Full Text

Title
The alienating school: an ethnographic study of school dropout

and education quality in poor, rural China
Advisor(s)
Yang, R
Author(s)
Chung, Chi-wa.; .
Citation
Issued Date
URL
Rights
2012
http://hdl.handle.net/10722/173836
The author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights)

and the right to use in future works.
Abstract of thesis entitled

The Alienating School:
An Ethnographic Study of School Dropout and
Education Quality in Poor, Rural China

Submitted by
Chung Chi Wa, Carol
For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
at The University of Hong Kong
Sep 2012
Although China is ahead of schedule in achieving the Millennium Development

Goal of universalizing nine-year basic education across the country by 2015, access to
school remains problematic, as evidenced by a persistent school dropout problem,
especially in its hidden forms and in poor and rural areas. Despite a wide range of
literature on the phenomenon of school dropout globally, there is a dearth of
empirically sound and theoretically motivated research that might offer an
understanding of school dropout in terms of education quality.
In response to these problems, the main question addressed in this thesis has to
do with the role of education quality in childrens dropping out of school. The
central thesis proposed is that the problem of school dropout and education quality in
poor, rural China stems from the alienating nature of the school system.
The methods adopted to answer these questions include a critical ethnography of
four cases of dropout, each of which reflects on the assumptions associated with a
particular cause of dropout or factor contributing to school access namely, family
poverty, illiterate parents, student attributes and their willingness to study, and the
quality and distribution of educational resources. The thesis also offers a critical
review of the theoretical approaches frequently used to conceptualize education
quality, in relation to the insights gained from the case studies. The study is based
on interviews with 112 informants and observations made during three months of
fieldwork in Chinas Yunnan and Guangdong provinces between 2009 and 2010.
The case studies challenge the common assumptions made about school dropout,
which are also leading theoretical approaches used to conceptualize education quality.
The human capital approach, with its primary focus on the costs and benefits of
schooling and its assumption of schooling as an investment, does not deal adequately
with non-monetary concerns and the pressures on those living in poverty, and tends to
ignore children who have different perceptions of schooling. A simple application of
the critical approach tends to focus on structural causation and to overlook the agency
of the child. While the systems approach focuses on the implementation and
evaluation of education quality, it appears not to say enough about the ends of
education. In the distribution of resources, both the utility-based and resource-based
approaches tend to understate the importance of the individuals socio-economic
status.
These insights also reveal the alienating nature of an educational system in an
increasingly market-oriented economy. The alienating school does not respect the
students individual interests, habits, socio-economic background, aspirations, etc. and
is primarily concerned with their success and failure (or dropout) insofar as they affect
the evaluation of quality or the effectiveness of the bureaucratic system. Students
who are marginalized and cannot easily adjust, perhaps due to their disadvantaged
socio-economic, cultural and geographic location, tend to be pushed out of school.
The study calls for a fundamental change of attitudes in educational development
and policy making and a redefinition of school failure as a consequence not so much
of the childs unwillingness to study, but of his inability to perform well. As a
school dropout explained his decision to drop out:
Its not that I didnt want to study: I just couldnt study well.
The Alienating School:

An Ethnographic Study of School Dropout and
Education Quality in Poor, Rural China
by
Chung Chi Wa, Carol
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for

the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
at The University of Hong Kong
September 2012
Declaration
I declare that this thesis represents my own work, except where due acknowledgment
is made, and that it has not been previously included in a thesis, dissertation or report
submitted to this University or to any other institution for a degree, diploma or other
qualifications.
Signed .
Chung Chi Wa, Carol
Acknowledgements
No words can describe how grateful and fortunate I am to have Professor Mark
Mason supervise my doctorate studies and for being my teacher/friend over the past
ten years. He is undoubtedly one of the best teachers I have ever had. Without his
talent in sparking inspiration, encouraging others and simply bringing out the best in
others, I probably would not have taken up and accomplished this seemingly endless
journey. I am also privileged to have Dr Yang Rui and Dr Bjorn Nordtveit, whose
supervision at different stages of my research and trust in my work has been equally
crucial.
I have also hugely benefited from the teaching and advice of other teachers at the
University of Hong Kong, particularly from the Faculties/Departments of Education
(especially Professor Cheng Kai-ming, Professor Mark Bray, Professor Gerard
Postiglione), Sociology (especially Professor Borge Bakken, Professor Frank Dikotter,
Dr Thomas Chan) and Philosophy (especially Professor Chad Hansen, Professor Ci
Jiwei and Dr Timothy OLeary) and many other students and visitors I have met on
campus.
I am indebted to the Robert Black College, the Swire Scholarship and the
University of Hong Kong for the generous financial support and providing a
wonderful study and residential environment for the three years of my studies.
I am particularly thankful to my father who played a significant role in helping
me set up my fieldwork in China. My 112 informants in rural Guangdong and rural
Yunnan and the families who hosted my stay have all helped me with data collection,
data analysis, making me feel at home and one of them, and understanding the people
and life in rural China, all of which has changed my life.
The last few months before submission have been the most stressful part of this
journey. I would not have been able to get through it without the unconditional
support and love from my parents, my sister and Li Xiao.
ii
Abbreviated Table of Contents

List of Figures/Tables/Appendices
Chinese/English Terms
Chinese/English Policies
ix
xii
vix
Chapter 1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
Introduction
The problem
The aims, research questions and method
The theoretical domain
The structure of the thesis
PART I Background of the Study
1
3
4
5
7
Rationale for the study
2.1 The problem of school access in poor, rural China

2.2 Problems with the literature on school dropout
8
11
Chapter 3
19
Chapter 2
Theoretical lenses:
Approaches to education quality
3.1 Education quality in the development literature

3.2 Quality in terms of contextual needs
3.3 Quality in terms of equity for the disadvantaged
19
21
37
Chapter 4
43
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
4.7
The ethnographic methodology
The choice of ethnographic methodology

Field location
Informants
Ethical dilemmas
Data collection methods
Data transcription and coding
Data analysis
PART II Insights from the field
Chapter 5
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
Inaccuracy of the official dropout rate

The dynamics of school dropout: A cohort study
The demographics of school dropouts and child workers
Conclusion
Chapter 6
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
Patterns of school dropout
Poor families
43
47
55
68
70
71
72
75
76
76
82
91
93
94
Xiao Yuan the poor dropout

The economic dimensions of schooling
The non-economic dimensions of schooling
Non-economic indicators of rural household wealth
Conclusion
iii
94
96
107
121
125
Chapter 7
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5
7.6
Illiterate rural parents
126
Ah Xing Fa, who failed school from day one

The literacy as a practice
The literacy practices of the educated: School literacy
The literacy practices of the illiterate: Life literacy
Clues from agricultural production: Aptitudes for modernization
Conclusion
Chapter 8
Bad students who are unwilling to study
126
129
131
138
148
160
162
8.1 Xiao Liang, the bad student who was unwilling to study
8.2 Definitions of discrimination between good and bad attributes of
students
8.3 Differentiating the treatment of bad students
8.4 Alienating students from their everyday reality
8.5 Discrimination between core and non-core subject knowledge
8.6 Control of school life
8.7 Conclusion
173
181
184
187
189
Chapter 9
Low quality and lack of resources
190
Ah Qiong, from remote, under-resourced schools

The governments approach to the distribution of resources
Teacher quality: recruitment
Teacher quality: attrition
Teacher quality: work motivation
Conclusion
190
192
198
210
215
219
9.1
9.2
9.3
9.4
9.5
9.6
162
168
PART IV Discussion and Conclusion
221
Chapter 10 The causes of school failure: A critique of some leading

approaches to education quality
222
10.1
10.2
10.3
10.4
222
230
241
251
Family poverty as a factor

Parents literacy as a factor
School quality as a factor
Distribution of resources as a factor
Chapter 11 Conclusion
258
11.1 The alienating school: nature of schooling in contemporary China

11.2 Suggestions for future studies
258
261
Postscript: The four school dropouts today

Appendices
English Bibliography
Chinese Bibliography
263
264
274
293
iv
Expanded Table of Contents

Abstract
Declaration
Acknowledgements
Abbreviated Table of Contents
List of Figures/Tables/Appendices
Chinese/English Policies
i
ii
iii
ix
xii
vix
Chapter 1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
Introduction
The problem
PART I Background of the Study
Chapter 2
1
3
4
5
7
8
2.1 The problem of school access in poor, rural China

2.2 Problems with the literature on school dropout
2.2.1 A lack of the childs perspective in quantitative studies
2.2.2 A lack of theoretical rigour in ethnographic studies
2.2.3 A lack of a focus on education quality in critical studies
8
11
11
15
16
Chapter 3
19
Theoretical lenses:
3.1 Education quality in the development literature

3.2 Quality in terms of contextual needs
3.2.1 The human capital approach
3.2.2 The critical approach
3.2.3 The systems approach
3.2.4 The child-centred approach
3.3 Quality in terms of equity for the disadvantaged
3.3.1 Utility-based approaches
3.3.2 Resource-based approaches
3.3.3 The capability approach
19
21
22
26
30
34
37
38
40
41
Chapter 4
43
4.1 The choice of ethnographic methodology

4.2 Field location
4.2.1 Assumptions of poor, rural China
4.2.2 The choice of Guangdong and Yunnan
4.3 Informants
4.3.1 Issue specific to gaining research access in China: Guanxi
4.3.2 The choice of informants
4.3.3 The researchers identities
4.3.4 The researchers baggage
4.4 Ethical dilemmas
4.5 Data collection methods
4.6 Data transcription and coding
4.7 Data analysis
43
47
47
49
55
55
59
62
66
68
70
71
72
PART II Insights from the field

Chapter 5
Patterns of school dropout
75
76
5.1 Inaccuracy of the official dropout rate

5.1.1 Why dropout rates are inaccurate
5.1.2 How dropout rates are rendered inaccurate
5.2 The dynamics of school dropout: A cohort study
5.2.1 Grade-level dropout in Guangdong (across three semesters):
Points of exit and re-entry
5.2.2 Class-level dropout in Guangdong (S.1 to S.3): Absolute and
hidden dropouts
5.2.3 County-level dropout in Yunnan (P.1 to S.3): The dropout
population and related dynamics
5.2.4 School dropout as an increasingly hidden phenomenon
5.3 The demographics of school dropouts and child workers
5.4 Conclusion
76
76
78
82
83
Chapter 6
94
Poor families
85
87
90
91
93
6.1 Xiao Yuan the poor dropout

6.2 The economic dimensions of schooling
6.2.1 Educational costs after the abolishment of school fees
- Tuition and textbook fees
- Living costs
- Hidden costs
- The cost of school choice
- Income forgone or perceived future benefits
6.2.2 A cost-benefit analysis
6.3 The non-economic dimensions of schooling
6.3.1 Why Xiao Yuan remained in school until S.3
- Pressure from parents
- Dropping out was not a better option
- Personal reasons
- Pressure from peers
- The non-economic benefits of schooling
6.3.2 Why Xiao Yuan dropped out at age 15
- The accepted age of working and social connections in finding child
work
- The loss of future security
- Low self-esteem
6.4 Non-economic indicators of rural household wealth
6.5 Conclusion
94
96
96
96
98
101
103
104
105
107
107
108
109
112
112
113
115
115
Chapter 7
126
7.1 Ah Xing Fa, who failed school from day one

7.2 The literacy as a practice
7.3 The literacy practices of the educated: School literacy
7.3.1 What for? Studying is for entering university
7.3.2 How? Learning by conforming to the school system
7.3.3 What? Learning about striving for success and the fear of failure
7.4 The literacy practices of the illiterate: Life literacy
7.4.1 What for? School is for learning about life
7.4.2 How? Learning by observation, self-discovery and practice
7.4.3 What? Learning about accepting failure
7.5 Clues from agricultural production: Aptitudes for modernization
7.6 Conclusion
vi
116
119
121
125
126
129
131
131
133
137
138
139
141
146
148
160
Chapter 8
162
8.1 Xiao Liang, the bad student who was unwilling to study
8.2 Definitions of discrimination between good and bad attributes of
students
8.2.1 Evaluation of student performance
8.2.2 Division of classes
8.2.3 Seating arrangement
8.3 Differentiating the treatment of bad students
8.3.1 Evaluation of school principals performance
8.3.2 Evaluation of teachers performance
8.4 Alienating students from their everyday reality
8.4.1 Textbook and curriculum design
8.5 Discrimination between core and non-core subject knowledge
8.5.1 Methods of assessing subject knowledge
8.5.2 Timetable design
8.6 Control of school life
8.7 Conclusion
168
171
171
173
174
177
181
181
184
184
184
187
189
Chapter 9
190
9.1 Ah Qiong, from remote, under-resourced schools

9.2 The governments approach to the distribution of resources
9.3 Teacher quality: recruitment
9.3.1 Teacher qualifications as an indicator of quality?
9.3.2 Two types of unqualified teachers recruited during the universal
education period (1987-1999)
- High-quality teachers of all trades in secondary schools
- Low-quality substitute teachers in primary schools
9.3.3 Young, qualified but low-quality university graduates recruited
after the reform of teacher education (2000-present)
9.4 Teacher quality: attrition
9.4.1 Loss to other professions
9.4.2 Loss to urban schools
9.5 Teacher quality: work motivation
9.5.1 Second career and gambling
9.5.2 Feelings of injustice
9.6 Conclusion
162
168
190
192
198
198
202
202
204
208
210
210
211
215
215
218
219
PART IV Discussion and Conclusion
221
Chapter 10 The causes of school failure: A critique of some leading

approaches to education quality
222
10.1 Family poverty as a factor

10.1.1 Neither costs nor benefits: the childs other concerns in
schooling ignored
10.1.2 The complexity of cost: the poors concerns simplified
10.2 Parents literacy as a factor
10.2.1 Literacy as a practice: beyond a technical definition of literacy
10.2.2 The hidden rules of the game: a critique of the students
unwillingness to study and Education is Useless theories
10.3 School quality as a factor
10.3.1 When means become ends: the creation of bad students,
teachers as petty bureaucrats, Quality Education as another policy of
control
10.3.2 Teacher qualifications as an indicator: evaluating quality for
what?
222
222
vii
227
230
230
234
241
241
247
10.4 Distribution of resources as a factor

10.4.1 The one-teacher schoolroom and one-student classroom
phenomena: the consequences of utilitarian approaches to equity
10.4.2 A balanced development: narrow conceptualizations of equity
251
251
Chapter 11 Conclusion
258
11.1 The alienating school: nature of schooling in contemporary China

11.2 Suggestions for future studies
258
261
Postscript: The four school dropouts today

Appendix I: List of School dropouts/Child workers interviewed
Appendix II: List of the 112 informants
Appendix III: Interview Guideline (English and Chinese)
Appendix IV: Observation Guideline
Chinese Bibliography
263
264
266
269
273
274
293
viii
254
List of Maps
Map 4.1
Field site in Heyuan, Guangdong (inset: Guangdong in China)
52
Map 4.2
Field site in Dali, Yunnan (inset: Yunnan in China)
54
List of Photos
Photo 0.1
An official statement written by a 13-year-old boy who requests to
xv
discontinue his study after finishing P.6 in Village Z1

Photo 6.1
The most expensive asset in Xiao Yuans family was a bag of rice
95
Photo 6.2
Xiao Yuans grandmother
117
Photo 6.3
A mountainous location and mud walls are some of the images of
122
Photo 7.1:
School dropout Ah Xing Fa
128
Photo 7.2
A six-year-old boy was cooking fried rice, a skill which he learnt from
142
poverty
observing his grandmother

Photo 7.2
A boy showing off his skill of catching a squirrel
143
Photo 7.4
A bundle of cured tobacco leaf
153
Photo 7.5
Staple crops such as corn with a low market value are produced mainly
154
for animal feed and family consumption

Photo 7.6
Xiao Jie and the 14-year-old cow that was later sold for 3400 yuan,
156
three times its buying price, to help finance her to senior secondary school
Photo 7.7
Xiao Jies mother making tofu the day before the village bazaar
157
Photo 7.8
The bazaar in Village Z, held once every six days, was established in
157
2003 to provide business opportunities for farmers

