped with full-time and part-time psychological counseling teachers, to solve problems for left-behind children, to help them solve emotional confusion, depression in learning, troubles in life; Fifth, actively open consultation telephone or intimate mailbox and other diversified communication channels; Sixth, we will accurately identify leftbehind children in rural areas and implement classified education and management (Dong, 2022; Huang, 2014; Lui, 2021; Wang & Wu, 2019; Wu et al., 2016).

5.1.3 School Management In addition to the mental health issues that have been the focus of attention in recent years, it is also quite popular for scholars to study how to manage rural boarding schools from a more macro perspective. If boarding students are effectively managed, how to make the overall healthy growth history of boarding school students is a new topic in front of experts and scholars. It is of great theoretical and practical significance to study the management of rural boarding schools seriously, which is helpful to explore new ideas and new models of boarding school management. In 1985, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held the first national Conference on Education after reform and opening up, and issued the Decision on The Reform of the Education System, stressing that one of the measures for the reform

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of the education system was to “hand over the responsibility for the development of basic education to local governments and implement the nine-year compulsory education step by step.” On April 12, 1986, the National People’s Congress passed the Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China and decided to formally implement nine-year compulsory education in China on July 1 of that year. In 1993, the Outline of China’s Education Reform and Development further clarified the goals and tasks of achieving universal nine-year compulsory education by the year 2000, that is, universal nine-year compulsory education in counties accounting for 85 percent of China’s total population; The enrollment rate of junior middle school students is about 85%; The enrollment rate of school-age children in primary schools reached over 99 percent. Illiteracy among young and middle-aged people has been basically eliminated nationwide, and the non-illiteracy rate among young and middle-aged people has reached over 95 percent. Boarding school is the specific requirement of “two basic education” in western China. Only boarding school can make the children who face difficulty to go to school really go to school. In the twentyfirst century, the financial department has increased the financial resources, making the campus beds greatly increase and meeting the requirements of accommodation. It is only after the basic material conditions are guaranteed that the academic circle starts to pay attention to the mental health problems of boarding students after 2012. At the same time, with the continuous development of economic construction, the transfer of rural surplus labor to cities, on the one hand, caused the serious problem of left-behind children, on the one hand is to let farmers the purse drum up of the masses, they also start to their children’s education requirement, so carrying the boarding schools in rural education major responsibility, to meet the farmers’ demand for high-quality education resources, It is beneficial to reduce the burden of rural migrant workers, cultivate the cooperative spirit of rural students, and cultivate the advantages of boarding school (Dong, 2022; Huang, 2014; Lui, 2021; Wang & Wu, 2019; Wu et al., 2016).

5.1.4 Security Management Issues Taking two districts and one county in Jinhua as an example, the survey results show that boarding schools are generally in good safety condition. They are strict in safety management and requirements for students, but they are responsible for the school itself, such as regular inspection of public facilities and activity equipment. Inadequate arrangements for safe transportation or disciplined removal of students from school. There are also differences in school management between grades, with stricter supervision of the lower grades and more lenient supervision of the upper grades. Taking Jinhua’s two districts and one county as an example, statistics show that dormitory administrators can basically meet the needs of students. But as with safety management, there are significant differences between grades in terms of dormitory managers and the availability of life teachers. In addition, many empty buildings and old buildings are used as temporary dormitories, many of which are

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not reasonable and unsafe. At the same time, most of the boarding schools do not have special dormitory administrators, and most of the dormitory managers of the surveyed schools are head teachers or PE teachers. Students in the accommodation of the problem are generally not specialized personnel to solve, they have to find a teacher or find their own way to solve a problem. Problems such as dormitory hygiene, night safety, and holiday dormitory safety cannot be solved. Although there are rules and regulations, due to the limited resources of teachers, it is difficult to strictly implement them, and many problems are dealt with randomly and temporarily.

5.1.5 Dietary Hygiene Management In Jinhua region and a county as an example, research shows that boarding school food hygiene management overall status is not so good. Even a single problem think a good student is less than 35%, single think bad students even as much as 57%, but it is worth noting that in different grade, the diet is reasonable collocation, the food is delicious, if there’s any accommodation subsidies, and many other issues, In addition to the school’s own food hygiene problems, such as the provision of boiled water, dining environment, nutritional structure, medical staff lack of weight, and so on, there may be differences in students’ experience and cognition. Taking two districts and one county in Jinhua as an example, statistical analysis shows that boarding schools are divided into two categories in terms of education and teaching. On the one hand, boarding schools are generally good in terms of teaching and education for students; on the other hand, the situation is not optimistic in terms of teachers’ education and further study. There are also significant differences between grades in whether to use Putonghua, standardize Chinese characters and promote teaching materials, which may mean that teachers’ own level is limited, and teachers’ salary is a problem. At the same time, in the teaching of test-oriented thinking deep-rooted, weak teachers, a teacher to teach many grades, many subjects of the phenomenon, making the teacher’s workload heavy; The number of classes is too large, and the course period design is unreasonable, which leads to heavy academic burden and low efficiency. The teaching management mode is backward, and boarding schools mostly adopt the so-called semi-military management, which is actually unscientific and compulsory to carry out unified management of students, including unified tutoring, unified homework, and unified testing, while ignoring the nature of children and killing the talent of creation and discovery in the cradle. Teaching evaluation mechanism, on the other hand, rough and simple, just a hero with fractional theory, in order to record the success or failure, is a kind of backward management concept, the core concept of modern management is the management by objectives, and school education fundamental starting point and the foothold of management by objectives is to promote the all-round development of students as the center of management, combining the teaching goals and student success; Combine education and teaching with students’ interests and hobbies (Dong, 2022; Huang, 2014; Lui, 2021; Wang & Wu, 2019; Wu et al., 2016).

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5.2 The Theoretical Tools 5.2.1 Rural Boarding Schools Based on the development status of boarding schools in China, rural boarding schools account for the main part, and have more important research value. Therefore, this paper takes rural boarding schools as the main research object. Since the implementation of compulsory education, boarding schools have been established in rural areas in order to solve the problems of rural population scattered living, students go to school far away and ensure that rural school-age children complete compulsory education. Therefore, rural boarding school refers to a kind of school that can provide students with basic living services such as meals and accommodation during compulsory education in rural areas. Education policy refers to the normative documents of interest distribution and resource allocation in the field of education formulated by the public authority based on the national reality, the needs of the times and the laws of education. According to the Education Law of the People’s Republic of China, education policy can also be understood as a code of conduct on education formulated according to the basic tasks and principles of a certain historical period. Based on the understanding of the education policy, as well as the present stage existence significance of boarding schools in rural areas, rural boarding school education policy can be defined as: in order to achieve the boarding schools in rural education development, realize the goal of education fairness, establishment of the party and country to balance interests of the parties to the education, the basis of coordinated action and guidelines. From the perspective of the main body, the main body of rural boarding school education policy includes the central government and local government. From the point of view of content, the educational policy of rural boarding school is to promote the development of rural boarding school and implement reasonable allocation of resources to realize the harmonious interaction between internal elements of rural boarding school; From the point of view of the goal, it is to achieve balanced development of education and education equity (Dong, 2022; Huang, 2014; Lui, 2021; Wang & Wu, 2019; Wu et al., 2016).

5.2.2 Social Basis: Educational Equity View Throughout the history of education, whether it is Plato who first proposed educational equity, Aristotle who proposed to guarantee free citizens’ right to education through law, or Confucius’s idea of “teaching without class,” the concept of educational equity runs through the development of the whole history of education. However, educational equity is also historical and regional. In different historical periods and nations, the connotation and significance of educational equity are different. In China, after the founding of new China, the basic value of educational

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equity has been raised to a strategic position. Marxism holds that the right to education is a basic right that every citizen should have and a basic condition for the proletariat to transform society. Education is of great importance to both the country and the Party. When the educational resources are relatively sufficient, the distribution of educational resources is a crucial issue. Educational equity is related to whether every citizen can enjoy the right to education equally, and social stability and social equity. Therefore, since its founding, the Communist Party of China has always taken the equal right to education of workers and peasants as an important goal, and educational equity as the basic value criterion for the development of compulsory education. Educational equity refers to the rational norms or principles on which the state allocates educational resources, so as to ensure the development and stability of the society as a whole and satisfy the individual development and needs of social members. Based on the dialectical relationship between the two, the unified allocation of educational resources is carried out. Educational equity includes equality of educational rights and obligations, equality of educational opportunities and conditions, and relative equality of educational success opportunities and effects. Taking the equality of urban and rural education as an example, the national law guarantees the equality of the right and obligation to receive education, while the local government guarantees the implementation of the right and obligation to receive education. The fairness of educational opportunities and conditions should ensure that urban and rural students have relatively equal development opportunities and equal learning conditions in the education process, that is, urban and rural schools have relatively equal teaching facilities, funds, teachers, and other aspects; The relatively equal opportunity and effect of education success requires that students in urban and rural areas can achieve a basic standard of education goals after receiving education and get suitable development. At present, China’s compulsory education is fully universal, indicating that the fairness of the right and obligation to receive education has been basically guaranteed, but because of the gap between urban and rural economic development, the opportunities, conditions, and effects of education development in rural areas are lagging behind those in urban areas. Therefore, to realize the educational fairness of the Chinese society as a whole, certain measures must be passed to solve the problem of the imbalance between urban and rural education, in practice to carry out the education fairly, optimize the distribution of urban and rural education resources, the vulnerable groups in rural areas to fairness “compensation,” such as improving the rural school running conditions, strengthening the construction of teaching staff, these are the educational fairness ideas of actualization. It also reflects social equity and justice. To boarding schools in rural education, for example, in the face of the rural population living scattered, students go to school, the present situation of the school education, especially the western rural areas, our country implemented the boarding schools in rural construction projects, students go to school in rural areas, in order to solve difficult problems, and guarantee that all school-age children enjoy the rights and obligations of the right to education. Based on the above analysis of educational equity, one of the criteria of educational policy objectives of rural boarding schools is the equity objective dimension and quality objective dimension of rural boarding schools. It is worth noting, combining with

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the rural economic level, social environment, such as current situation of development, realizing the educational fairness of the boarding schools in rural areas, is not exactly the same as that of city school’s development goal, boarding schools in rural areas have their own characteristics, rather than blindly being consistent with the city schools, on the basis of that boarding school feature development implementation will achieve the ultimate educational equity (Dong, 2022; Huang, 2014; Lui, 2021; Wang & Wu, 2019; Wu et al., 2016).