Photo 7.9
A butcher (front) and a woman selling home-made delicacy (back) at
158
Farmers weave bamboo baskets during their free time to sell at the
158
Loose tobacco is sold illegally at 1 yuan/catty at the bazaar
159
the bazaar
Photo 7.10
bazaar
Photo 7.11
Photo 8.1
An official report of a P.6 graduate who did not enrol in Y1 Secondary
164
Photo 8.2
An official report of a S.1 dropout in B1 Secondary School
165
Photo 8.3
An official record of all S.1 to S.3 dropouts in Y1 Secondary School in
166
Xiao Liang is highlighted to score the lowest in his class in a public
170
School
2009
Photo 8.4:
evaluation of students academic studies, ethical conduct, discipline and personal

hygiene.
ix
Photo 8.5
Bad students usually sit at the back and the periphery and duck
172
behind a pile of books on the desk to escape the teachers attention in class, as in
this picture of a secondary school in Yunnan.
Photo 8.6
A hidden dropout at a P.1 class in Village Z2.
173
Photo 9.1
An empty school building which went abandoned immediately upon its
193
completion due to a drop of student number.
The bottom floor was later rented to
a private kindergarten.
Photo 9.2
C2 Primary School, which used to have over 50 students in a class,
has now only two students in a class.
196
One of them is later transferred to study
elsewhere.
Photo 9.3
At Z2 Primary School, only one teacher is left to teach two levels in a
197
multi-grade classroom, where P.1 students sit on the left and P.2 on the right.
Photo 9.4
Photo 11.1
Teachers gambling at the school dormitory after class

Dropout Xiao Liang wrote the reason why he didnt want to continue
218
262
his studies
List of Tables
Table 4.1
A preliminary comparison amongst the options of field site in poor, rural
51
Table 4.2
List of field location names
52
Table 5.1
Official dropout statistics from the schools in rural Guangdong
77
Table 5.2
Official dropout statistics from the schools in rural Yunnan
77
Table 5.3
Changes in the enrolment number of three grades across three
84
China
semesters in B1 Secondary School, Guangdong

Table 5.4
Changes in the enrolment number of a class from S.1 to S.3 in B1
86
Secondary School, Guangdong

Table 5.5 Changes of enrolment number in County X, Yunnan from P.1 to S.3
88
Table 5.6
90
Comparison of dropout statistics of a student cohort across the nine
years of education in Guangdong and Yunnan

Table 5.7:
Number of dropouts at Y1 Township 10 years ago and today (total
91
number of students: 240)

Table 6.1
Annual income of Xiao Yuans household
94
Table 6.2
Per capita annual consumption expenditure of rural households in
97
Table 6.3
Annual living costs of Xiao Yuan at rural secondary school
99
Table 6.4
Hidden costs of schooling at a primary and a junior secondary school
102
China
Table 6.5
A cost-benefit analysis for educating Xiao Yuan from primary to

x
106
university education
Table 6.6
A comparison of crop production between lowland and mountainous
123
areas in County X
Table 6.7
123
Table 7.1
Literacy in Village Z
129
Table 7.2
Village Z1 pre-school timetable and curriculum
135
Table 7.3
Farming schedule during the busy months in Village Z
149
Table 7.4
A comparison of Xiao Jies mother and Ah Xing Fas mother in their
150
annual income from agricultural production

Table 8.1
Code of student behaviour and score deduction system in B1
169
Secondary School
Table 8.2
Performance appraisal of junior secondary school principals in County
175
Table 8.3
Performance appraisal of teachers at Y1 Secondary School
178
Table 8.4
Xiao Liang (S.3) s class timetable at Y1 Secondary School
186
Table 8.5
The subjects that Xiao Liang were taught from P.1 to S.3
187
Table 8.6
Y1 Secondary School (Summer) Timetable
188
Table 9.1
Conditions at the most under-resourced village schools in the field
195
Table 9.2 The impact of school transfer triggered by the School Merger policy at C1
196
Primary School in 2003

Table 9.3
Types of secondary school teachers at B1 Town (in 2010)
200
Table 9.4
Types of primary school teachers at B1 Town (in 2010)
201
Table 9.5
Number of primary school students in Town B1 during and after pujiu
212
Table 9.6
Number of junior secondary school students in Town B1 during and
212
Operating funds and expenditure of C1 Primary School
214
after pujiu
Table 9.7
List of Appendices
I
List of School Dropouts/Child Workers Interviewed
264
II
List of the 112 informants (interviewed between June 09 Jan 11)
266
III
Interview Guideline (English and Chinese)
269
IV
Observation Guideline
273
xi
baqu
bo chuqu de shui
bu shangxue deng
shangxue like qiong
zhe
qiong,
chasheng
chiku
chuoxue
cun
- ziran cun
- xingzheng cun
dabiao
de
di
- huangdi , huangshan
diaocha
- also: sikao , yanjiu ,
baogao , fenxi
dingban
dingliang zhu
duanlian
dushu
fada
fanglao
gaofen dineng
ge zao dao
gongban
Guanxi
hanshou
hongbao,
hun
Ji
jiben gong
jianzi sheng
jineng
jiaofu
Jiaodao zhuren
jiangjin
jiedu fei
or zexiao fei
jinji
kaoshi
Kaohe
laoxiang
li shang wang la
maque xiaoxue
mao kuli
mei chuxi
Mianz
ming,
neng
nongcun
nongcun jiaoyu
valley terrace
water splashed outside
A common saying: If one doesnt go to school,
one can expect poverty; if one goes to school,
one has it immediately
bad students
being tough
school dropout
village
- natural village
- administrative village
achieving the targets
ethical conduct
fields on hillside
- arid land
research
teacher replacement system
family pillar
training
studying
wealthy
providing a sense of security against old age
Perform well at school but lack social skills or
commonsense about the real world
literally making an early harvest, this common
saying used to describe the mentality amongst
rural parents who wanted their children to stop
their education to have a stable job and income
government-paid teachers
social connections
in-service training
red packets
Idle around
performance
basic (pedagogical) skills
good student
skills
supplementary workbooks
Teaching and Learning Administrator
bonuses
sponsorship fee
promotion to the next rank
examination
test
ones home community
the etiquette of reciprocity
sparrow-sized primary schools
work as a coolie
not successful, or a failure
face
destiny
ability
village
Rural education
xii
nongmin
qin
renqing
renzi
sanhao
shanqu
shang mian
shengchan dui
shenghuo fei
shengxue lv
shiye danwei
shuben fei
sixiang pinde
suzhi
suzhi ban
tian
tie fanwan
tinghua
tou zhi yi tao , bao zhi yi li
tonggong
tianyuan
wan da xie
wan jin you
wenhua
wenjiao yule yongpin ji fuwu
xian jiaoyu ju
xiang
xiangxia
xingyun
xuexiao guanli zhidu
xueza fei
yan xue
yangfang
ying zhibiao
yinxing chuoxue
yishi yixiao
youxiu
you huoli
Yu bei sheng,
yuanshi xueli
Zhen
zhongkao , zhongzhao
zhong xin xiao
zhongshi
zhibiao
zhigong
zhihuibang
zhishi caineng gaibian mingyun
zhizu
zikao
puji
pujiu
farmer (in terms of economic activities),

agrarian inhabitant (in terms of ones social
identity)
universalize
universalization of nine-year compulsory
education
efficiency
favour
read or write
three-good (student)
mountainous areas
the upper ranks of the system
the production team in the village
living subsidy
promotion rate
the civil service
textbook fee
ethical conduct
quality, attributes
quality class
paddy fields
iron rice bowl
to be obedient
if one gives you a peach, you should requite his
favour with a plum
child work/labour
the fields
mature some more
teacher-of-all-trades
school knowledge
educational, cultural, recreational services
County Education Bureaux
township
countryside
lucky
school management policies
tuition and miscellaneous fee
unwilling to study
western house
hard targets
hidden dropouts
one-teacher schoolroom
bright
progressive in their thinking
preparatory students
entry qualification
town
Senior
Secondary
Education
Entrance
Examination (SSEEE)
Township/Town Central Schools
secondary-level teacher training school
performance targets or indicators
government employees
conductors baton
only knowledge can change ones destiny
being satisfied with enough
self-study
xiii
zuoren
zuoshi buru zuoren
to learn about life, to behave

whom you know matters more than what you do
Chinese/English policies
bao fenpei
chedian bingxiao
guojia zhongchangqi jiaoyu gaige he
fazhan guihua gangyao (2010-2020)
(2010-2020)
jiaoshi zhuanye hua
jichu jiaoyu gaige yu fazhan de jueding
jixiao gongzi
liangmian yibu
mianxiang 21 shiji jiaoyu zhenxing

xingdong jihua
21
nongcun yiwu jiaoyu jingfei baozhang jizhi
suzhi jiaoyu
yifei zhi
yigong daijiao
An outdated government system that used

to assign government (including teaching)
positions to university graduates, including
the graduates from secondary-level
teachers college, upon finishing their
studies
School Merger
National
Mediumand
Long-Term
Education Reform and Development Plan
Outline (2010-2020)
Professionalization of Teachers
Decision on the Reform and Development
of Basic Education
Performance-Linked Pay
Two Exemptions One Subsidy
Action Scheme for Invigorating Education
Towards the 21st Century
Compulsory Education Operating Funds
Guarantee Mechanism in Rural Areas
Quality Education
One-Fee policy for school tuition
An outdated policy allowing workers
working as teachers
xiv
Photo 0.1 An official statement written by a 13-year-old boy who requests to

discontinue his study after finishing P.6 in Village Z1
Text in photo, in English:
I dont want to go to school because I did poorly in my studies. My parents also wanted me
to go to school. Teacher Luo and Teacher Liu also came to my home to persuade me to go to
school. But I really dont want to.
[his signature covered up], September 11, 2009.
xv
Chapter 1
Introduction
This study addresses the problem of school dropout, particularly in the context of poor,
rural China, in relation to education quality.
Based on an ethnography of school
dropouts and a critical review of the dominant theoretical approaches to education

quality, the study offers an empirically sound and theoretically motivated account of
school dropout amongst the disadvantaged, and an account of how education quality
should be conceptualized from their perspective.
1.1
The problem
Although China is ahead of schedule in achieving the Millennium Development

Goal of universalizing nine-year basic education across the country by 2015, access to
school remains problematic, as evidenced by a persistent school dropout problem,
especially in its hidden forms and in poor and rural areas.
Many studies of school dropout in the Chinese contest generally view it as a
measure of inefficiency in the functioning of the school system without really
addressing the childs perspective (Ai et al. 1995; Chen and Wu 1998; Zhu and Wang
2000; Brown and Park 2002; Hannum 2003; Bray, Ding and Huang 2004; Zhao 2003;
Liao 2004; Yuan et al. 2004; Wang 2004; He 2005; Wu and Yang 2005; Lin Gui-sheng
2004; Yang Li-li 2006; Liu 2008; Wang 2007; Ma and Zheng 2003; Guo 2005; Wang
2006).
This is also the case in the international context (e.g. Colclough et al. 2000;
The PROBE Team 1999; Boyle et al. 2002; Bray and Bunly 2005).
1
Others taking
the ethnographic approach offer rich insights into the complexity of school dropout in
terms of the childs perspective, but frequently at the expense of a theoretically
motivated analysis, and with some arbitrary insights (e.g. Ananga 2011).
Ethnographic studies incorporating the critical approach challenge taken-for-granted
conceptions
associated
with
the
legitimatization
of
school
failure
by
socio-economically disadvantaged children (e.g. Kelly 1993; Fine 1991; Chen 1996;
Yang and Wang 2004; Fang et al. 2010), but tend not to answer more pressing
questions concerned with the meaning of quality in educational development, as
highlighted by UNESCOs (2004) EFA Global Monitoring Report 2005, titled
Education for All: the Quality Imperative.
The meaning of education quality is clearly more complex than it is often
conceptualized by policy makers and practitioners.
The difficulty of explaining this
context-dependent and ever-evolving concept has led Schubert (1993) to call it a

work in progress (p.1).
The literature in education studies does not, in fact, lack a
comprehensive overview of the various theoretical approaches to education quality,

although many use different labels and have a different foci, such as the relationship
between school and society (see Feinberg and Soltis 1998), the historical development
of the school effectiveness discourse in the Western context (see Morley and Rassool
1999), and the philosophical aims of education (see Barrow and Woods 1988; Marples
1999; Carr 2005; Brighouse 2006).
What appears to be lacking in the literature,
however, particularly in education development studies, is a good explanation that is

both theoretically motivated and empirically sound, of why a certain approach to
education quality should be adopted for explaining school failure (or dropout).
Treating the empirical problem of school dropout and the conceptual problem of
education quality as two separate problems is to miss the opportunity to understand
the phenomenon of school dropout and to seek a conception of school quality that is
2
meaningful for socio-economically disadvantaged children.
It is for this reason that
this study seeks to connect the two problems into one.
1.2
To address these two inter-related problems, the aim of this study is two-fold:
to understand more about the causes of school dropout in terms of the notion of
education quality, as well as to explain what quality education should mean in the
light of school dropout or school failure.
I therefore aim to answer the following two main questions:
With specific regard to the quality of education they receive, why do

children drop out?
How should we conceptualize education quality in a way that would be

meaningful to understand and explain school dropout?
The first question, dealing with the empirical problem of school dropout in the
context of poor, rural China, examines the structural factors (e.g., the
socio-economic status of the dropouts, their illiterate parents lack of formal schooling
and their perceptions and beliefs about schooling, the students individual factors, the
quality of school resources, equity in the distribution of resources) and the
individual factors (e.g., the perceptions of the dropouts and their parents about the
aims of schooling, future work, living in rural as opposed to urban areas, the life to
which they aspire in the future), both of which affect the dropout decisions that
students are pushed into making and choose to make.
described as both materialist and idealist.
3
This study can thus be
The second question reflects on the theoretical conception of education quality

used in the analysis of school dropout that can best explain the dropout decision as
seen from the childs perspective.
The methods adopted to answer these questions include a critical ethnography of
four cases of dropout, each of which reflects on the assumptions associated with one
particular cause of dropout or factor contributing to school access - namely, family
poverty, illiterate parents, student attributes and their willingness to study, and the
quality and distribution of educational resources.
The thesis also offers a critical
review of the theoretical approaches frequently used to conceptualize education

quality, in relation to the insights gained from the case studies.
The study is based
on the interviews with 112 informants and the observation made during the three
months of fieldwork in Chinas Yunnan and Guangdong provinces between 2009 and
2010.
1.3
This study addresses two major theoretical domains.