5.2.3 Economic Basis: The Theory of Economies of Scale in Education If the education is an industry, according to the theory of economics of scale economy, management of education industry also needs to rely on the appropriate scale of operation, make full use of resources play its effectiveness, that is to say by optimization and scientific management methods, use of the limited manpower, financial and material resources to achieve the best teaching efficiency. When educational resources are scarce, we need to consider how to maximize the effectiveness of our limited resources. Therefore, applying the theory of scale economy in the field of enterprise production to the field of education to analyze, explain, and guide the management of education industry, the theory of scale economy in education comes into being. The input of educational resources is usually divided into fixed cost and variable cost. The fixed cost remains unchanged, and the proportion of increase in the number of students is always greater than the proportion of increase in the cost per student. In fact, the increasing number of students and the decreasing fixed costs per unit must result in economies of scale. The variable recurrent cost is different. When the increase rate of recurrent cost is smaller than the increase rate of student number, the unit average recurrent cost will decrease due to the increase of student number. When the increase rate of recurrent cost per unit is larger than that of the number of students, the average recurrent cost per unit will increase with the increase of the number of students. Therefore, the economy of scale of education should refer to the situation that the average recurrent cost per unit decreases due to the increase of the number of students, otherwise it belongs to the diseconomy of scale. The formation of educational scale economy must have three basic conditions, that is, the sufficiency of educational resource utilization, the appropriateness of educational resource utilization, and the limitation of educational scale expansion. China has a large population and relatively limited educational resources. Running large education in poor countries is the clearest description of China’s realization of nine-year compulsory education, while the focus and difficulty of universal compulsory education is the vast rural areas. With the natural decrease of rural population and social decay, rural primary and secondary school students are insufficient, leading to the neglect of many local schools, the existing school students are few and scattered, a serious waste of educational resources. Therefore, in order to improve the quality

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of compulsory education in rural areas, it has gradually emerged as a means to save educational resources in rural areas, and boarding school is also the same, which is a realistic choice made for such a special situation of education development. Since it has become a fact that the distribution of students in rural areas is gradually dispersed, it is the basis to ensure the development of traditional school education to concentrate the scattered students in a wider range. From the above analysis, we know that education itself is also an industry of human reproduction, and its operation is not only an educational behavior, but also an economic behavior. The development of rural primary and secondary schools is the same with the need to save resources and effective use of resources (Dong, 2022; Huang, 2014; Lui, 2021; Wang & Wu, 2019; Wu et al., 2016).

5.2.4 Basis of Man: Socialization Theory of Education Socialization theory appeared in the mid-1970s in western countries, including structural functionalism school of thought has an important role in the field, its main points for the individual and society in the process of socialization is unified, delivering collective consciousness and the concept of moral education, the socialization of the younger generation and personalized, to maintain social identity and diversity. Among them, the important part of education transmission media is family education and school education. Schools and families are different in the process of promoting children’s socialization and in the content of education. Families pay attention to the original and informal behavior value orientation, while schools emphasize the secondary and formal behavior value orientation. In a society of low differentiation, the family undertakes the productive, reproductive, emotional, political, and educational functions. However, in the highly differentiated modern industrial society, family is mainly manifested as emotional function and reproductive function based on emotion, while other functions are gradually separated. Since China’s reform and opening up, China’s rural surplus labor force are moving to cities on a large scale, a direct impact on the rural traditional family integrity, emerged a large number of “left-behind children” families, especially in the Midwest rural areas in China is more apparent, which also appeared in the weakening function of rural family education and even the phenomenon of lack hinders the socialization of rural primary and middle school students. In addition, families in rural areas are disadvantaged groups relative to urban families in terms of congenital geographical environment and access to modern information, and rural education is at a disadvantage from the starting point. Therefore, due to such incompleteness, most families of left-behind children are forced to give up the right to exert influence on the socialization and modernization of children. They have no choice but to transfer this right to boarding schools, which provides space for the development of rural boarding schools. Boarding schools also must shoulder the task of integrating children into socialized real-life scenes, so that boarding schools have a certain standard of “living, accommodation and socialization system,” and also shoulder the additional “family, social education function”

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of the school, that is, “function expansion area.” Therefore, to build a school with the standard of “living, accommodation and socialization system,” we must consider making up for the lack of family and social influence factors of boarding students, rather than simply building on the basis of the lack of traditional school conditions and need to meet the accommodation and after-school activities of students. If function extension cannot achieve certain specification, function also cannot get effective play, already made a boarding school can make up for the lack of family education is function, is likely to be converted into negative features, such as interpersonal problems in the residential life, may have a negative impact on students’ physical and mental development. Rural boarding school integrates the function of family, making school life into a more real social life scene, which is conducive to the realization of students’ socialization to a certain extent. First of all, since students are boarding in school, the school takes over the time originally belonging to family education and can allocate more time to the school which has limited influence on students’ growth, thus weakening the negative influence of family on students’ socialization. Secondly, due to the accommodation of students in school, for the construction of a complete life scene to create conditions, a certain range of screening of the adverse effects of society, as well as the rural family natural economic concept of infiltration, so that students understand and familiar with the modern society earlier. The organic combination of study and life is the integration of family education and school education. Collective normative life can make students develop good habits of living behavior, but also in the collective life to check their own behavior. The process of adapting to collective life is the process of socialization, and the process of infiltrating the quality and civilized behavior habits required by socialized mass production is the process of promoting student modernization. At the stage of primary and secondary education, students’ values, outlook on life, and world outlook are in an ignorant state, which need to be gradually formed through the interaction between teachers and students and peer communication. The personality formed at this time will affect their future life path. At the same time, this stage is also the stage when students begin to break away from the dependence on family education. As children grow older, the educational function of the family will eventually be transferred to the school and the society, and the school will be the first to take the lead in education. School is a place of socialization. The longer students stay in school and the deeper they are integrated into the collective life of the school, the better their socialization will be. Therefore, when children can basically live independently, they can prolong their school lifetime, while rural boarding school can undoubtedly increase students’ school time, integrate students’ life into the school collective life in an all-round way, and reduce the negative impact of family education. To promote the socialization of students more effectively, the real social scene can be simulated through school. And this demand is not only for left-behind children, but also for all rural children (Dong, 2022; Huang, 2014; Lui, 2021; Wang & Wu, 2019; Wu et al., 2016).

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5.3 Analysis of Policy Text 5.3.1 Overview of Policy Release The report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed: “Vigorously promote the fairness of education, rational allocation of educational resources, focusing on rural, remote, poor, ethnic minority areas.” This shows that vigorously supporting and tilting the education in rural areas will still become a key point of China’s educational development in the future. Rural boarding school development policy is a concrete embodiment of the country’s rural education development tilt policy. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, the Ministry of Education and the government have issued one policy text mainly targeting boarding schools: The Guiding Opinions of The General Office of the State Council on Comprehensively Strengthening the Construction of Rural Smallscale Schools and Township Boarding Schools (No. 27, 2018) in May 2018. Most of the other documents mentioned boarding schools in the text, and the resources of boarding schools, strengthen the management of boarding schools, etc. As in December 2013, the Ministry of Education on further increase village elementary school and school funding security work notice highlighted in “town center school because of the work needed to guide the administration of education and teaching business funds and security guards, boarding schoolteacher and implement nutrition improvement plan in the school cafeteria workers, wages and other costs, All of them should be included in the local financial budget to guarantee.” This part will list the policy contents related to boarding schools in the form of tables and analyze the direction of the content of this part and make a detailed analysis of the “Guiding Opinions of The General Office of the State Council on Comprehensively Strengthening the Construction of Rural Small-scale Schools and Township Boarding Schools,” which takes boarding schools as the main policy object.

5.3.2 The Policy with Boarding Schools as the Main Object Since 2012, boarding schools have been mainly targeted at the following policies: Guiding Opinions of The General Office of the State Council on Comprehensively Strengthening the Construction of Small-scale Rural Schools and Township Boarding Schools (Issued by The State Council [2018] No. 27) in May 2018 (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions). This part will make a detailed analysis of the text content of the Opinions: Rural small-scale schools (refers to village primary schools and teaching sites with less than 100 students) and township boarding schools (hereinafter referred to as the two types of schools) are an important part of rural compulsory education. To run these two types of schools well is an important task for implementing the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education and

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accelerating the modernization of education. It is a basic requirement for implementing the rural revitalization strategy and promoting equal access to basic public services in urban and rural areas. It is a powerful measure to win the battle against poverty through education and finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The Opinions first affirmed the importance of small-scale rural schools and township boarding schools, putting school construction in the context of the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education, the strategy of rural revitalization, and the battle against poverty. This also reflects the background of the opinions: the CPC Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the development of rural compulsory education. At the same time, boarding schools play an important role in serving disadvantaged groups in rural areas and consolidating and improving the popularization level of compulsory education. Rural children have a demand for boarding schools. And rural children receiving compulsory education is the key to poverty alleviation and comprehensive betterment. It is of great significance to solve the problem of boarding school education. The formulation of education policy needs to be guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, which reflects the political foundation of education policy. This is the essential feature of education policy. Education policies need to serve the needs of society and the country. China is a country where the people are the masters of the country. Education policies should proceed from the needs of the people, effectively solve their problems, and seek development and happiness for the people of the whole country. By 2020, two types of basic completion school board, to further the revitalization of rural education, two types of school layout is more reasonable, and operating conditions to province to determine the standard of basic education, funds investment and use system more perfect, education teaching management system more perfect, the urban and rural teachers’ basic equilibrium configuration, meet the two classes of the school education teaching and practical need to improve the quality of education. The quality of education in rural areas improved markedly, and the integrated development of urban and rural compulsory education in counties was basically realized, providing equitable and quality education to rural students. The guidelines specify the main goals for the construction of the two types of schools: to make up for the shortcomings of the two types of schools by 2020, and to meet the basic standards set by the provinces in which they are located. “To provide rural students with fair and quality education” also reflects the change in education issues. Upfront as to strengthen the construction of boarding schools mainly emphasizes the rationality of the number and distribution of boarding schools, aimed at children in remote areas and rural left-behind children “have a study on,” to avoid children in remote areas and rural left-behind children due to a lack of convenience and choice to drop out of school, school is not conducive to consolidate the development of compulsory education and education in the poor areas out of poverty. When the number and distribution of boarding schools can meet the basic school needs, they should not only be satisfied with “learning,” but also

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“learning” and pursuing the improvement of conditions and the fairness of education. Therefore, higher requirements are required for boarding schools in the later period. It is hoped that standardized and standardized measures can be taken to improve the facilities, school quality, and humanistic care for students in boarding schools, so that children in remote rural areas and left-behind children can enjoy higher quality and fairer education (Dong, 2022; Huang, 2014; Lui, 2021; Wang & Wu, 2019; Wu et al., 2016).