The first has to do with school access in the development context, and
particularly in the context of poor, rural China.
In the case studies, I examine issues
associated with the causes of school dropout, specifically family poverty, parents
literacy, students personal attributes and unwillingness to study, and the quality and
distribution of school resources.
The second has to do with conceptions of education quality which, as mentioned
earlier, have been discussed in a variety of studies on education.
It is important to
note that, as Alexander (2008) points out, quality when used as a noun (as in
education quality) can be an attribute, property or characteristic and is value neutral,
4
which is distinct from quality when used as an adjective (as in quality education),
which designates or implies a standard or level of quality to be desired.
1.4
This thesis is comprised of three major parts:
Part I:
The background of the study explains the rationale for choosing school
dropout as a topic of study in terms of the persistence and severity of the empirical
problem in poor, rural China and the theoretical problems with the existing literature
on school dropout (Chapter 2).
The major theoretical approaches that have been
commonly used in the analyses of education quality will then be reviewed (Chapter 3).
The choice of the ethnographic methodology used in this study and the contextual
information about the research sites are also introduced (Chapter 4).
Part II:
Insights from the field consists of an introductory chapter about the patterns
of school dropout (Chapter 5) and four case studies to give in-depth insights into the
relationship between school dropout and school quality (Chapter 6 to 9).
In the case
studies, four of the most frequently cited reasons for school dropout (or child work)
namely family poverty (Chapter 6), parents literacy (Chapter 7), students bad
qualities and unwillingness to study (Chapter 8), teacher quality and supply (Chapter
9) are examined from the perspective of the child and his/her local context.
My
purpose is to describe, in rich ethnographic detail, the characteristics and causes of

school dropout and child work in these two provinces of China in relation to rural
school quality.
An equally important purpose is to reflect critically on the
assumptions, which often go unquestioned in the analyses of school dropout,

associated with the following: the intentions of rural parents who are considered
5
poor in sending their children to school, rural parents who are considered illiterate
in preparing their children for school, students who are considered bad in school
performance, and rural teachers who are considered of low quality and insufficient.
The goal of these chapters is to describe a wide range of empirical problems typical of
the Chinese school context, which will be analyzed in a theoretically motivated
discussion of education quality in Part III.
Part III:
In Discussion and Conclusion, the common assumptions about school
dropout introduced earlier are examined using the theoretical lenses introduced
previously; the appropriateness of each of the theoretical lenses in explaining school
failure amongst the disadvantaged in poor, rural areas will also be critiqued (Chapter
10).
The aim is to bring the empirical insights from the field into the theoretical
realm by engaging them in a critical dialogue with the relevant literature, and to
review a wide range of theoretical issues but only insofar that they are relevant to
the four case studies---concerning education quality as covered in the literature review.
Based on the critical insights drawn, I draw an overriding conclusion about the
discourse of education quality prevailing in the literature and the nature of the
educational system in contemporary China today and make suggestions for future
studies (Chapter 11).
Part I
Background of the study
Part I explains the rationale for choosing school dropout as a topic of study in terms of
the persistence and severity of the empirical problem in poor, rural China and the
theoretical problems with the existing literature on school dropout (Chapter 2).
The
major theoretical approaches that have been commonly used in the analyses of
education quality will then be reviewed (Chapter 3).
The theoretical lenses will be
used as a heuristic tool in the data analysis and discussion to explain why children
drop out; the appropriateness of each of the theoretical lenses in explaining school
failure amongst the disadvantaged in poor, rural areas will also be critiqued.
The
choice of the ethnographic methodology used in this study and the contextual
information about the research sites are also introduced (Chapter 4).
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 describes the size and emerging patterns of school dropout and child work,
as signs of the problems with school access, in poor, rural China today and the
methodological and theoretical problems with the existing literature on school dropout,
and explains why school dropout needs to be examined in relation to the
conceptualization of education quality.
2.1
The problem of school access in poor, rural China today
Since 1983, China promulgated the Education Law, the Teachers Law and the
Compulsory Education Law, etc. as part of the legal framework for ensuring a
sustainable development of its basic education.
At the turn of the 21st century, the
Chinese government is pressing ahead with a number of policies and initiatives under
the general direction of the Action Scheme for Invigorating Education Towards the
21st Century (mianxiang 21 shiji jiaoyu zhenxing xingdong jihua) (Ministry of
Education 1998), the Decision on the Reform and Development of Basic Education
(jichu jiaoyu gaige yu fazhan de jueding) (The State Council 2001) and the National
Medium- and Long-Term Education Reform and Development Plan Outline
(2010-2020) (guojia zhongchangqi jiaoyu gaige he fazhan guihua gangyao) (The
State Council 2010) to increase the quality of basic education.
For example, the
Two Exemptions One Subsidy (liangmian yibu) Policy introduced since 2006
provides for the poor, rural students a free, subsidized access to schooling; the
School Merger (chedian bingxiao) Policy first mentioned in 2001 shuts down the
primary schools in remote areas and re-allocates the school resources and students to
more urban schools to improve the equity between the urban and rural students in
their access to school resources; the Performance-Linked Pay (jixiao gongzi) reform
of the salary of civil servants (including teachers) introduced since 2010 aimed at
increasing teachers accountability and job performance; a variety of Quality
Education (suzhi jiaoyu) measures introduced since 1999 aimed at increasing the
quality of education.
In terms of government investments in education, 2.43 trillion
yuan have been spent from 2003 to 2007, up 1.26 times compared to the previous five
year period and 4 percent of the national GDP has been earmarked for education by
2012 (United Nations System in China and Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2008: 29).
The school system is regarded as universalized (puji) by the local education
bureaux or departments according to a number of performance criteria designed by
the Chinese government, some of which include enrolment rates above 95% and
dropout rates under 3% and 1% respectively for junior secondary schools and primary
schools (for the list of criteria, see e.g. Yunnan Education Bureau 2010).
In 2009,
the Chinese government declares that its nine-year compulsory education system1,
comprised of six years of primary education and three years of junior secondary
education, is officially universalized across the countrys 99.7% population (Xinhua
News 2010, September 26).
Chinas efforts in universalizing basic education across
the country is lauded as a success and being ahead of schedule in meeting its
commitments to the United Nations Education For All (EFA) initiative and the
relevant Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which are expected to be achieved
by 2015 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and United Nations System in China 2008: 2).
The nine-year education system is for children aged 7 to 15 in rural areas, and aged 6 to 14 in urban
areas.
9
However, recent studies show a rebound in the dropout rate, especially in the
poor, rural areas, reaching up to 8.07% and 23.39% respectively in a primary and a
junior secondary school in rural Yunnan province (Yunnan Education Bureau 2006).
A country-wide study conducted between 2001 and 2003 found that rural schools in
different parts of China have an average dropout rate of 3.78% (southeastern location),
54.05% (northeastern location 1), 28.06% (northeastern location 2), 3.66% (northern
location), 35.55% (southwestern location 1), and 20.97% (southwestern location 2)
(Yuan et al. 2004).
Even though the dropout rate is below an insignificant 1.5%, an
estimated 2.3 million out of Chinas 180 million junior secondary students would still
be dropping out every year (Ministry of Education 2006).
Apart from the size of
dropout problem, it has developed into a new pattern described as hidden dropouts
(yingxing chuoxue) who are physically present but have given up their studies and are
not participating in the studies in class (Lan and Zhang 2008).
School dropout is one
of the major signs of problems with school access, which can be divided into six types
of school exclusion (Lewin 2007), and the various types of dropouts can be
differentiated into second-chancers, push-throughs and fade-outs (Kelly 1993:
202).
The situation of child work is another sign of problems with school access.
In
China, although the Chinese term tonggong (child work or child labour) is often
used in the news report and the Chinese literature, the child workers are, strictly
speaking, not children in terms of their mental and physical development as the
majority of them reported in the news are 15 or 16 years old, or occasionally 13 years
old (China Labour Bulletin 2007b).
Although they are often reported to be exploited
by working long hours and earning an extremely low hourly wage with no protection
by the countrys labour laws, most of them are employed to do unskilled and light
tasks in labour-intensive industries such as electronics, garment, shoe and toy
10
manufacturing, or in small restaurants or shops in the urban areas (Human Rights

Watch 2007; China Labour Bulletin 2007a; China Labour Bulletin 2007b; Clean
Clothes Campaign et al. 2008).
It would be the topic of another study to discuss in
more details whether child work in China, in fact, is or should be a borderline case
of the child labour problem in the world associated with human rights violation as it is
often framed as such in the literature (e.g. Fyfe 1989; Weston and Teerink 2006).
In
this study, child work in China is viewed as another sign of problems with school
access and as one of the relevant factors associated with the school dropout decision,
such as the dropouts perceptions of work and their familys demand for their early
entry to work.
2.2
Problems with the literature on school dropout
The literature on school dropout can generally be identified in relation to three

purposes, namely quantitatively oriented studies seeking to prescribe solutions to the
school access problem by identifying a list of factors of inefficiencies with access to
the school system, ethnographies with a focus on describing the local experiences
especially the child perspcective, and critical studies seeking to explain school failure
by unearthing the power relations underlying the school system.
2.2.1
A lack of the childs perspective in quantitative studies
Hunt (2008), in his comprehensive review of the literature on school dropout,

points out that dropout is an under-researched topic because the insights on school
dropout are mostly embedded within a range of studies on school access.
Many of
the studies of school access, or those written under the themes of Education For All
11
(EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), generally employ quantitative

methods, such as household survey or large scale questionnaire research in the
Chinese context (Ai et al. 1995; Chen and Wu 1998; Zhu and Wang 2000; Brown and
Park 2002; Hannum 2003; Zhao 2003; Liao 2004; Yuan et al. 2004; Wang 2004; He
2005; Wu and Yang 2005; Lin 2004; Yang 2006a; Liu 2008; Wang 2007; Ma and
Zheng 2003; Guo 2005; Wang 2006) and in the international context (e.g. Colclough
et al. 2000; the PROBE Team 1999; Boyle et al. 2002; Bray and Bunly 2005).
They
generally adopt a positivist orientation aimed at validating the researchers hypothesis

in the most objective way and prescribing solutions or policy recommendations to the
dropout problem.
These studies view school dropout merely as a measure of inefficiency in the
functioning of the school system without addressing the childs perspective in terms
of their educational needs, interests, future aspirations, family duties and roles, aims
of education, etc..
These studies, as Hunt (2008) notes, are an oversimplification of
the intertwining factors associated in the process.
Few studies account for the complexities of access, and the interactive, dynamic
nature of factors which may contribute to dropping out. Rather, much of the
available literature identifies one factor (or possibly more) leading to drop out,
which is identified as the final push or pull out of school. What is less often
seen in the literature are the processes around dropping out, the personal stories
of the children, household members and teachers, their social contexts and the
competing demands on them. These processes happen over a period of time,
with factors interacting in different ways to influence both drop out and
retention.
(p. 5)
They focus on identifying the structural causes in the system, especially those
associated with inefficiency.
Some of the most commonly identified structural

12
causes include family poverty (Kabeer, Nambissan and Subrahmanian 2002), the
availability of school funding and accountability system (Twaweza 2010), multigrade
teaching in low density population areas (Little 2006), childrens nutritional status
(Buxton 2011), the provision of textbooks (Heyneman and Loxley 1983), adequate
provision of school facilities and teachers (Govinda and Bandyopadhyay 2011), or
school safety (Nordtveit 2010).
Some divide the causes into push-out or demand
factors (coming from the context outside school, e.g. the familys ability to pay school
fees and other costs, pressure on children to work, poor health) and pull-out or
supply factors (coming from inside the school, such as school quality, insufficient
teachers and school resources, gendered practices inherent in schooling) (see Hunt
2008).
UNICEF (2001) also adopts such a classification system, as shown in the
following quote:
Schools that are unfriendly, unhealthy, unsafe and unsupportive of children
especially girls contribute to the problem of school drop-outs. Children enter
school in greater and greater numbers, but then many problems arise that prevent
them from completing the education they require. Family needs, for labour and
income, may pull them out of school, while the culture and language of the
classroom all too often push them out.
(p. 77)
They assume that the problem will be solved by eliminating the factors of dropout
identified.
The childs perspective, as Hunt argues, is important as it provides more
nuanced accounts of localised situations (p.5).

Another problem with lack of a childs perspective in the quantitatively-oriented
research is that the analysis can be overshadowed by the researchers assumptions and
biases.
Even though some studies are incorporating qualitative methods such as
interviews, participant observation, case study, fieldwork, the childs perspective
13
remains overshadowed.
Chen Xiangming (1996), one of the early Chinese
advocates of the qualitative research methodology in the study of school dropout,

points out:
Even though the method of fieldwork is used, the dropouts voice still cannot be
heard in the research report. The study only investigates the dropout situation
from the researchers perspective, without revealing the dropouts psychological
status and how they perceive things. The studies we have seen on school
dropout remain largely on the level of policy recommendation, without
investigating into the specific situations and processes leading up to the dropout
decision.
(p. 36)
The lack of a childs perspective in research or the lack of children as informants

in research is believed to be partly due to a belief that children lack the necessary
communication, cognitive and social skills to be good informants (Scott 2000).
In
the Chinese literature, the lack of a qualitative orientation, particularly of an

ethnographic type, may have to do with how research, also known as diaocha, sikao,
yanjiu, baogao, fenxi in Chinese, is conventionally interpreted in mainland China.
During the times of Chairman Mao Zedong between the 1950s and late 1970s, the
discipline of sociology was considered a bourgeois pseudoscience and was closed
due to ideological censorship (Hamilton and Wang 1992: 10).
Sociology was only
restored and revived in the 1980s and 1990s when only quantitative methods were
recognized as research with no systematic training of qualitative methods in the
textbooks and universities (Bu 2006: 210).
It is noted that researchers in mainland
China generally understand research as questionnaire surveys, experiments, collation

of other research, reflection, with the primary purpose to prescribe policy
recommendations to social problems rather than developing insights into a social
14
phenomenon (Cheng 2000b: 33).
2.2.2
A lack of theoretical rigour in ethnographies
Instead of viewing school dropout as a measure of inefficiency in the school

system, those taking the qualitative orientation, especially the ethnographic approach,
focus on the agency of the dropouts and offer rich insights into their perceptions,
values associated with dropping out.
For example, Ananga (2011), based on his
ethnography of school dropouts in Ghana, identifies a list of push-out or pull-out

factors including household poverty, poor parenting/fostering practices, poor
education quality, teacher unavailability or absenteeism, unsupportive attitude of
teachers, school administrative policy on repetition and readmission.
However,
without being driven by a strong theoretical purpose, insights drawn from such an
ethnographic analysis tend to be ad-hoc and arbitrary.
An empirically sound and
theoretically motivated research needs to have its empirical insights placed within a
dialogue with other studies and with theoretical debates in the literature.
address the question:
It needs to
For what theoretical purpose should a qualitative research
method be used?
The lack of theoretical rigour is particularly problematic with a third type of
so-called research in the Chinese literature of school dropout.
This type of
research is not qualitative and is anything but quantitative (Luo 2002; Zhang and
Tian 2002; Liao 2004; Gui 2004; Cai 2004; Tang and Dong 2004; Li 2004; Guang
2005; Wang et al. 2005; Zhao 2005; Xiang 2005; Sima 2005).
These studies are
hardly scientific by the rigor of the Western research standard not only because they
lack a theoretical focus, but because their research depends on second-hand
information usually from the news reports instead of first-hand research data.
15
This
type of research, as Bu (2006) calls them, is perhaps more appropriately regarded as

critiques in the loosest sense, scattered armchair reflection or even ideological
reproduction rather than an empirically sound research.
In the words of Chen
Xiangming (2000):
Most qualitative research basically does not demand systematic collection and
analysis of original data, it is rather casual, habitual, and spontaneous, and it
mainly plays a role in raising a discussion or forming public opinion.
(p. 23)
2.2.3
A lack of a focus on education quality in critical studies
Those taking a critical approach2 to the study of school dropout are, in the words
of Kelly (1995), more interested in which groups suffer the most as a result of
inefficient schooling systems, and their work focuses on how schooling often operates
to the greater disadvantage of groups on the margins of power in society (p. 308).
These studies challenge taken-for-granted concepts by offering local accounts of rich
and nuanced insights.
Kelly (1993), for example, differentiates between pushout,
which blames the institution for act[ing] inexorably to purge unwilling victims,
from the traditional framing of the problem as dropout, which blames the individual
for making an independent, final decision (p. 29).
Her ethnography of school
dropouts offers in-depth and nuanced insights, and addressed from the childs
perspective, into the various types of dropouts as distinguished into second-chancers,
push-throughs and fade-outs (ibid., p. 202).
Fine (1991), who views school
leaving as a mutual process of rejection or disengagement, in her critical ethnography

of dropouts from low-income, ethnic minority backgrounds in the United States of
America seeks to unearth those institutional policies and practices that enable,
2
See Chapter 9.2.2 for details about the critical approach

16
obscure, and legitimate this mass exodus [of dropouts] (p.8).

light on the question: who do the public schools serve?
Her goal is to shed
Lewin (2007, 2009), by
identifying the six different patterns of exclusion or what he calls the Zones of
Exclusion based on studies in many developing countries, broadened the conception
of school access as often informed by mere enrolment rates.
In the Chinese
literature, Chen (1996) explores the perceptions of the teachers regarding the variety
of meanings associated with good and bad students; Yang and Wang (2004) explore
the meaning of bad students beyond mere associations with poor academic
performance; Fang et al. (2010) discover that some rural children are driven out of
school because they are labelled as poor rather than unable to pay school fees.
These studies are empirically sound with a focus on the childs perspective and
are theoretically motivated by the critical goal to unearth the power relations working
against the interests of the dropouts.
But, they cannot lead to a conclusion beyond a
mere call for a more nuanced policy adjustment to address the needs of the various
groups or to increase the education quality for them.
worthwhile questions, such as:
education quality for the dropouts?
One is left pondering more
So what can be done about the provision of