5.4 Challenges and Problems in Practice Boarding schools in rural areas is the establishment and development of the season, the docking of rural left-behind children, left-behind children outside the status quo of the lack of effective education guide, this kind of boarding schools in rural comprehensive, more in-depth teaching school responsibility and social responsibility, it is easy to understand why the policy document does a good job in the standard of boarding schools in rural areas of emphasis on. However, due to the high cost and low capital of boarding schools in rural areas, as well as the physical and mental characteristics of boarding students and the burden of teachers, the implementation of boarding school policies in rural areas has encountered many challenges and problems.

5.4.1 High Cost of Boarding School and Cost Pass-Through In April 2018, issued by The General Office of the State Council “about strengthening rural small schools and the construction of rural boarding school guidance,” has been clear about the rural towns and small school boarding school is an important part of rural compulsory education, points out that is to win the two types of schools education completed strong move out of poverty. It has become common knowledge that China will eliminate absolute poverty by the end of 2020 and consolidate the achievements of poverty alleviation through education development. In 2021, the 14th Five-Year Plan of the People’s Republic of China for National Economic and Social Development and the Outline of the Vision Goal 2035 pointed out that we should promote the balanced development of compulsory education and the integration of urban and rural areas; We will speed up the expansion and expansion of urban schools and ensure that children of rural migrant workers have equal access to basic public education services. We will improve conditions in small-scale rural schools and boarding schools in towns and townships, strengthen the ranks of rural teachers, raise their quality and competence, improve the system for caring for children left behind by their parents, and consolidate achievements in controlling dropout rates and ensuring that schools receive compulsory education. Compulsory education in rural areas and children of farmers who move with them are still the key concerns

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of education finance in the “post-4%” era. According to the Statistical Yearbook of China’s Education Expenditure from 2012 to 2019, the education expenditure per student in rural schools is significantly lower than that in urban schools, and with the gap widening year by year, the growth rate of rural compulsory education expenditure is slowing down. “Central collapse” is the result of the simultaneous action of the demand for educational funds exceeding input, large population, scarce educational resources, insufficient local financial capacity, relatively weak policy support at the national level, and so on. The establishment and development of rural boarding schools is the general trend under the background of the unbalanced development of the eastern, central, and western regions as well as the unbalanced investment of educational resources and funds between urban and rural areas. However, boarding schools are especially needed, and the financial strength of the population with many left-behind children is weak. Based on the legal requirements of local responsibility for compulsory education, if local boarding schools respond to and promote the high-quality development of compulsory education under the condition of lack of national policy support, local boarding schools will inevitably be unable to bear higher education costs. On the one hand, this will lead to the vanity project of education. On the other hand, the costs that the local government and schools cannot afford are transferred to the specific individuals of students and teachers in various ways. Students from the school day, boarding schools means time greatly extended, both the function of family education, school students must consider the security problem and psychological problem, the related personnel to conduct regular safety training, avoided hiring life and psychological teacher to help students to solve the problem of life and psychological and so on, these all need money. Compared with non-boarding schools, the increase of night self-study in boarding schools means the extension of working hours of school leaders, teachers, logistics, and other departments, and the increase of staff wage subsidies, not to mention the increase of school heating costs, air conditioning costs, water costs, and other costs. In rural areas with many students, the school degree shortage, dormitory, bathroom, dining hall, and other living facilities are often in overload operation, do not meet the national standard boarding school policy requirements. Some schools seem to have clinics or janitors’ rooms, but they are just waiting for inspections without hiring qualified doctors or security personnel. All of these are the “countermeasures” adopted by rural boarding schools limited by lack of funds. Local governments are unable to make up for the shortfall in rural boarding school construction standard, the high costs of rural boarding schools run by reducing the set of facilities, to the teacher of life and the psychological consultation teacher, hire non-professional social workers as professional way passed on to students and teachers, which caused other problems and challenges (Dong, 2022; Huang, 2014; Lui, 2021; Wang & Wu, 2019; Wu et al., 2016).