What is the meaning of quality in education?
Instead of viewing school dropout as a measure of inefficiency or wastage in the

functioning of the school system, as a complex process with children constructing
their meanings or as an instrument of the school in legitimating school failure, few
however study dropout as an entry point into understanding more deep-rooted
problems associated with education quality and as an opportunity for understanding
the meaning of quality in education, a problem notorious in the literature.
Apparently, each of these three approaches to the study of school dropout, or in
fact any study of education---whether it is about the economic use of education, about
the philosophical aims of education, about the social aspects of schooling, about the
17
administration of education (including the allocation and distribution of educational

goods and opportunities), about the psychological aspect of the learning and teaching
processes---draws upon one (and sometimes more than one) conception(s) of what
one sees as good education quality.
The literature of education studies does not lack
a good, comprehensive overview of the various theoretical approaches to education

quality, although many use different labels and have a different focus, such as the
relationship between school and society (see Feinberg and Soltis 1998), the historical
development of the school effectiveness discourse in the Western context (see Morley
and Rassool 1999), or the philosophical aims of education (see Barrow and Woods
1988; Marples 1999; Carr 2005; Brighouse 2006).
What is lacking in the literature particularly in development studies, however, is
a good explanation, which is both theoretically motivated and empirically sound, in
understanding why a certain approach to education quality is useful and why other
approaches are not useful for explaining school failure and understanding education
quality by showing a thorough, in-depth understanding and consideration of the
theoretical underpinnings and assumptions of the approach chosen and that of other
approaches not chosen.
18
Chapter 3
In Chapter Three, I examine the major theoretical approaches that have been
commonly used to inform the analyses of education quality in the development
contexts.
3.1
Education quality in the development literature
In the development literature, the major attempts to give an overview of the

concept of education quality have been made in terms of the stages of educational
development in acquiring certain skills, knowledge and attitudes inside the classroom,
serving the economic goals of the learners community and the society at large (Beeby
1966), in terms of efficiency in meeting set goals, relevance to human and
environmental needs and conditions, something more in relation to the pursuit of
excellence and human betterment (Hawes and Stephens 1990: 11), in terms of
notions of equity (Sayed 1997), in terms of the various aspects of education as a
system such as inputs, processes and outcomes (e.g. Adams 1993; UNICEF 2000;
UNESCO 2004), in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, equality, relevance,
sustainability (Barrett et al. 2006).
The overviews done so far have undoubtedly contributed insights into the various
ways of conceptualizing education quality.
But, many of them can be said to have
only verged upon the superficial by using concepts in their loosest, most general and
ahistorical sense without presenting the diverse and often contested meanings of the
19
same term and the complexity of its theoretical development in context; Some fall
short of showing the diversity of approaches to education quality by focusing only on
one specific approach or conflating various approaches together;
Some of the
approaches presented are based on an arbitrary choice without putting them in the
theoretical perspective;
Some are also not culturally sensitive enough, as Guthrie
(1980) points out, to make assumptions about education and the society which are
specific to the researchers cultural, socio-economic and political background and
may not be applicable to other contexts.
Attempts to prescribe de-contextualized,
often top-down designed standards are the most conspicuous, when the term quality
is used as an adjective (as in many of the government policies titled quality
education or the quality imperative), rather than being used as a noun (as in high
or low quality) to describe the degree of excellence (Alexander 2008: 11).
The
difficulty of giving a good overview of the various approaches to education quality is,
as Welch (2000) points out, the concept is context-specific and changes according to
different needs specific to the historical, socio-economic, cultural and political context
under study.
Alexander (2008) proposes five requirements in achieving a
contextualized discussion of education quality:

First, the debate about quality needs to attend closely to the question of who
needs to know what at each level of the education system.
Second and commensurately, at each level people need to ask what, within their
zones of power and responsibility, they can do or provide in order to help those
working at school and classroom levels to secure high and consistent standards
of teaching.
Third, if responsibilities for the quality of pedagogy are shared at the different
levels, it cannot be sufficient for indicators of quality to be confined to the
vagaries of input, outcome or proxy process indicators at the topmost level of the
system.
20
Fourth, if a multi-level approach is taken, then the indicators at each level should
focus not on the school and classroom, which is what tends to happen, but on the
work of those at that level itself. Otherwise concern for quality is deflected
downwards. So, for example and a crucial example at the level above
schools it is as important to define and assess quality in teacher training as in
teaching.
Fifth, although pedagogy and pedagogic quality are manifested in the decisions
and interactions of teachers and learners, the very fact that others at different
levels are interested in it signals that quality depends on much more than the
teacher alone. If responsibility is shared, culpability should be shared too.
(ibid., p. 17)
To gain an understanding of the context-specific concept, I will examine its

various meanings in terms of the contextual needs.
I will also examine the meaning
of concept in terms of notions of equity, an issue of increasing concern in the

development literature.
My understanding of the theoretical approaches used in
understanding education quality is based on the school effectiveness discourse in

the development literature, as a body of ideologies, pressures and logics concerned
with educational development originated in the industrialized, Western nations such as
the United Kingdom and the United States in the postwar period in the 1950s and
1960s.
Rightly or wrongly, the Western lenses to education have been by and large
adopted by international agencies and exported for educational development

throughout the developing world today (Morley and Rassool 1999).
3.2
Quality in terms of contextual needs
In the school effectiveness discourse, education quality is commonly

conceptualized in terms of four contextual needs, namely for social progress, for
21
emancipation against domination, for effective use of resources, and for personal
development.
These four aims of education correspond to four theoretical influences
from different disciplines in conceptualizing education quality, which are commonly

identified, albeit using different labels, in the development literature (see Feinberg and
Soltis 1998; Morley and Rassool 1999; Motala 2001; Chitty 2002; Farrell 2003;
UNESCO 2004: 32-35; Barrett et al. 2006; Barrett and Tikly 2009; Tikly 2011).
The
categories are not to be taken too strictly, as they serve mainly as heuristic devices in
the ensuing analysis of field data for the understanding and explanation of school
failure in the following chapters.
Apparently, there is some overlap amongst the four
approaches to understanding and defining education quality because each of them

contains much variation given the multidisciplinary influences from neoclassical
economics, cognitive psychology, politics, sociology, anthropology, etc...
In the
world of contemporary research and practice, it may well be the case that those
committed to the purpose of social progress are also committed to emancipation
against domination and the effective use of resources.
Instead of seeing the rise of
the approaches in neat, chronological order or as a reaction to another approach, I see

each of them with intellectual roots from different times, some possibly dating back to
antiquity, and have been taken up, and modified, under different contextual needs
specific to the school effectiveness debate in the industrialized West since the 1960s.
In each approach, I will introduce the social and intellectual context it was taken
up, its philosophical underpinnings regarding education quality and its application in
the development practice.
3.2.1
The human capital approach
The human capital approach to education sees it as serving both a public and
22
individual purpose in economic prosperity and progress.

It was most popular against the background of a booming economy, a national
agenda on postwar reconstruction and social progress, and widespread optimism
regarding questions of equality in the United States and Western Europe during the
twenty five years after the World War II, or roughly between 1945 and 1970 (Farrell
2003: 146).
Questions of equality were believed to be answered by liberal educators
in introducing reforms such as the Free School Movement and compensatory

education.
Schooling was believed to be an equalizer of opportunity and an agent of
social mobility and change.
Around the same time in the academia, the human
capital theory was fully developed when the American economists Theodore Schultz
(1961) analyzed educational expenditure as a form of investment and Gary Becker
(1964) developed a theory of human capital formation and analyzed the rate of return
to investment in education and training.
It was against such an historical and
theoretical context that the human capital theory was widely adopted by educators at
that time.
The rationale of applying the economic theory in education is that human beings
invest in themselves, by means of education, training and other activities, an
investment which leads to financial benefits such as higher future income for
themselves, their families and economic growth to the society (Woodhall 1995: 24).
The theory assumes that most of the economic capabilities of people are not given at
birth or at the time when children enter upon their schooling. (Schultz 1963: 11)
Its
advocates also believe that schools do make a difference in improving the inequality
in the society, that inputs to educational development do determine educational
outputs and outcome (Psacharopoulos and Woodhall 1985: 224).
Expanding the
provision of formal schooling, such as by increasing the governments expenditure in

education, by universalizing the provision of compulsory schooling and by any type
23
of quantitative expansion, would be seen as leading to poverty reduction and

improving income distribution in the society (Psacharopoulos and Tilak 1991).
The
economists approach to education is founded on the modernist belief, which

Aronowitz and Giroux (1991: 58) critically point out in their challenge to modernism,
in permanent change, and in the continual and progressive unfolding of history.
education provides the socializing processes and legitimating codes by which the
grand narrative of progress and human development can be passed on to future
generations.
In application, the human capital theory is taken up by the World Bank, the
worlds biggest provider of international aid in education development (UNESCO
2004: 194), as the rationale in using education development to reduce poverty in the
under-developed and developing economies (see e.g. World Bank 1995; World Bank
2006; Psacharopoulos 1995).
Education quality is conceptualized in terms of the concern for efficiency or
economic returns of educational investment---which is an appraisal of output in the
light of inputs---a relationship often mathematically translated into a simple division
of output by inputs in quantified, measurable terms or a regression analysis of
quantified, measurable variables3.
The meaning of education quality thus depends
on how the output and inputs are defined.
As Psacharopoulos and Woodhall (1985)
point out, the concern for efficiency can be further specified into external efficiency
(i.e. how well schools prepare students in their roles in the society or achieves the
wider objectives of the society as indicated by the employment prospects and
earnings), internal efficiency (i.e. how well a school achieves its internal institutional
A regression analysis shows how the dependent variable (output proxy e.g. enrolment rate) changes
when any one of the independent variables is varied, while keeping constant the other independent
variables (or input proxies, e.g. pupil-teacher ratio, age at marriage, religion, repetition, school-age
population) (Colclough et al. 2003: 60).
24
objectives).
The external efficiency of education investments in the society is
examined using cost-benefit analysis or rate-of-return analysis4, where the output or

benefits is often defined in terms of the lifetime earnings one can attain with a
particular educational level while the inputs or costs are often defined in terms of the
direct and opportunity costs in monetary terms (Woodhall 2004).
Cost-benefit
analyses also take into account estimates about the non-economic benefits, or known
as external benefits, generated from the investments which can range from better
physical and mental health, increases in charitable giving, reduction in smoking,
unemployment and crime (see Wolfe 1995).
The internal efficiency of an education
system is examined using cost-effective analysis where the outputs or outcomes often
refer to the students achievement including their knowledge, skills, behaviour and
attitudes, represented by proxies such as examination scores, tests to measure
students attitudes and motivation, the number of years students needed to compete a
required level, the number of students having completed the required level of
schooling or the completion rate, enrolment rate, dropout rate, repetition rate); the
inputs are often represented by proxies such as government expenditure on education
and teachers salaries, teacher qualifications, books and learning materials, school
infrastructure and facilities) (Levin 1983, Hanushek and Wmann 2008).
To summarize, the human capital approach to education quality depends on the
objectives set for the wider society and the institution.
Quality is generally defined
in terms of the graduates income earnings for the wider objective of schooling and
the students test scores, number of years enrolled at school, the number of students
having completed the required level of schooling and having been promoted to the
next education cycle for the institutional objectives of schooling.
For a simple method of calculating rates of return, see Chapter 6.2.3.

25
3.2.2
The critical approach
The critical approach to education focuses on the emancipation of human beings

against domination.
It is mostly taken up in the 1970s in the United States during a time marked by
widespread pessimism following the end of the postwar economic boom and a series
of events such as the oil crisis, the crash of the stock market.
The pessimistic
attitude has also brought about much scepticism against liberal school reformers who
had promised schooling as an equalizer of opportunity and an agent of social mobility
and change.
Meantime, studies of poverty, most notably by Oscar Lewis (1969)
theory of the culture of poverty and the study by Jencks (1975), located the problem
of school failures of poor children in the deficiency in the individual or even their
culture. It was against this historical and theoretical context that the critical theory,
which aims to locate the problem of school failures in the social structures, was taken
up in many studies of education.
The critical theory I refer to here is associated with the Frankfurt School which
originated in the 1920s in Germany, flourished in the 1930s in Germany and 1940s in
the USA and continued to develop into the 1960s (for a historical development of the
critical theory, see e.g. Held 1980; Mason 2010).
Karl Marx, amongst others, was
one of the early, major intellectual influences in the critique of the political economy,
particularly regarding his idea about the base (the economy) as determining the
superstructure (social institutions such as education, law, government, religion,
hospital).
Under changing historical contexts, changing intellectual currents
especially the linguistic turn in continental philosophy5 and the integration of new
intellectual developments such as American pragmatism, critical theorists are
5
For details regarding the linguistic turn, see Colebrook (2010)

26
increasingly concerned with the critique of instrumental rationality or a form of

positivist rationality focused more on technical than on normative questions.
As
Mason (2010) points out:

Enlightenment notions of reason had in their view become distorted in a
modernity steeped in rationalization and bureaucratization into a form of
rationality obsessed with means, with method and efficiency, rather than with
ends and purposes. Important normative questions such as Why should?,
with their implicit humanist orientation, are in this process displaced by
questions of procedure and technique such as How to?. Questions about
values and interests are thus unacceptably, in the view of the Frankfurt School,
separated from the production of so-called objective fact.
(p. 134)
The critique or skepticism of attempts to reclaim any notion of universal reason has
led to a proliferation of the so-called post discourses including those of
post-structuralism, postmodernism, postcolonialism, postdevelopment, and critical
feminist discourses in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
In the study of education, the aim of critical theorists is associated with the
exposure and transformation of, and the emancipation of humans from, oppressive
economic, political, social and cultural formations, and the associated inequalities and
injustices that are ubiquitous and pervasive in all domains of human interaction.
(Mason 2010: 138) The variety of critical approaches to the study of education, as
Gibson (1986) points out, can be understood in terms of three major research
questions, although not necessarily in separate studies: What is wrong with education?
Why and how have those ills arisen? How may they be remedied? (p. 44).
In addressing the first question (What is wrong with education?), researchers
typically arrive at a similar argument in demonstrating the inequality in the
distribution of wealth, power, prestige and opportunity in the society, that students
27
from an underprivileged socio-economic group (e.g. class, wealth, race, gender)

achieve less well than their privileged counterparts.
It is in answering the second question (Why and how does education fail?)
regarding the causes of school failure, where critical theorists differ greatly in
theoretical depth, rigour, sophistication and sensitivity to nuances as to how they
explain the reproduction of unequal economic, social and cultural relations from
generation to generation and that education contributes to that process.
Very
generally, they aim to de-centre the subject (pushing men and women from the
centre of research attention to the periphery) or to avoid, what Gibson (1986: 46)
referred to as, blaming the victim by locating the sources of inequality in the
structures (economic, political, social, educational, linguistic institutions) rather than
individual attributes (such as being lazy, unmotivated).
Bowles and Gintis (1976)s Schooling in Capitalist America is one of the most
well-known application of Marxism.
In developing their theory of correspondence,
they catalogue the structural similarities between the school and workplace such as
the use of external awards to motivate rather developing satisfaction in the tasks itself,
an emphasis on punctuality and conformity, etc. to explain how students are prepared
at school to be accustomed to the the types of personal demeanour, modes of
self-presentation, self-image and social class identifications as required in their
future workplace (p.131).
Similarly, Carnoy (1974), in a historical analysis of who
controls the funds of schooling in the underdeveloped and developed countries, argues
that the function of schooling is a form of cultural imperialism and colonization.
The most radical application of Marxism is perhaps by Illich (1971) and Holt (1976)
who call for deschooling, or any forms of de-establishing the school system, because
as Illich points out the institutionalization of values leads inevitably to physical
pollution, social polarization, and psychological impotence (p.1).
28
These accounts
of the role of schooling in the reproduction of social inequalities are often criticized as
strong versions of structuralism for over-emphasizing the power of structure over
individual agency, for not accounting for human individuality, for its sometimes
rigid, static, ahistorical and reductionist perspectives on social phenomena and, in
some cases, for its assumptions of the objectivity of social phenomena, its positing of
abstract macro-level generalisations about human behaviour, and its employment of
the empirical methods of the natural sciences to generate these laws. (Mason and
Clarke 2010: 175).
The currents of poststructuralism6 in continental philosophy in the last quarter of
the twentieth century led to more sophisticated theories of reproduction, especially
regarding the primacy of structure or agency in the reproduction of social inequalities.
The studies by Pierre Bourdieu and his colleagues, with their key concepts of cultural
capital, symbolic violence and habitus, are celebrated for reconciling the
dichotomy between structure and agency in explaining the role of schooling in
reproducing social and cultural inequalities (Bourdieu 1977; Bourdieu and Passeron
1990 [1970]; Bourdieu 1997).
They describe how the school reproduces the
cultural capital or arbitrary embodiments of power valued by the dominant class as

legitimized and institutionalized by a variety of practices for example the school
curriculum, credentials, language registers and in a process called symbolic
violence imposes it upon the subordinate classes who have internalized the arbitrary
power relationships as part of their value system or habitus and have taken them as
legitimate even though it may be against their best interests; yet reciprocally, the
individuals may also strategically acquire cultural capital to change their subordinate
position.
But Bourdieus theory of reproduction is mostly criticized for ignoring the
For details regarding the difference between structuralism and poststructuralism, see Chaffee and
Lemert (2009)
29
capacity of individuals to resist the schools attempt in socialization (Gibson 1984:

57).
In an ethnography of the counter-school culture amongst the working class
children, or lads, Paul Williss Learning to Labour. How Working Class Kids Get
Working Class Jobs (1977) gives an account of social reproduction, placing resistance
as central.
He shows that the lads actively chose to embrace a culture of resistance
rather than passively being shuffled through the educational system and assigned to
the lowest paying jobs, but their choice to resist merely serves to confirm their low
social status because their culture of resistance itself is produced under the values of
the dominant class in the capitalist society.
In addressing the third question (What is to be done?), researchers have come up
with various forms of critical pedagogy to help students develop consciousness of
freedom (for more on critical pedagogy, see Mason 2010).
Giroux and McLaren
(1989), in one of key texts in critical pedagogy, describe the critical educators
classroom as a form of public sphere in which students and teachers can engage in a
process of deliberation and discussion aimed at advancing the public welfare in
accordance with fundamental moral judgements and principles .
School and
classroom practices should, in some manner, be organized around forms of learning

which serve to prepare students for responsible roles as transformative intellectuals, as
community members, and as critically active citizens outside of schools (p. 237)
3.2.3
The systems approach
The systems approach to education, which views the school as a system or

bureaucratic organization, focuses on the effective use of educational resources and
effective management of the school.
The approach is increasingly adopted in the industrialized, Western countries
30
since the 1980s, given the value shift away from the macro, socio-cultural context as
studied by the critical theorists to the micro context within the school as an
organization (Morley and Rassool 1999: 4).
In the developing countries, the
approach is often adopted to achieve an effective use of resources and sustainable

outcomes (e.g. Gillies 2009), under the pressure of tightening school budget or limited
resources (Levin 1983), under the pressure of global competition in the performance
of the countrys educational systems (Morley and Rassool 1999), and under mounting
evidence of low students learning outcomes or low education quality despite high
enrolment rates (e.g. Hanushek and Wmann 2008).
The systems approach to education quality is functionalist, which views the
school as a complex, dynamic system of interrelated parts (such as learners, inputs of
learning resources) with order and stability maintained by commonly held values and
the overall goal of the school system is to transmit these values.
As Gillies (2009)
points out, applying Systems Theory in education assumes that the underlying
structure of the system determines how it responds to changes so that improving the
structure of the system is believed to lead to the desired goals (p. 14-15).
The theory
is also grounded upon modernist, rationalist assumptions that the complexity involved
in the education process can be identified, measured and quantified using appropriate
statistical instruments and techniques, and that problems in the school system can be
solved by changing the variables in the system irrespective of the socio-cultural
factors outside the school system (Scheerens 2000).
The school variables, as
identified by Gillies (2009: 2), include teacher and principal performance, pedagogy,
curriculum, materials, education philosophy, language policy, parental expectations,
and different models of education.
Similar to the human capital theorists concern
with efficiency or maximizing monetary outputs using minimum monetary inputs,

the systems theory is concerned with effectiveness or maximizing the non-monetary
31
outcomes using minimum non-monetary inputs (Psacharopoulos and Woodhall 1985).

Those who are committed to using the systems theory in the study of education
are also influenced by theories of behaviourism from psychology.
For example,
UNICEF (2000), in the study of education as a system of learners, environments,

content, processes and outcomes, also draws upon William Glasser (1990)s control
theory which is concerned with the manipulation or monitoring of learning, teaching
and leadership behaviour.
The systems theory and behaviourism are similar in terms
of their influence by a positivistic view about knowledge that the human world can be
understood and controlled by detailed objective observation and scientific
measurement.
The concerns of systems theorists are technical, associated with the methods of
measuring and evaluating how effective certain pre-set goals are met, and designing
statistical proxies or performance indicators in the measurement.
Educational
inputs are understood in terms of a checklist of resources such as learning materials,

qualified teachers, student-teacher ratio; and the educational outcomes are measured
in the terms of proxies such as enrolment rates, test scores, completion rates and the
results of different countries or systems are entered into league tables for comparison.
Systems theory, with its concerns and techniques in measurement, is often
applied in the analysis of education quality in developing countries.
One of the early
and most notable applications of the approach in understanding school quality in

developing countries appeared in Lockheed and Verspoor (1990)s study on primary
school quality in the developing countries.
In their widely publicized report, which
was distributed at the Education For All (EFA) World Conference, four types of input
associated with the curriculum, instructional materials, learning time and teaching
quality are identified as crucial for the effective schools, or schools that are defined
as capable of transforming their given inputs effectively into student learning.
32
In
Adams (1993)s study, the systemic structure of the school is conceptualized in terms
of the five components of inputs, processes, outputs, outcomes and value
added.
The development of educational indicators, as Scheerens (2000: 92-94)
observes, is shifting from a focus on macro-level data, such as national illiteracy rates,
enrolment rates, to a focus on the process of education or what goes on inside the
school and learning.
In more recent applications, the approach is popular amongst many research
programs funded by the governments and international development agencies in
designing different systems or frameworks of educational indicators or proxies, which
are statistics that allow value judgements to be made about key aspects of the
education systems.
For example, UNESCO (2000), in evaluating a countrys
progress towards the Education For All (EFA) goals, chooses 18 indicators as a basis
for assessing a countrys progress towards achieving EFA: gross enrolment rate in
early childhood development programmes, percentage of new entrants to primary
grade 1, gross intake rate, net intake rate, gross enrolment rate, net enrolment rate,
public expenditure on primary education, percentage of primary school teachers
having attained the required academic qualifications, percentage of primary school
teachers who are certified to teach, pupil teacher ratio, repetition rates by grade,
survival rate to grade 5, coefficient of efficiency, percentage of pupils having reached
at least grade 4 of primary schooling, literacy rates of youths and adults, ratio of
female to male literacy rates (p. 59).
The highly influential quality framework
established in the UNESCO 2005 EFA Global Monitoring Report posits a broad
framework of quality indicators in the dimensions of learner characteristics,
context, enabling inputs, teaching and learning and outcomes (see UNESCO
2004: 36).
In the Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity
33
(CREATE) research programme, funded by the United Kingdoms Department for

International Development (DFID), the six Zones of Exclusion are conceptualized
to indicate six types of school access (see Lewin 2007; Lewin 2009);
The Education
quality Improvement Program (EQUIP), funded by the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), proposes twelve Opportunity to Learn
indicators to evaluate school access in terms of the number of school opening days,
teachers present, students present and ready to learn (see Moore and DeStefano 2009);
The OECD has designed world education indicators to annually evaluate school
quality in the developed countries in areas of the output of educational institutions
and the impact of learning, financial and human resources invested in education,
access to education, participation and progression, the learning environment and
organization of schools (see e.g. OECD 2011).
There are a variety of indicator
systems and the differences amongst them can be a topic of another study but they
generally share the concerns in prescribing policy action and justify a differentiated
allocation and management of resources in educational development.
3.2.4
The child-centred approach
The child-centred approach to education focuses on the childs personal growth

in terms of ones natural development.
This approach dates back to the early 19th
century in the work of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827) and Friedrich Froebel
(1782-1852), and into the 20th century with the work of Maria Montessori (1870-1952)
and the rise of the New Education in Europe and North America (1890-1930).
In
the United Kingdom in the 1960s, the approach was well-received by a number of
government reports most notably the Plowden report published in England in 1967.
The child-centred approach, rather than seeing childhood as a time of preparation
34
for adulthood as the traditional approaches, sees it as a time in itself.

Playing, experimenting children come to new knowledge in sensual, affective
and active ways that enable them to understand its substance. In making new
understandings and gaining knowledge in this way, children are seen to create
knowledge for themselves rather than absorb and replicate it.
(Doddington and Hilton 2007: 55)
The child-centred approach, seen as a progressive model of education, is generally
opposed to the traditional or behaviourist model of teaching and learning, which is
subject-centred, teacher-centred, spoon-feeding because it changes the traditionally
perceived role of the child as docile, passive learners in receiving knowledge and the
traditionally perceived role of the teacher as transmitting knowledge (Darling 1994).
The intellectual roots of the approach can be traced back to the 18th century, in
the revival of romanticism, with a reawakened interest in nature, an idealized picture
of the countryside, and a view of childhood as a purity untainted by the corruption of
the society and that the nature of the child as good.
Rousseau, often regarded as the
father of child-centred education, in Emile describes childhood as the age of

harmless mirth (Rousseau 1948 [1762]: 43) and that education should do nothing to
change it (for a summary of Rousseaus ideas in education and his followers, see
Darling 1994: 6-31).
American philosopher John Dewey (1859-1952) is often cited
for advocating a child-centred education, by putting the childs immediate instincts

and activities at the centre of education, rather than the teacher or the curriculum:
Now the change which is coming into our education is the shifting of the center
of gravity. It is a change, a revolution, not unlike that introduced by Copernicus
when the astronomical center shifted from the earth to the sun. In this case the
child becomes the sun about which the appliances of education revolve; he is the
center about which they are organized.
(Dewey 1915 [1900]: 51)
35
While Rousseau emphasizes the importance of the natural environment in the

childs growth, Dewey emphasizes the social and community context in the childs
growth.
For Dewey, child-centred education is about discovering, recognizing and
developing ones interests, a concept that is often misinterpreted by the critics.
As
Pring (2007) points out, a childs interests for Dewey means more than paying a
passing attention , incorporates an understanding, a valuing and a potential for
further and deeper involvement (p. 80); It also requires the recognition of the
impulses that are intrinsic to a childs nature, the provision of a school environment
that can develop those interests, and the teachers guidance to develop interests that
are believed to be worth pursuing.
Some child-centred educators are known as
humanist, who are generally concerned with the question how to be a human
being? with an emphasis on human experience over abstract knowledge about the
world (Aloni 2002).
They are also known as constructivist by psychologists who
focus on the process of learning as mental construction when new information is

built into and added onto an individuals current structure of knowledge,
understanding and skills (Pritchard 2009: 17).
As Alexander (2008) points out the
importance of the pedagogical process for the child-centred approach:

Teaching which is truly child-centred is indicated not by materials or grouping
procedures but at a much more fundamental level in a consistent pattern of
relationships between teacher and taught, and by a deep and sympathetic
engagement with the way children think, feel and act which informs every single
aspect of the teachers work, from task preparation to interaction and assessment.
Child-centredness is a pervasive attribute of teaching, not a specific teaching
method.
(p. 17, my emphasis)
Child-centred educators may also be known as interpretivist who, in understanding

36
school failure, are more concerned with the culture-bound frameworks of particular
schools and the ways individuals understand and act in specific social contexts than
with finding general laws or all-encompassing explanations. (Feinberg and Soltis
1998: 81)
In development practice, the Faure Report, published in 1972 under the title of
Learning to Be, was one of the early advocates of the child-centred approach.
More than two decades later came the UNESCO-commissioned report Learning: The
Treasure Within (Delors et al. 1996) which identifies four basic skills essential to the
development of the child, namely, Learning to know, Learning to do, Learning to
live, Learning to be, as constituting education quality.
3.3
Quality in terms of equity for the disadvantaged
Apart from the various theoretical concerns prevailing in different contexts, the way
of conceptualizing education quality is also influenced by the various notions of
justice or equity in the distribution of educational goods.
Concerns for equity are
increasingly becoming a top agenda item in educational development, as seen in the

EFA Global Monitoring Report 2009 titled Overcoming Inequality: Why Governance
Matters (UNESCO 2008), and are increasingly incorporated into the discussions of
educational development where education quality and equity are treated as, what
Alexander (2008) described as, sides of the same coin (p.1).
Conceptualizing
education quality in terms of the notions of equity is theoretically motivated by

notions of a just distribution of educational goods or opportunities for the
disadvantaged.
Sen (1980)s famous question Equality of what? is a useful guide
to understand the various approaches to education quality in terms of notions of equity.

To describe the approaches for the purpose of using them as an analytical tool, I will
37
briefly examine them in terms of the central propositions and their application in the
provision of education for the disadvantaged.
Three major approaches to equity
will be examined, namely the utility-based approaches, resource-based approaches

and capability-based approach.
3.3.1
Utility-based approaches
Utility-based, or welfarist, approaches judge the goodness of a state of affairs in

terms of utilities, a subjective psychological conception of happiness which since
antiquity has been defined, to name a few, by hedonists as pleasure or by desire
theorists as satisfaction of ones desires (for a historical development of the concept,
see White 2006).
Amongst the various utility-based approaches, the classical form of utilitarianism,
associated with Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) and
Henry Sidgwick (1838-1900), advocates the principle of the greatest happiness of the
greatest number of people which views the maximization of utility as a moral
criterion for the organization of society.
Such a principle is heavily criticized for
distributing the least to the disadvantaged who are the least efficient in converting
the resources into utility.
Sidgwick may have formulated the doctrine of classical
utilitarianism in the clearest and most accessible way: The main idea is that society is
rightly ordered, and therefore just, when its major institutions are arranged so as to
achieve the greatest net balance of satisfaction summed over all the individuals
belonging to it. (Sidgwick 1907, cited in Rawls 1971: 22) Variants of utilitarianism
include the maximin approach which assesses the goodness of distribution by the
utility level of the worst-off individual, and the leximin approach which is based on
the equal distribution of utilities between the worst-off and the best-off (see e.g.
38
Atkinson 1983).
The central form of utilitarianism can be seen as comprised of three
components.
(1) Consequentialism:
The rightness of actions and (more generally) of the
choice of all control variables must be judged entirely by the goodness of the
consequent state of affairs.
(2) Welfarism: The goodness of states of affairs must be judged entirely by
the goodness of the set of individual utilities in the respective states of affairs.
(3) Sum-ranking: The goodness of any set of individual utilities must be
judged entirely by their sum total.
(Sen 1984: 4-5)
Applying utilitarianism to education would mean that the value of education is

judged in terms of the happiness the majority can get after receiving an education,
such as how many and whether students can serve the economic and bureaucratic
aims of the society at large.
And the disadvantaged would be regarded as those
with low utility, focusing merely on the persons psychological state of happiness and
disregarding his/her socio-economic status (such as ones poverty, gender, ethnicity,
rural location).
As long as one has a more cheerful temperament, the fact that a
person comes from rural, poor areas, with illiterate parents plays no part in the
welfarist understanding of equity.
Utilitarianism is most heavily criticized in terms of its focus on happiness and its
inadequacy in dealing with the need for freedom.
John Rawls (1971), for example,
criticized the aggregation of individual welfare for ignoring how the sum of utilities is
distributed amongst individuals, for achieving a greater sum of utilities shared by
many at the expense of violating the liberty of a few, or generally, for extending to
society the principle of choice for one man (p. 27).
Amartya Sen, who focuses on a
persons relationship with ones resources, also criticized the utilitarians narrow view
of a person as being indifferent to the persons identity, interest, ideals, aspirations,
39
desires, aims, etc. by reducing them to a homogenous aggregate of utilities (Sen and
Williams 1983), and for its lack of parity between pleasures gained from different
sources, even from others pain (Sen 1980).
First, freedom is concerned with what
one can do, and not just what one does do.
Second, freedom is concerned with what
one can do, and not just with what utility that doing leads to. (Sen 1984: 318)
3.3.2
Resource-based approaches
While the utility-based approach focuses on an individuals level of happiness as

the basis of evaluating justice, the resource-based, or egalitarian, approaches focus on
the types and quantity of goods held by an individual.
John Rawls Primary Goods
approach, in particular, specifies a list of social primary goods , including basic

liberties, power and income, which are things it is rational to want whatever else one
wants (1971: 223).
Rawls (2001) points out that the list is generated by considering
the conditions and resources one would need for the development and exercise of the
capacity for a conception of the good and the capacity for a sense of justice.
Applying Rawls primary goods approach to education would mean that the
value of education is judged not in terms of the outcomes it produces, but in terms of
distributing the same input of educational resources to all in the belief that it is fairest
(Brighouse and Unterhalter 2010: 197).
And the disadvantaged would be seen as
someone who is given comparatively fewer school resources, regardless of ones

socio-economic status and other characteristics.
Amy Gutmann (1980), proposes
that education should be treated as a primary good provided for children because
children need to be subject to some paternalistic authority in order to meet their
developmental interest.
Amartya Sen (1980), as a major critic of Rawls primary goods approach,
40
described the approach as fetishist for viewing advantage as embodied in the

primary goods rather than in the persons capability to use the goods or what the
goods do to the people (ibid., p. 216).
Sen criticizes that the approach takes little
note of the diversity of human beings and is indifferent to the different needs
particularly due to ones socio-economic, physical disadvantages or the hard cases,
such as disabilities, special health needs, physical or mental defects, climatic
conditions, location, work conditions, temperament and even body size (affecting
food and clothing requirements).
The possibility for a person to pursue his/her life
plan does not depend on availability of primary goods alone, but to what extent he/she
can use these goods in a meaningful way.
3.3.3
The capability approach
Instead of an individuals subjective level of happiness or the primary goods as

basis of judging justice, the Capabilities approach proposed by Amartya Sen focuses
on the persons freedom ones capabilities to achieve ones functionings to
choose a life one has reason to value (1999: 74).
The approach values positive
freedom, which is the possibilities open to a person, as opposed to negative freedom,

which is concerned with removing the constraints on ones action.
It focuses on not
only of the primary goods the persons respectively hold, but also of the relevant
personal characteristics that govern the conversion of primary goods into the persons
ability to promote her ends. (Sen 1999: 74) Central to his approach is the concept
of functionings, which
reflects the various things a person may value doing or being. The valued
functionings may vary from elementary ones, such as being adequately
nourished and being free from avoidable disease, to very complex activities or
41
personal states, such as being able to take part in the life of the community and
having self-respect.
A persons capability refers to the alternative
combinations of functionings that are feasible for her to achieve.
(ibid., p.75).
A distinct feature of the capability approach is that it not only redistributes

resources and opportunities according to a conception of justice, it also recognizes the
diversity of individuals.
The strength of the approach, as Unterhalter and Walker
(2007) points out, is that it enables one to choose his/her own valued way of living by
recognizing the diversity of capabilities:
It argues for each and every person having the prospect of a good life, that they
have reason to value, buy enabling each person to make genuine choices among
alternatives of similar worth, and to be able to act on those choices.
Moreover it does not prescribe one version of the good life but allows for
plurality in choosing lives we have reason to value. The approach emphasizes
the importance of capability over functioning not a single idea of human
flourishing, but a range of possibilities and a concern with facilitating valuable
choices.
(p.251)
The approach seems to be the most prominently received theory of well-being

amongst policymakers as it has been operationalized both by the United Nations in
the annual (global) Human Development Reports (UNDP 1990-2010) and by a
number of local and national governments.
criticism.
The capability approach is not without
Pogge (2010) argues forcefully that the capabilities approach, by
identifying some capability sets as more valuable than others, stigmatizes those with
the less valued capabilities.
The approach is also under-specific that would require a
specification of an index of capabilities in application (see Brighouse and Unterhalter