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5.4.2 Disadvantaged Students in Mind and Body Students in rural boarding schools act as educators and administrators, and some of them are left-behind children whose parents are not around. They are in a vulnerable position and should learn knowledge and receive moral education in boarding schools. However, the reality is that many students in rural boarding schools cannot get basic physical and mental security. The health problems of students’ meals are ignored in the absence of funds. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 160 primary and secondary school students in 7 boarding schools in 3 suburbs of Wuhan. The results showed that the satisfaction rate of the students in rural boarding schools was 54.12%. The survey concluded that the meals in rural boarding schools basically met the requirements of students’ satiation, but the quality was not high enough to meet the needs of students’ growth and development. Need to improve the scientific nature of dietary production. According to a survey of a public rural boarding middle school in the west of China, the construction scale of school canteens cannot meet the dining needs of students, and many students eat in the playground. The hardware of the canteen is not in place and the hygiene requirements are not up to standard. There was canteen staff shortage, the food nutrition provided by the canteen is not up to standard, and so on. School leaders actively report to the bureau of education, but the local economy is relatively backward, canteen health conditions, student nutrition cannot be guaranteed, these problems can only be shelved. The school’s “student-oriented” is mainly reflected in the guarantee of students’ basic learning and accommodation conditions, staying at the level of “having a place to live” and “having meals to eat.” From a long-term perspective, canteen hygiene and balanced meals are related to whether teenagers can grow up healthily or even develop normally. There is still a lot of room for boarding schools to ensure the nutrition and improve the physical quality of teenagers in rural areas. Replacing students’ rest and entertainment time with class and self-study does not accord with students’ natural stretch and violates the normal learning rhythm of relaxation and relaxation. Rural boarding school students in the school time greatly extended, part of the township school with a tense schedule and teacher guidance of the evening self-study standard students a day, one is for the examination, the other is to facilitate management. Such boarding arrangements tend to move from high school to junior high. Secondary school students in compulsory education stage, compared with non-boarding school students, bear heavy workload, but cannot stimulate students’ enthusiasm and achieve better results. On the contrary, the formation of students’ strong weariness is often related to the school’s too tense time arrangement (Dong, 2022; Huang, 2014; Lui, 2021; Wang & Wu, 2019; Wu et al., 2016).

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5.4.3 Teacher’s Burden and Moral Education Effect Another challenge facing rural boarding schools is the motivation of teachers. On January 20, 2018, the State Council issued the Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of The Construction of teachers in the New Era, proposing to greatly improve the treatment of rural teachers, focusing on the implementation of subsidies for poor and remote areas and strengthening living subsidies for rural teachers in contiguity poor areas. A survey of 14 cities and states in Hunan province found that the educational living environment of rural primary and secondary school teachers deteriorated, and teachers had great physical and mental pressure and low perception of external equity in their salaries. Boarding school teachers work more than 10 hours at school, which means that teachers need to devote themselves to teaching work, physical and mental pressure; Boarding school teachers are unable to take care of their children due to heavy teaching tasks and take school as home; Rural students often lack suitable family and social education soil, so the teacher education in school becomes the only channel for their knowledge learning and moral education, and the moral responsibility of teachers is heavier. The quality of students and parents is uneven, and the professional enthusiasm of teachers is exhausted due to the lack of positive feedback in teaching. Most importantly, in the context of the “exodus” of teachers in rural areas, local salaries do not match teachers’ efforts and are not close to teachers’ expectations… Seen in this way, rural boarding schools push teachers far more than pull them. Teachers share the financial pressure of rural boarding schools. The explicit way of sharing is that schools borrow money from teachers, and the implicit way of sharing is that teachers “concurrently” save the cost of hiring professionals. Teachers in rural boarding schools often teach multiple subjects and hold multiple jobs. Besides completing basic teaching tasks, they also need to watch students’ self-study at night and inspect students’ bedtime. These “extra jobs” receive far less subsidy than the remuneration matching their labor. It is not good for the improvement of teaching effect and moral education effect to discourage teachers’ work enthusiasm and disperse their work energy. There is also the neglected problem of building a team of life teachers. Many scholars call for attention to the important value of life teachers or life guidance teachers. In the vast middle and western regions, where many left-behind children are left behind, life teachers guide students’ living habits. They should also give full play to the value of moral education and try their best to fill the scars caused by the absence of family affection or the separation of generations of education on students. The practical problem is that the quantity and quality of life of teachers in rural boarding schools are not up to the standard. A professional survey of primary and secondary school life teachers in seven provinces shows that more than 40% of schools have no life teachers at all, and the teacher–student ratio of schools equipped with life teachers is not fully up to the standard. Life teacher management is under great pressure, and there is a large gap in the number of life teacher positions in rural boarding schools. Life teachers recruited from the society lack professional competence, lack of knowledge in psychology, pedagogy, and other aspects, and have not even received pre-job

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training in moral education. Their focus of work is to urge students to go to bed and do dormitory hygiene inspection. The same is true for the career expectation of life teachers from the school. It seems that the care for students’ psychology does not belong to the professional requirements of life teachers. Even when a major safety management accident occurs in the dormitory, life teachers generally do not have the ability to deal with emergency. In general, the deviation of life teacher’s occupation positioning is related to the cost saving of the school. A life teacher is responsible for the dormitory life inspection of hundreds of students. If multiple professionals are hired in accordance with the standard, the extra salary will make it difficult for rural boarding schools to pay. In addition, the problems of life teachers are also related to the low professional expectations that have long been expected of them. On the other hand, the schools’ emphasis on supervision over teaching is also due to the serious disciplinary problems of students. The phenomenon of “precocity,” “socialization,” “jealousy,” and fighting among students in rural boarding schools is more serious than that in cities. Students in a tightly regulated school environment are encouraged to behave in a more serious way. It is difficult for them to get care and guidance from family, society, and school, and they are easily influenced by bad information on the Internet, and then go astray. Once the vicious circle of mutual hostility between school and students is formed, teaching can only give way to management, let alone the reduction of moral education effect. The “myopic” emphasis on discipline and supervision over education has the helplessness of the real quality of students, which is the result of the lack of good family education and social education. It is too ideal to reshape the three views of students only by school education. Family and society are the “upper stream” of school education, which should be reflected and improved. Without the joint force of the three educations, it is difficult for students to form a healthy three views in boarding school (Dong, 2022; Huang, 2014; Lui, 2021; Wang & Wu, 2019; Wu et al., 2016).