2010).
42
Chapter 4
This chapter explains the choice of the ethnographic approach in bringing out the
childs perspective missing in the previous studies, the formulation and reformulation
of research focus and terminology, and the choice of field locations with regards to
the definition of poor, rural China, the choice of the informants with regards to
access and rapport building.
Identifying the rationale and assumptions underlying
the research design is crucial because they set the foundation on which the analysis in
the following chapters is grounded.
4.1
The choice of ethnographic methodology
The ethnographic methodology is chosen as I have mentioned in the research

aims in Chapter 1.2 to understand the individual factors (e.g., the perceptions of
the dropouts and their parents about the aims of schooling, future work, living in rural
as opposed to urban areas, the life to which they aspire in the future) and the
structural factors (e.g., the socio-economic status of the dropouts, their illiterate
parents lack of formal schooling and their perceptions and beliefs about schooling,
the students individual factors, the quality of school resources, equity in the
distribution of resources), both of which affect the dropout decisions that students are
pushed into making and choose to make.
School dropouts are one of the most marginalized and disadvantaged groups in
any society as they struggle to live, often in impoverished settings, outside the formal
43
system of education and work.
They are also an elusive group in the labour market
shifting from job to job and working illegally in the informal sectors in the city.
Yet,
in China, we hear very little about their life, educational needs, family background,
perceptions and aspirations.
When we do, mostly and briefly in the literature on
school dropouts, they are mainly portrayed as cha sheng (bad students) who drop out
of school because they are tired of studying, socially deviant and have poor
academic performance.
Their voices are more or less silenced by the Chinese
government officials, local education administrators, international labour and child

rights
watchdog
activists
who
are
predominantly
preoccupied
with
implementation of the policies of universal education and international laws.
the
Other
than often being portrayed as bad students or socially deviant, the children need to
be given a voice.
The ethnographic approach is a useful method to understand the individual
factors, for example, the perceptions of the dropouts and their parents about the aims
of schooling, their perceptions towards rural life, their aspirations towards future work,
etc., which will affect the choices students make about school access.
The
ethnographic approach, as a practice, adopts the method of participant observation in

studying peoples behaviour in natural settings or in the field, with relatively
informal and unstructured conversations, focused on a single or small number of cases,
and involved with the interpretation of meanings (Hammersley 1990: 1-2).
When it
comes to understanding its nature as a methodology, few have yet agreed on a single,
standard characterization, given its transformation when applied in various academic
disciplines over the years (see, for example, Atkinson et al. 2001).
Conventional
ethnography, with its origin in Western anthropology, is characterized by a

commitment to naturalism, aimed at describing or capturing human behaviour in
natural settings from the insiders perspective, rather than artificial experimental
44
settings.
In the words of Malinowski (1922), regarded as the pioneer of modern
Western anthropology, the primary goal of an ethnographer is to grasp the natives

point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world (p. 25).
Conventional ethnography is also characterized as thick description, with an
interpretative orientation to understand how people interpret and construct their
meanings in their context (Geertz 1973: Ch. 1). It is also a process of exploring and
refining ones a priori assumptions, discovering new insights and developing
sensitizing concepts and theories about the social phenomenon under study (Glaser
and Strauss 1967).
With a growing interest in the rhetoric of language use,
advocates of critical ethnography, influenced mainly by the Critical Theory7, view

ethnographic writings as producing rather than merely representing or discovering a
phenomenon (see, for example, Clifford and Marcus 1986, van Maanen 1988,
Atkinson 1992).
They are politically motivated, concerned with overcoming social
oppression, human emancipation and bringing about change of unjust practices rather
than simply understanding the world (Gewirtz and Cribb 2006).
In educational
studies, particularly in the studies of comparative education, ethnography is advocated

as the central methodology to understand schools as institutions in a particular context
and teachers or students as actors in practising culture within a particular context (see
Masemann 1976, 1982, 1986, 2003; Liu, Ross and Kelly 2000).
In view of the
problems with these various characterizations of ethnography, Hammersley and

Atkinson (2007) reject both a simple description of the world and political action as
the primary goal of ethnography and identify reflectivity as the distinct character of
ethnographic research or any empirically sound social research.
It is to insist that as researchers their primary goal must always be to produce
More on Critical Theory, see Chapter 3.2.2

45
knowledge, and that they should try to minimize any distortion of their findings
by their political convictions or practical interests. Nor are we suggesting that
researchers should be unconcerned about the effects of their work on the world.
The point is that acknowledging the reflexivity of research does not imply that it
must be primarily directed towards changing (or for that matter preserving) the
world in some way or other.
(Hammersley and Atkinson 2007: 18)
While the debates in defining ethnography are outside the scope of this study, it is
important to note that the ethnographic approach, as I have just mentioned, is marked
by its interpretative, discovery, political and reflective characteristics.
This means
that, in this study, as I describe the school dropouts situation in China, I also give
voice to the children and discover insights about school access in rural China.
Apart from ferreting out the students feelings and thoughts, the ethnographic
method is also useful for discovering the structural conditions.
The famous
Chinese anthropologist Fei Xiao-tong (1992 [1947], 1949) used the ethnographic
method to explore the materialist conditions of the rural Chinese society, such as what
he calls the chaxu geju (the differential model of association) to describe
the unique interpersonal relationship in rural China, as opposed to the Western
societies.
He also described the social changes Chinese villages experience in the
transition from rural-based economy to an increasingly urban economy.
In this study,
the ethnographic method is used to understand the material conditions of school

access, such as the socio-economic conditions of the family, their parents literacy
practices and home education practices, the type of subjects in the curriculum, the
definition of good student as perceived by the school, teachers qualifications, etc. in
relation to the choices the dropouts and their parents make about school access.
To be precise in terms of terminology, this research is an ethnographic research
sans ethnography (Wolcott 1984) which seeks to describe and analyze the problem of
46
school dropout from the native perspectives without being preoccupied with the
researchers theoretical bias.
But, given the limited time spent in the field, it is not
an ethnography which requires the researcher to live the life of the researched and
make observations as a participant.
4.2 Field location
4.2.1
Assumptions of poor, rural China
To operationalize the meaning of rural and poor in the data collection process,
I view a rural field site in China as one located in the two lowest levels of
administration8 in China, namely the levels of townships (xiang) or towns (zhen)9
and villages (cun), and a poor field site in China as one with the per capita income
under the poverty line.
I follow the Chinese government in conceptualizing the rural in terms of the
administrative levels.
The National Bureau of Statistics of China, for example,
defines rural population as those not residing in the jurisdiction of a city and in the
county town (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2001-2010).
The administration
of rural education adopts a similar concept, that schools and teaching sites at the
township / town and village levels are considered as constituting the rural education
(nongcun jiaoyu) system administered by the county-level education bureau situated
in the county town.
But the official definition of rural is increasingly problematic
because it differs from the conventional use of the term.

8
Currently in China, there are five levels of administration, in ascending order, village (cun), township
(xiang) /town (zhen), county (xian), city (shi) / prefecture (zhou), province (sheng).
9
A township is a rural area which is smaller, less populous and more remote than a town. It can
become a town if they are the seat of a state authority at the county level; has less than 20,000
inhabitants, but at least 2,000 nonagrarian inhabitants; or has more than 20,000 inhabitants, with at
least 10 percent belonging to the nonagrarian population in the seat of the township administration.
47
Conventionally, what is rural is associated with xiangxia (countryside) or

tianyuan (the fields) in terms of an environment with nature, nongcun (village) as a
unit of government administration, nongmin (farmer) as someone engaged in
economic activities such as farming or agriculture related activities, nongmin
(agrarian inhabitant) as ones political identity assigned by, for example, the
household registration system in China.
It has also been used as a cultural concept.
Chinas renowned anthropologist Fei Xiaotong was one of the pioneers to do so.
He
argued that the Chinese, despite the Western influences in the 20th century, are
fundamentally rural or xiangtu (related to the soil) in character, with certain unique
socio-cultural characteristics marked by the relationship between the people and the
soil literally and figuratively (Fei 1992 [1947], Fei 1949).
But, since the Opening Up reform in 1978, many villages are under the process
of urbanization and many of the rural qualities conventionally associated with the
Chinese villages or lower levels of administration have disappeared.
urbanization in different rural areas across the country also differs.
The speed of
While villages in
the inner parts of China still retain many rural characteristics, many villages in the
more developed south-eastern coastal areas have been urbanized where farmers have
abandoned their farmland to take up salaried jobs or to open businesses in the city and
scenes of nature are replaced by crowded, tall cement buildings (Li 2002).
Similarly, I follow the Chinese government in conceptualizing poverty in terms
of economic indicators.
In China, the poverty line, which is currently set at an
annual income of 1,500 yuan, is drawn mainly in terms of the peoples income and
expenditure.
In 1986 and 1994, China designated respectively 331 and 592 counties
as national level poverty counties (guojia ji pinkun xian) based on their annual
average per capita income.
Viewing poverty in terms of economic indicators is
common in international development practice.

48
The World Banks poverty line is set
at US$1.25 per day (or 2,988 yuan per year).
And the United Nations principal
Millennium Development Goal being the main driver of contemporary development

discourse uses US$1 a day (or 2,390 yuan per year) in measuring poverty.
The
preference of using economic indicators in measuring poverty is believed to be that

they are simple, direct, measurable and unambiguous (Sumner 2007: 10).
But this way of conceptualizing poverty only addresses its economic dimension,
overlooking
its
many
other
non-economic
dimensions---which
have
been
conceptualized in terms of the basic needs such as education, gender equality,

health, shelter, water, sanitation (Seers 1969), capabilities (Sen 1988), risk,
vulnerability, participation, voice (Narayan et al. 2000), and other social rights.
Although I adopt a one-dimensional view of the rural and the poor in the
process of data collection, it is crucial in the stage of data analysis to reflect critically
upon the data collected in terms of their other various meanings10.
What definitions of rural and poor have been used?
Who is omitted?
data collection?
One may ask:
How are the data collected?
Do the data collected match with the assumptions built into the
Answers to these questions may yield critical insights about the
assumptions on what is rural and poor built into Chinas rural education system.
4.2.2
The choice of Guangdong and Yunnan
Multiple field sites representative of poor, rural China have been chosen in this
study to consolidate and deepen the understanding of the relationship between school
dropout and schooling in poor, rural China.
As Hammersley (1991: 88-90) points
out, the choice of multiple cases of the same type of phenomenon can increase the
representativeness of research findings to some wider population.
10
The multi-dimensional meaning of poverty will be discussed in Chapter 10.1.

49
Multiple sites also
allow the researcher to discover local variations of the same phenomenon (Heimer
2006).
In this study, the situation of school dropout varies from region to region,
because of different degrees of poverty and rural development.
The information
collected in the multiple sites can also complement each other, when the information
is missing or incomplete in one site perhaps due to the informants reluctance to share
information, recall difficulties, and other logistic reasons (Heimer 2006: 63).
Since
many of the school dropouts are also child workers, I made a separate visit during the
Chinese New Year holidays in one of the sites to interview them when they returned
home from work.
And because of time constraints, two field locations were chosen.
At the time of organizing the fieldwork, I had access to a poor, rural site in
Henan, Guangdong and Yunnan provinces.
My choice was based on a preliminary
comparison of the degree of economic and rural development in the region, as

informed by the rural per capita net income, local landscape and accessibility.
The
Henan site was discarded because it resembles the Guangdong site in terms of its
economic, geographical and demographic characteristics (see Table 4.1).
50
Table 4.1 A preliminary comparison amongst the options of field site in poor, rural
China
Fieldsites
Guangdong
Yunnan
Rural per capita

net income (in
yuan)
At
provincial
level
At county
(A) level
At
town
(B1) level
At village
(C1) level
At
provincial
level
At county
(X) level
At township
(Y1) level
At village
(Z1) level
At
provincial
level
At
the
county
level
At the town
level
At
the
village level
Henan
6399.79 (ranking
th
6 nationally)
Demographic
features within
the
selected
town/township
Inhabited mainly
by Hakka (Han
Chinese)
3838
3209
2474
3102.6 (ranking
th
28 nationally)
2004 (regarded
as one of the
countrys
592
poorest counties)
1452
Inhabited mainly
by ethnic minority
(75.6%, mostly Yi
minority) and Han
Chinese
Geographical
features within the
selected
town/township
In southern coastal
China
with
a
generally
flat
landscape
of
between 75 and
803 m in altitude,
but villages are
situated at around
400 m
In
landlocked,
southwestern China
with a mountainous
landscape between
1146m and 2798m
high.
1680
4454.24 (ranking
th
17 nationally)
Inhabited mainly
by Han Chinese
3259
In central China
with
a
flat
landscape between
62 and 102 m high
4042
unavailable
(Source: local government statistics from year 2008)
The locations in Guangdong and Yunnan were chosen because, given their
differences in being a poor, rural site in China, they can together provide accounts of
a range of variations and complexity about school dropout and school quality in rural
China.
The location names are coded by English letters A, B, C for the Guangdong
sites and X, Y, Z for the Yunnan sites to indicate different administrative levels,
followed by a number to indicate different locations of the same administrative level
(see Table 4.2).
51
Table 4.2
List of field location names
Guangdong site
Codes
Yunnan site
Codes
County Town
County Town
Town 1
B1
Township 1
Y1
Town 2
B2
Township 2
Y2
Village 1
C1
Village 1
Z1
Village 2
C2
Village 2
Z2
Village 3
C3
Village 3
Z3
Village 4
Z4
Map 4.1
Field site in Heyuan, Guangdong (inset: Guangdong in China)
The Heyuan Municipality (the orange region in Map 4.1) is situated in

Northeastern Guangdong, bordering Jiangxi province.
My field sites (Towns B1, B2,
Villages C1, C2, C3) are in a county (County A)---one of Guangdongs 28 poorest
52
counties---in the Heyuan Municipality.
The county seat of County A is about 350
km away, or about 4 hours on one bus ride, from the provincial capital Guangzhou
city.
And the travel from Town B1 to the county seat takes about an hour on the
mini bus.
Its Hakka inhabitants, despite being ethnically Han Chinese, speak a
dialect which is different from Putonghua, the official Chinese language.

has a hilly landscape with an altitude between 300 to 800 m.
The region
The area is one of the
poorest and most remote places within Guangdong, but one of the least poor rural
places when compared nationally.
With a rural per capita net income at 6399.79
yuan/year, Guangdong province ranks 6th out of 31 provinces.
Located in the
southeastern coast of China with proximity to Hong Kong and Taiwan, Guangdong
province is geographically privileged to benefit from the economic and cultural
exchanges with the outside world.
Historically, Guangdong was also privileged to
serve as the testing ground of Deng Xiaopings Opening Up market reforms

introduced in 1978.
Guangdong thus became one of the first to experience
socio-economic changes such as the trend of dagong, or farmers leaving their farms
for work in the city, in the late 1980s.
All things considered, my Guangdong site
represents one of the least poor and least rural places in China.
Being at the
vanguard of market reforms that were taking place in China especially since 1978, the
Guangdong site may help predict the changes that may take place in other poor, rural
places in China during the countrys transition from a subsistence agricultural to a
market-oriented economy.
53
Map 4.2
Field site in Dali, Yunnan (inset: Yunnan in China)
My field site in Yunnan province offers a very different context.
Compared
with other provinces, Yunnan ranks 28th (out of 31 provinces) with a 3102.6 yuan/year
rural per capita income and is considered one of the poorest in the country.
The Dali
Bai Autonomous Prefecture (the yellow region in Map 3.2) is situated in Western
Yunnan.
In the Dali prefecture, my field sites (Townships Y1, Y2, Villages Z1, Z2,
Z3, Z4) are in an autonomous county (County X), predominated by the Yi ethnic
minority and is designated as one of Chinas 592 national level poverty counties.
The county seat of County X is about 400 km away, or about 5.5 hours on two bus
transfers, from the provincial capital Kunming.
54
And Township Y1 is about 40 to
50km away, or 3 to 4 hours on a mini bus ride, from the county seat.
The Yi ethnic minority (74.2%), with distinct language and culture, predominates
over Han Chinese (24.4%) and other minorities (1.4%).
Situated in the landlocked
southwestern China and with a mountainous landscape of between 1146m and 2798m
in altitude, the area is literally blocked off the outside world.
Public transport
between the county town and the township, running only a few times a day, takes
about 3 hours on a dangerous (and sometimes triply overloaded) ride along the narrow
and winding mountain roads.
The mountainous landscape, coupled with a dry
climate, makes farming more difficult than at the Guangdong site.
The trend of
dagong only began around 2004, at least 10 years lagging behind my Guangdong site.
And those who went dagong are mainly young people who would also not travel
further than the county town to find work.
For the people of Township Y1,
according to government statistics in 2007, only 986 (5.7%) of the 17,381 people have
left for work outside the county.
Farming remains the main means of making a
living, especially for parents with school-age children.
Considering all these aspects,
my Yunnan site represents one of the poorest and most rural places in China.
4.3 Informants
4.3.1
Issue specific to gaining research access in China: Guanxi
Heimer and Thogersen (2006) argue that the problems encountered in doing
fieldwork in China are not necessarily unique:
Our point of departure is that although fieldwork in the PRC is subject to many
political restrictions the fundamental issues are universal. Compromises always
have to be made between methodological rules and the actual reality in the
55
field whether carrying out a local community study in Sweden or writing an

ethnography on religious rituals in Zimbabwe and the choices we make in the
process always need to be highlighted and discussed.
(p. 3-4)
But, my experience of trying to gain field research access on a sensitive issue has
proven that there are issues unique to doing fieldwork in China and that any
successful fieldwork in China has to grasp that key.
It is true that in any socio-economic, cultural context, the fundamental issue of
gaining access, or making entry, to the field site is to get the approval from the
gatekeeper---the person or the organization such as a government department that
has the power to open up or block off access or is considered to have the authority to
grant or refuse access (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007: 50).
Some fieldworkers in
China have established a formal and official relationship with the gatekeeper by
joining officially arranged research programs organized by their institute or by
collaborating with local Chinese researchers (Chen 1996, Kipnis 1997, Cheng 2000b,
Postiglione 2000, Hansen 2006).
But the freedom of research in the field and even
the quality of data may be undermined by a lack of time in interacting with the field
participants, being provided with a hand-picked sample for study (Chen 1996), or
being accompanied to interviews where interviewees are coached to give a model
answer (Postiglione 2000).
Others received no prior approval from the gatekeeper
and conducted covert or undercover research in the field (Bu 2006, Svensson 2006).
But they had to face the uncertainty of finding informants, the risk of research
interruption by the authorities in the field, not to mention the problems with ethics
regarding the informants informed consent (de Laine 2000: 34).
To prevent the
problems encountered with officially arranged research or covert research, the best
way to gain research access in China is perhaps by establishing personal connections
56
(or guanxi) with gatekeepers (Yang 2002, Ako 2003, Cheng 2009).
I tried to go the official way by contacting a development worker in Ningxia
province who has connections with the local education officials.
But my research
application was turned down because I was only a research student with no
organization backup.
Having worked as a journalist in the past, I tried to get referral
contacts of child workers from former colleagues and labour organization activists
and learn how they did their child labour investigations.
They did not keep in
contact with any of the child workers, and they usually waited outside the factory
during the lunch break and went up to those who might look like a child worker.
Many of interviewees were frightened and the interviews were brief with no more
than 20 minutes.
Some journalists even worked as an undercover worker in the
factory for a couple of weeks.
But given the sensitivity of the topic, the child
workers is put at a high risk of getting fired.
The journalists way of doing
investigations poses many questions concerning the issue of ethics and the quality of
data, which would not have been acceptable for the rigor of academic research.
In
view of the difficulty in obtaining data and the sensitivity of the topic in the
workplaces, I decided to find child workers in their home villages which are also
where they drop out of school.
Having also formerly taught English at a teachers
college in Henan province, I turned to some of my former students, some of whom

were secondary school teachers in rural areas today, to ask for their school principals
permission for school visits and interviews.
But I was turned away, as they said I
needed the approval from the local education bureau.
With the help of another
former student, I got the approval from a secondary school principal in Henan
province for me to teach English as a volunteer for one semester, with hopes of
conducting covert research in the villages during my free time.
I could have gone
without any official approval if I had been interviewing only child workers and their
57
parents in the villages.
But since my study also looks at the rural school system
which requires formal school visits and interviews with school principals and teachers,
formal approval from the gatekeeper, namely the county education bureau, is
necessary.
Eventually, I turned to my father who, given his 15-year experience with raising
funds for school buildings in poor, rural China, has contacts with local senior rank
education bureau officials in some poor, rural locations in Guangdong and Yunnan.
The deputy chief of the county education bureau in my Guangdong site and a former
chief of the county education bureau in my Yunnan site became my gatekeepers in
this research.
Given their authority in the school system, they are my school
gatekeepers.
I sent them my research plan, where the word drop out was erased
by one of them saying it is a sensitive word.
Nevertheless the approval was quickly
offered and a formal approval letter was issued from the education bureau.
They
also referred contacts such as school principals and local education officials who
became key informants for my study on rural school quality in the area.
Having
made my entry into the school system, I also needed to make another entry to the
villages where I could find child workers and their families for interviews.
With the
help of school principals, I found teachers or individuals who are respectable

members of my sample villages.
They act as village gatekeepers because their
company on my visits or interviews in the village was crucial for me to gain entry into
the village, a society rather closed off to strangers.
Walking alone into a village as a
complete stranger, I had felt unwelcome, even with rocks literally thrown at me, as I
have experienced on two occasions.
But, gaining research access in China is not as simple as getting the word of
approval from the gatekeeper, as it is often assumed in doing research in the Western
society.
It requires both the fieldworker and the gatekeepers to maintain, or

58
effectively playing what Hwang (1987) identifies as the Chinese game of power
involving mianzi (face) and renqing (favour).
In China, or perhaps in any
Confucian culture, building guanxi with the right person, using the appropriate
amount and type of material (or financial) investment is an art on its own that can help
one gain success in life in the society.
Some teachers have even told me the key for
them to get a job promotion or to be allocated to work in an urban school is not their
actual work performance but what their superior thinks about them, as the popular
saying goes: whom you know matters more than what you do (zuoshi buru zuoren).
My father said the school gatekeepers were willing to help arrange my research was,
in fact, to give him mianzi (face).
To play this game, I needed to follow the
etiquette of reciprocity (li shang wang lai) or the rule that if one gives you a peach,
you should requite his favour with a plum (tou zhi yi tao , bao zhi yi li).
I spent
over a few thousand yuan on red packets and gifts like cigarettes and delicacies from
Hong Kong.
A couple of times I was even requested to give a certain amount to
return the favour.
Still, in several occasions, I felt, given some negative response,
that the gift or the monetary sum was not as big as expected and that I had made
them and myself lose face.
4.3.2
The choice of informants
I have two groups of informants to help me understand the child worker (in terms
of the childs character, family background, school performance, life at home in the
village), and the quality of education received by the child.
I began my search for
child workers, school dropouts, their parents or grandparents, buddies, teachers and
others who would help me understand the problem of child work and the reason why
they dropped out.
Then, I looked for the childs former school principals, school

59
administrators, local education bureau officials, teachers and others who would help
me understand the education quality the children received.
I found the child workers or potential child workers by first visiting the junior
secondary schools (the only one in the township or town) for a list of students who
have most recently dropped out.
This strategy is based on my prior readings that
there are more dropouts from junior secondary schools than from primary schools.
Then I chose two from the list, based on whether the child was home to interview,
whether his/her home village was safe to access and whether the parents agreed to
interview.
At my Yunnan site, almost all the students on the dropout list were still
home and available for a face-to-face interview.
At my Guangdong site, all the four
students on the dropout list had already left home for work, except one boy who was
still at home.
But his father turned down my application, via one of my gatekeepers.
He said my visit would not help his son get back to school and might even give him
pressure, and that dropping out is not something to be proud of.
So another visit to
the Guangdong site was made over the Chinese New Year holidays in the following
year to meet the child workers upon their return home over the holidays.
Another strategy I used to find child workers was to follow the guanxi
(connections), or word of mouth, of students and villagers.
Going through guanxi
is again the best way to gain access especially for a sensitive topic like school dropout.
In this way, I discovered some that were not on the school dropout list. And I have
also found child workers from the parents generation, adding new comparative
insights into the problem of child work across different generations.
The process of
finding child workers was like what Fetterman (1998: 2) said about ethnographic
work, involving serendipity, creativity, being in the right place at the right or wrong
time, much hard work, and old-fashioned luck.
60
Following these two strategies, I have found at least11 25 school dropouts from
the two sites, of which six are also child workers who have entered work prematurely
because they have dropped out of the nine-year compulsory education system.
These six cases have been categorized in association with four major factors of school
dropout or child work, each revealing a commonly perceived cause about school
dropout as well as a particular aspect with school quality in poor, rural China (see
Appendix I).
A total of 112 informants have been interviewed in the Guangdong and
Yunnan sites to understand these four factors of school dropout (see Appendix II for a
list of the informants identities and locations of the interviews).
But, looking for child workers was a challenge, even though I have resorted to
finding them at home in the villages rather than at their work place.
One of the
challenges was that many of the child workers, after dropping out of school in the
village, had already left for the urban areas to work when I got there.
Another
challenge was due to a clash of understanding between me as the researcher and the
locals (especially my gatekeepers) over what social research is.
Their perception of
doing social research is perhaps influenced by the frequent top-down diaocha

(investigations) from local officials, which is often a formality with no direct contact
with the villagers to understand their life (Hansen 2006).
Such a conflict of beliefs
can be seen over a discussion with one of my village gatekeepers, Teacher Zeng, over
the need to interview the child workers face-to-face.
Even though you go find him [the child worker] it would be useless [for your
understanding of the situation] last time you already talked to his parents, and they
already told you why he dropped out.
Me:
But I wanted to understand what the child thinks.
Its actually very simple.
He just couldnt perform well at school.
11
Havent I already
The indeterminacy of the number of dropout cases is due to the problem of defining dropping out,
which will be discussed in Data Analysis, Chapter 5.
61
told you last time?
Those with knowledge dont necessarily make much money, but
those without knowledge can still make a lot of money.
(C1-Teacher Zeng, G10/fieldnotes)
I also had to negotiate with my gatekeepers over our different concerns.
My
primary gatekeepers, who are senior government officials, were worried about my
safety travelling alone and my ability to adapt to the living conditions in the villages.
They first arranged my stay with a teacher in a modern apartment in town and wanted
to even take a couple of days off work to accompany me to interviews in the villages.
My concern was to mingle with the locals in the villages to understand village life and
to collect data that could reflect their natural thoughts, rather than going to the village
on a pre-arranged trip with a government official and receiving formal banquets
organized by the locals.
My gatekeepers were often surprised, especially given the
fact that I am a girl from developed Hong Kong, when I insisted on establishing
face-to-face contact with the children, living in the village for an extended period of
time, and even staying at a farmers home instead of the teachers apartment.
It took
much persuasion and persistence to follow my research as planned.
4.3.3
The researchers identities
To act like an insider in the rural areas, to me, basically means transforming
oneself from a polite city girl to a strong, tough person with a particular way of
speaking, particular way of holding oneself, wearing particular clothes, etc..
62
From
the words I used to the way I behaved, I tried to imitate them and be like just one of
them.
I imitated their dialect, picked up some local phrases, talked and laughed
loudly, put on plain-coloured clothes; did not fuss when my shoes were covered in
mud or when there was no shower for a couple of weeks, and ate whatever the locals
eagerly put in my rice bowl12, etc..
But there were still many noticeable differences,
such as the fact that I wore glasses and always carried a backpack, which made me
stand out in the villages.
Nonetheless, I was well received in the villages, which I
think was not difficult to do especially with the hospitable rural people in the Chinese
villages.
To the suprirse of the locals, given their assumptions about a visitor from a
developed city like Hong Kong, I adapted very well into life in the villages I visited.
The challenge was, however, to build rapport with the school dropouts who are
mostly adolescent boys who enjoy hanging out late at night eating snacks, drinking
and smoking a contrast to my image as a non-smoking woman with glasses.
I tried
to establish rapport with them by joining their snooker games after school,
exchanging written messages with them during class, taking them to meals and taking
leisure strolls with them around town.
Although I tried to make them see me as a
friend, most of them saw me as a teacher and became shy and reserved especially
during the first contact.
out to lunch helped.
Staying with some of the dropouts families and taking them
Some boys opened up to me in the subsequent contacts, but our
contacts were temporary and were initiated by me.

As a female Chinese research student from Hong Kong, I saw my
socio-economic background an asset in building rapport in formal occasions with the
local government officials and school principals.
12
When interacting with school
At each meal I was offered at least two, and sometimes three, bowls of rice a huge contrast to the
half bowl of rice I was used to have at home in Hong Kong. Contrary to what many locals thought
about life in the rural areas, I actually ate too well and ended up gaining at least 5 kg living in the
villages. It was partly due to the fact that I was a guest and the locals were very hospitable in always
having my bowl filled with food, and that I did not take part in any manual farmwork as the locals.
63
teachers and principals, I emphasized my past experience of having worked as an

English teacher in mainland China.
Although I had been several times
embarrassingly misidentified as a jiaoshou (professor), setting a professional image

was crucial to gain the trust of others in formal settings.
Building guanxi in the
presence of food and alcohol or banqueting, as Kipnis (1997: 53) points out, and
Mahjong games are also useful.
But banqueting can also be a mere ritual especially
when the field participant is under the pressure of his/her superior.
I was taken
aback when a teacher, who was at first very friendly while hosting a banquet for me
and his superior, became completely distant when I approached him in another
occasion without the presence of his superior.
He was sceptical about me, checked
my research approval letter issued by the education bureau, queried if I was a

journalist, refused my request for accommodation and my request to observe his class.
My identity as an ignorant outsider or stranger was also strategic for me when
probing into sensitive or personal topics, such as ones problems with family members,
and when asking fundamental or nave questions, such as their purposes of going to
school, which would have been impossible if I were seen as an insider.
Presenting
myself as an outsider made my informants feel I would not judge them.
They were
thus more open to reveal and discuss private feelings, and more patient in answering
questions that probe into their fundamental beliefs and assumptions which were often
taken for granted.
Establishing close rapport with informants is crucial to access insider
information and perspectives which informants would not have divulged had I been
seen as a stranger.
expectations.
But, getting personal with informants had invited false
In the village everywhere I went I was greeted with a smile, a nod or
even a random invitation to their house for tea.
As I found out later, in my
Guangdong site, rumour had it that I was the daughter of the Hong Kong
64
philanthropist who built the new primary school building; and in my Yunnan site,
rumour had it that I was the daughter of a wealthy Hong Kong boss who came to give
money to the poor people.
Theres nothing worth seeing here, why would anybody have come to this
place? one Yunnan villager asked, adding that the few outsiders who had previously
travelled to the village were only there to donate money to help children go to school.
While my intention of establishing rapport with the locals was due to my
research interest, my informants seemed to have a different set of motives in being
friendly with me.
According to the villager who served as my guide in the village,
many people asked him to take me to visit their homes; some were not happy at the
fact that I did not visit their place and wondered if I had offered money to the homes I
visited.
Even the village school principal asked me to connect him with a
philanthropist in Hong Kong because the pre-school he runs privately needed 100,000
yuan to renovate its wooden school building into a modern building made of
concrete with a canteen, playground and other school facilities.
One villager even
asked me if I personally knew the Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing.
The myth about
my being rich was dispelled by a little girl who made careful observation about me:
In her left pocket she had only 5 yuan and the other pocket she only had 1 yuan.
She had no money, the young girl told her mother.
Whatever the intentions, expectations and perceptions they had towards me, the
locals were all very hospitable.
My hosts in all the villages I had stayed gave me the
best they have: their best blanket, their best bed, the best meals.
At one of the
random invitation for a home visit, the 90-year-old host climbed up the roof to gather
dried walnuts for me to take home, apologizing to me that those were the best thing
she had.
By the time I left the field, I had in my Yunnan site acquired an older sister
and a younger sister, and in my Guangdong site a Hakka god father and mother, 5 god
65
siblings or 19 god children and god grand children, 2 water buffaloes, 22 chickens and
some of their farmland.
I had even been requested to be someones girlfriend.
Their hospitality made me feel obliged to reciprocate, to keep in touch and to even
provide (financial) help when they needed it after leaving the field, so as not to make
them feel I had exploited their feelings.
A year later today, we still exchange
handwritten letters and phone calls.