5.5 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Challenges and Problems To a certain extent, boarding schools have realized large-scale running and accumulated partial successful experience, but they have also increasingly exposed many problems, such as high cost and insufficient funds, the physical and mental health of the disadvantaged students, the heavy burden of teachers, the emphasis on management and the neglect of education, and the division of education, education, and so on. By analyzing the challenges and problems in the practice of boarding schools, we can put forward corresponding solutions to support the healthy growth of students and improve the standard of running boarding schools.

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5.5.1 Establish a Mechanism for Steadily Increasing Funds Allocation and Cost Measurement for Boarding Schools, and Appropriately Expand the Scale of Boarding Schools Before 2015, the central government adopted a “homogenized” funding system, without distinguishing the cost structure differences between boarding schools and non-boarding schools. Until December 25, 2015, Taiwan’s state council on further perfecting the urban and rural compulsory education funds safeguard mechanism of circular (guo fa [2015] no. 67) for the first time in the boarding school set up a special public funds allocated to standard, boarding school budget problem to get the policy response, but funding problem was not solved. At the present stage, there is still a big gap, the cost standard of 200 yuan per student does not fully share the actual cost of boarding schools. Therefore, in view of the high cost and cost transfer of boarding schools, we should establish a mechanism for boarding schools to steadily increase the funding. 2016 new funds allocated to standard is made reform funds disbursed “homogenization” in the first step, but with the development of social productive forces, the government fiscal income, price level, the teacher wages increased year by year, increasing ability of the compulsory education, and parents to a boarding school educational condition requirements gradually increase, and private boarding school, Rural public boarding schools must be supported and paid attention to by national policies if they want to run well. At the same time, the allocation weight of public funds should be increased correspondingly according to the actual cost demand of boarding schools, so as to provide a strong financial guarantee for the development of boarding schools, so that it can get rid of the long-term low-cost development state. In establishing boarding school funding mechanism, based on each region should combine the local economic development level, the population of education, the education demand, school size and school development orientation, school actual running cost factors such as adjust the local boarding school funds allocated to standard, we will increase support for township central school, make education input and output of balance, and get better educational output. At present, rural schools in China, especially public schools, are faced with the problems of decreasing students year by year, low utilization rate of educational resources, and backward quality of education. The construction of standardized boarding schools can effectively integrate educational resources, reduce costs, and better realize scale economy. Because of the education policy of the economic basis of the principle of diminishing marginal cost, with the increasing scale of boarding, boarding schools in China present a gradual decline in the cost of the trend, namely with the increase of the number of boarders, school equipment got more sufficient utilization of resources, the overall resource sharing dispersed, unit boarder resource cost reduced. Therefore, the centralized establishment of boarding schools with a certain scale in rural areas can reduce the cost of education to a certain extent, make the optimal allocation and full use of educational resources, and finally achieve

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economies of scale. Public funds is an important index to measure the level of educational investment, and also the basic guarantee of the development of education. To measure whether the allocation of public funds has realized the three principles of fairness, efficiency, and adequate financial investment, it is necessary to calculate the cost of education. From the actual calculation of the standard per student cost of the daily operation of boarding schools, the current public funds allocation standard of boarding schools cannot meet the needs of the daily operation and development of boarding schools. From the perspective of educational equity, the design of allocation mechanism should reflect the principle of vertical equity, that is, to fully consider the difference of paying ability and cost structure among different subjects and implement different policies for different subjects. In order to make the allocation method match with the actual demand of boarding schools, China must use the related technology of cost evaluation and analysis in the decision-making process, introduce cost calculation into the decision-making process, and determine the corresponding allocation weight on the basis of scientific evaluation of the actual cost of boarding schools. Based on this, China should establish and improve the calculation mechanism of the operating cost of boarding schools as soon as possible. Based on the establishment of the standards for running boarding schools, standardized and scientific guidance should be given to the measurement dimensions, period, items, basis, principles and methods, and statements in the cost calculation. Regional education or the financial department in the calculation of calculates cost establish a subsidiary group, in the local economic development index, the price level, boarding school scale, and boarder situation as the basis for local boarding schools in the calculation of standard cost, through the summary under the condition of different levels, different needs around the standard cost of running, It provides decision-making reference for provinces and cities to determine the allocation level of local rural boarding schools (Dong, 2022; Huang, 2014; Lui, 2021; Wang & Wu, 2019; Wu et al., 2016).

5.5.2 We Should Pay Attention to Students’ Life and Psychological Needs, and Provide Professional Life Teachers and Psychological Counseling Teachers In view of the problem that students’ dining and health problems are ignored under the condition of lack of funds, we should first provide strong financial guarantee for the development of boarding school, so that it can get rid of the long-term low-cost development state. It not only pays attention to whether students can eat enough, but also pays attention to whether students’ diet can meet the needs of nutrition, health and growth, and development. It also raises requirements and strengthens supervision of the hygiene of school canteens. The National Health Commission released a nutrition guideline for student meals on Aug 1, 2017. Boarding schools should take this as a standard and compare each index to implement nutritious meals

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for students, so as not to affect the physical growth of students because of nutritional deficiencies. Relevant education departments should give normative guidance, while the standard of living expenses should be timely reflected according to seasonal or price changes. At the same time, in view of students’ physical and mental health problems, due to the young age of boarders, the workload of school teachers increases and the work becomes more difficult. First-year freshmen usually have poor self-care ability and have no experience of living on campus, so their self-care ability has not reached the point of taking care of themselves well. Young boarders tend to neglect or do not know how to deal with some trivial things in life, making them easy to get sick at school. Moreover, the long school time of boarding students increases the potential safety hazard of activities. Primary school boarders have low resolution and safety precautions and poor self-control, such as playing with fire and water, playing in dangerous places, and playing dangerous games, which can easily cause safety accidents in school. In view of this, it is suggested to equip students with professional life teachers. Life teachers, as educators and guardians of students’ psychological and physical healthy development, directly affect the state of boarders’ life and the quality of school education. For the low-grade boarders, some of the contents that belong to family education, such as the basic self-care ability: including eating, drinking, washing, washing hair, etc., all need the guidance of life teachers. Therefore, boarding schools should be equipped with a certain number of life teachers to help students develop good living habits and gradually cultivate their independence. At present, due to the limited funds, most of the life teachers employed by the school are parents of boarders or rural unemployed housewives. Without any training, they can only do simple work such as cleaning the dormitory. At present, the proportion of life teachers in boarding schools is far from meeting the needs of students. Therefore, the education department should equip boarding schools with full-time life teachers who have certain quality assurance and can meet the needs of students. In view of students’ psychological problems, such as the burden of academic pressure, the pressure of communicating with others, missing parents, loneliness, and so on, schools should pay more attention to students’ mental health and assign professional psychological counseling teachers. Long-term boarding life is easy to lead to poor communication between children and parents, resulting in emotional loss of children. There is a gap in teachers’ emotional care for boarders, which makes primary school students lack humanized emotional care experience (Dong, 2022; Huang, 2014; Lui, 2021; Wang & Wu, 2019; Wu et al., 2016).

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5.5.3 Scientifically Determine the Number of Teachers in Rural Areas, Reduce the Total Amount of Teachers’ Work, Optimize the Working Environment for Teachers, and Improve Information Infrastructure At present, teachers in boarding schools work more than ten hours at school, which makes teachers’ burden heavier. Meanwhile, the salary of boarding schools is not matched with teachers’ efforts, which leads to the push of rural boarding schools for teachers is far greater than the pull. Boarding schoolteachers not only need to take on the responsibility of teaching, but also have extra responsibility to watch over students compared with non-boarding schools. However, at present, the caring policy to guarantee teachers’ reasonable burden is not perfect, teachers’ self-care consciousness and caring ability are quite weak, students’ cooperation and support for teachers’ work is low, and all sectors of society have not formed the caring force of respecting teachers and valuing education. To reduce the burden of rural junior middle school teachers, the government, schools, teachers, students, and society should cooperate together. National policies continue to pay attention to the problem of teachers’ burden reduction. In view of the problem of the heavy burden of boarding school teachers, we should first implement the relevant policies of the Party and the state on reducing the burden of teachers. In 2018, the Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of Teacher Team Construction in the New Era clearly proposed to greatly improve the treatment of rural teachers, care for their lives, implement the unified standards for staffing of primary and secondary schools in urban and rural areas, and train teachers who are “specialized and versatile.” In December 2019, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and The General Office of the State Council issued several Opinions on Reducing the Burden of Primary and Secondary School Teachers and Further Creating a Favorable Environment for Education and Teaching. The Opinions put forward detailed measures for teachers to reduce their burden. Measures should be taken to standardize inspection, evaluation, and assessment, standardize social affairs into the campus, simplify the filling of statements, and assign teachers, so as to create a good education and teaching environment for teachers (Dong, 2022; Huang, 2014; Lui, 2021; Wang & Wu, 2019; Wu et al., 2016).

References Dong, S. (2022). Township boarding school: From instrumental value to connotative development. Educator, 20(1), 10–11. Huang, Y. (2014). Follow-up intervention practice of rural primary school students’ psychological and behavioral development under the background of population migration: A case study of 30 rural boarding schools in Sichuan Province. China Rural Education, 20(3), 48–51. Lui, Q. (2021). Rural boarding primary existing problems and countermeasure thought. Educational Science, 20(3), 95–96.

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Wang, X., & Wu, N. (2019). Challenges and possibilities of boarding schools’ care and education for rural left-behind children in the era of retreat and unification: Based on a survey in Jiangxi and Sichuan Provinces. Journal of Education Science of Human Normal University, 18(1), 53–60. Wu, F., Song, Y., & Huang, X. (2016). School bullying: Making rural boarders more “hurt” – an empirical study based on 17841 rural boarding school students. Management of Primary and Secondary Schools, 20(8), 8–11.