There were times I felt there were no differences between me and the locals;
there were also times I felt I indeed come from a very different culture perhaps a
culture of the modern, urban and developed society.
Questions concerning salary
and other monetary issues from my informants were unavoidable.

woman once asked me how much my camera cost.
I remember a
Although I gave a much lower
price, it was still to my great distress much higher than what she made in a month.
Although I am not rich at all at home, I was in a much more privileged position in the
field compared to my rural informants both in terms of my economic and education
background.
4.3.4
The researchers baggage
Being a critical ethnographer also means for one to be aware and reflect upon
ones own theoretical baggage, bias and assumptions in the process of the
ethnographic research.
It is for this reason that doing ethnographic research can
often be a life transforming experience for the researcher, pushing one to question
ones beliefs, values and habits one has always taken for granted.
As Gibson (1986:
2) describes the discomfort with applying Critical Theory:

If you take [the theory] seriously, it wont make you popular or easy to live
66
with because it radically questions taken-for-granted assumptions and familiar

beliefs, and challenges many conventional practices, ideas and ideals.
As an ethnographic researcher, the assumptions, habits and theoretical baggage I was

pushed to reflect upon were very much related to the privileged socio-economic status
I was born into (comparatively speaking, especially due to my education) and the
urban, modern habits and values I was raised into and have always taken for granted
in a life in Hong Kong.
I would assume that other researchers born and raised in the
big city would also experience a similar reflective journey.
For me, the reflective
exercise was particularly emotionally straining when I returned from the field, that
even today I am still overcome by a strong sense of guilt and shame about my
material possessions, excesses and waste in the modern life in the city.
I have a
tendency to retreat from the modern comforts and began to romanticize about rural
life, as I wrote in my field notes upon my return:
I feel ashamed of writing about poverty and social injustice sitting in my comfortable,
air-conditioned room.
I am shocked and disgusted to see so many clothes I own in my
wardrobe, the fact that people take it for granted to leave their lights on even though they
are not using them, waste food in the canteens and restaurants, and throw things away
without thinking twice how privileged they are to access the resources compared to many
others in the less-privileged positions
I miss the simplicity of rural life: the taste of
firewood in the drinking water, the sound of cackling hens early in the morning, cooking
fresh vegetables directly picked from the farm, and the soothing sound of pigs snoring
beneath the house before going to sleep at night.
While my socio-economic background can be a privilege in helping me build rapport

with field participants and explore certain paths of inquiry, it can also the very
obstacle that made me biased and hampers me from seeing the reality from the
insiders perspective.
A rural teacher warned me:
67
The Chinese people leave the countryside to live in the city for a better life Its different
from you guys in Hong Kong or USA or Canada where peoples standard of living is good
and wanted to go to the countryside for better air and other aspects.
while we people here have to struggle to strive for [a good] life.
You guys enjoy life,
In fact, everything here
in the countryside feels fresh to you because you have always been living in the city.
But if you have lived here for a while, you would feel that country life is very boring:
therere not many entertainment activities.
Day in and day out, everyday is the same.
(B1-Principal Lin, G09/19)
Am I romanticizing the rural life to escape the problems in city life?

my attempt to understand rural life?
Am I biased in
The rural people may think that I am
romanticizing about rural life just because I do not live there and am already rich
enough to live such a life.
I cannot object to such a statement, because I have not
really lived a rural life and I indeed am more privileged in terms of economic security.
But, just because I have lived an urban life and am aware of its problems, I come from
a value system different than theirs.
4.4
Ethical dilemmas
Fieldworkers in China run into a variety of dilemmas, associated with a clash of

ethical values, cultural practices and interests of the collective and individual.
As an
ethnographic researcher, my purpose was to use words (and sometimes also pictures)
to document reality.
But my research purpose easily runs into ethical dilemmas
especially when researching topics related to the disadvantaged people.
68
There was
much struggle when I probed, using either my questions or my camera, into the lives
of people living in poverty, children having dropped out of school, and children with
unfortunate family circumstances (such as the death of ones father followed by being
abandoned by ones mother).
Taking a picture of a poor household, for example,
provided rich details for the researcher to understand someones disadvantaged

situation, which is however not something one can be proud of or want to be exposed
to.
Am I contributing knowledge or introducing misery to their circumstances of
poverty?
Am I helping these people or are they helping a foreigner like me to
understand their situation?
Fortunately, the rural people were all very open to talk
about their level of income and sources of income, unlike the type of aversion as
reported in some of the interviews with poor people in the developed societies (see e.g.
Olsen 2010: 34-35).
Playing the power game of guanxi can also run into ethical dilemmas easily.
Is
it illegitimate when my school gatekeeper uses public money and resources during
their work hours to privately transport me to interview sites, accompany me to
interviews, organize banquets for me, and to host other entertainment activities during
my stay?
I wanted to establish good guanxi with the locals but I did not want to be
served with a banquet with so much more than what we could eat, especially right
after a home visit to someone living in extreme poverty and whose dinner was only
some rotten beans.
Many of the guanxi-building activities include drinking alcohol,
having banquet, playing Mahjong.
But in China, I realized many formal events are
held in the interest of the collective, even though they are not what the individuals
concerned wanted.
The conflict between the individual and the collective interests
can be captured in a light-hearted comment made by a female principal:

In China, men and women are equal when it comes to drinking alcohol.
69
(Y1-Principal Xing, Y09/fieldnotes-9Dec)
The guanxi-building formalities may also be regarded as part of the local hospitality,
etiquette or the proper way in receiving guests in the Confucian Chinese culture, even
though they may be seen as illegitimate or culturally inappropriate in the Western
society.
4.5
Data collection methods
Three months of fieldwork were conducted in the two field sites, with one month
spent in Guangdong (June 2009), one and a half months in Yunnan (November to
December 2009) and another two weeks over the Chinese New Year in Guangdong
(February 2010).
Phone interviews were later conducted to follow up with some of
the interviews (January 2011).
Three months may be considered a short period for
an ethnographic study but I consider the data gathered in the field enough to shed
light on my research agenda and the data began to repeat themselves.
Informal interviews and participant observation were the major data collection
methods.
Between June 2009 and January 2011, I conducted 175 interviews in the
Yunnan site and 245 interviews in the Guangdong site, totaling up to 420 interviews
or 120 hours of interview.
A majority of the interviews were conducted in
Putonghua without going through a translator, except the interviews with the
grandparents who could only speak their local dialect.
Open-ended questions were
asked in the interviews aimed at understanding the school dropout or child worker
(including their parents educational background, family financial background, reason
of dropout and entering work, perceptions and expectations of school education,
70
perceptions and expectations of work, their concept of child labor) and about the
quality of education they received (including the content of the curriculum,
availability of teaching and learning resources, supply of teachers, level of teachers
qualifications, number of hours spent at school, level of difficulty with the tests or
examinations) (see Interview Guideline in Appendix III for the list of questions).
majority of the interviews were also held in informal settings such as during meals,
leisure walks and casual chats at home where the interviewees consent for interview
was sought after the interview, in order to preserve the authenticity of the responses
especially in addressing sensitive topics such as school dropout and child work.
Informal interviews are useful especially for investigating sensitive topics like school
dropout, because they build upon rapport between the interviewer and the interviewee
and when done properly they feel like natural dialogue but answers the fieldworkers
often unasked questions (Fetterman 1998: 39).
One of the child workers told me
that he was 100% truthful in our conversations but lied to a person who had
previously interviewed him because the interviewer began the conversation by asking
some highly personal questions.
Apart from interviews, observation data was also collected following an
Observation Guideline (see Appendix IV).
Local statistics and facts were also taken
from the county year books (County X Education Bureau 2008; County A
government 2008)13.
National statistics were taken from the Chinese Ministry of
Education in the relevant years.
4.6 Data transcription and coding
The 120 hours of recorded interviews are transcribed, mostly verbatim, into 387 pages
13
The statistics of County X and County A are from year 2007

71
of raw data.
In the following chapters in data analysis, the transcribed interviews in
Chinese and its English translation are both given.
The transcribed data are marked
in codes like (B1-Hidden dropout-Ah Mei, G09/63) where B1 indicates the

interview location, Hidden dropout the informants identity, Ah Mei the
informants pseudonym, G for Guangdong and Y for Yunnan, 09 the year the
interview was made, 63 the page number where the interview excerpt is taken out.
School dropouts in Guangdong are given pseudonyms that begin with Ah, as in Ah
Mei, and those in Yunnan are given pseudonyms that begin with Xiao, as in Xiao
Jie.
4.7
Data anlaysis
The data analysis process can be identified into two stages in the light of my
two-fold purpose to identify the commonly cited causes of dropout and to reveal and
critique the taken-for-granted assumptions often made about education quality.
In the first stage of data analysis, the 387 pages of raw interview data and
observation data collected were analyzed to identify the causes of school dropout in
poor, rural areas as commonly perceived by the informants.
Four causes are
identified, namely (1) family poverty, (2) parents illiteracy, (3) students bad
qualities and unwillingness to study, (4) lack of rural school resources, especially
quality teachers.
I do not intend, and do not believe it is suitable, to reduce the
complex intertwining reasons of dropout into a list of distinct reasons as Hunt (2008)
points out (see Chapter 2.2.1).
But, for the sake of better organization and
explanation, the reasons are explored separately in each of the case analysis chapters.
The list of factors is not meant to be exhaustive.
Other possible causes of school
dropout include ethnic minority, the attraction of urban life and working in the urban
72
areas or dagong (), the phenomenon of left-behind children or liushou ertong

() who are left behind in their home villages by their migrant parents and are
raised by a guardian(s).
Ethnic minority as a factor of school dropout, even in the
context of the Yunnan research site predominated by the Yi ethnic minorities, is not
prominent because the Yi ethnic minorities in the site are reported to have been much
integrated into the Chinese Hans, in terms of their language, their cultural customs
and living habits.
Pull factors such as the attraction of urban life and working in the
urban areas or dagong are also not focused in this study because they are found to be
weaker than the push factors of education quality.
As to the left-behind children
as a factor of dropout, I did not have enough supporting evidence, such as their
relationships with their parents and with their guardian(s), to make a distinct case of
them even though it can be an important factor of dropout.
In the second stage of the analysis, the school dropouts personal stories
relevant to the four causes of dropout are taken out and organized into four case
analysis chapters.
The dropout with the most prominent case is chosen as the
prototype for each issue under study.
For example, Xiao Yuan is the prototype of
dropping out due to family poverty because her family lives under the poverty line;
Ah Xing Fa is the prototype of dropping out due to parents illiteracy because his
mother only received P.1 education and he was said to hate school and underperform
at school since day one; Xiao Liang is the prototype of dropping out due to the
students personal qualities because he was labelled the bad student who was
unwilling to study; Ah Qiong is the prototype of dropping out due to the low quality
and lack of resources in rural school because he received his primary education in a
remote, under-resourced school in his home village.
Each of the four case analysis chapters opens with the story of a prototype,
where the assumptions commonly held by the childs teachers, school principal and
73
administrators about the cause of school dropout are described and where one or two
question(s) are then raised seeking to challenge the assumptions.
In the subsequent
sections, the interview data with other dropouts are also used to supplement a fuller
understanding about the issue under study and to avoid cherry picking illustrative
sentences.
The four case analysis chapters are crafted with the purpose to better
understand and critically examine four of the most commonly perceived causes of
dropout, rather than the prototypes personal stories.
74
PART II
Insights from the field
Part II consists of an introductory chapter about the patterns of school dropout
(Chapter 5) and four case studies to give in-depth insights into the relationship
between school dropout and school quality (Chapter 6 to 9).
In the case studies, four
of the most frequently cited reasons for school dropout (or child work) namely
family poverty (Chapter 6), parents literacy (Chapter 7), students bad qualities and
unwillingness to study (Chapter 8), teacher quality and supply (Chapter 9) are
examined from the perspective of the child and his/her local context.
My purpose is
to describe, in rich ethnographic detail, the characteristics and causes of school

dropout and child work in these two provinces of China in relation to rural school
quality.
An equally important purpose is to reflect critically on the assumptions,
which often go unquestioned in the analyses of school dropout, associated with the
following: the intentions of rural parents who are considered poor in sending their
children to school, rural parents who are considered illiterate in preparing their
children for school, students who are considered bad in school performance, and
rural teachers who are considered of low quality and insufficient.
The goal of
these chapters is to describe a wide range of empirical problems typical of the Chinese
school context, which will be analyzed in a theoretically motivated discussion of
education quality in Part III.
75
Chapter 5
Patterns of School Dropout
This chapter aims at understanding the dynamics of dropping out in poor, rural China
today.
I first examine the shortcomings of the dropout rate and the official dropout
statistics given by schools.
Then I conduct a cohort study using the statistics,
interview data and class observation insights collected in rural Guangdong and
Yunnan to understand the characteristics of school dropout, which cannot be reflected
by the dropout rate.
5.1
Inaccuracy of the official dropout rate
5.1.1
Why dropout rates are inaccurate
For the school administrators and teachers, the dropout rates are a highly
sensitive piece of statistics as they are seen as one of the major indicators of ones
work performance in their work appraisal which will have consequences for their job
rankings and salary14.
Because of the high sensitivity, it is very difficult to access
dropout rates that are accurate.
For a researcher committed to the rigour of scientific
studies, the dropout rate is China is often a very inaccurate and arguably
meaningless indicator of childrens school exclusion.
In the nine schools I visited in rural Guangdong and rural Yunnan, very few of
the principal, vice-principal and the Teaching and Learning Administrator (jiaodao
14
See Chapter 10 for details on the evaluation of school administrators and teachers.
76
zhuren, ), who are supposed to have access to the statistics, had the
statistics to cite from.
When asked about the dropout rate, they usually side-stepped
the question and assured me that their dropout rates were of no problem by the
government requirement.
At B1 Secondary School, for example, I have been told by
a school administrator that the dropout rate on record has been improved to the
official requirement of around or under 3%.
Another possibility was that they did
not take it seriously and had not measured it.
It is highly doubtful that these official
dropout statistics are accurate and meaningful in understanding the actual situation of
school dropout.
Table 5.1 and 5.2 show the official dropout rates gathered from the
schools, all matching with the officially condoned 1% and 3% respectively for
primary and junior secondary.
Table 5.1
Official dropout statistics from the schools in rural Guangdong
Source of
information
Official
Dropout rate
Table 5.2
B1 Secondary
School
Principal
B2 Secondary
School
Principal
B1 Primary
School
Principal
C1 Primary
School
Principal
Around 3%
Around 2%
Virtually zero
zero
Official dropout statistics from the schools in rural Yunnan
Source of
information
Official
Dropout Rate
X
Secondary
School
Principal
Under 2%
Y1
Secondary
School
Teaching and
Learning
Administrator,
School record
0.63% (4 out of
635 students
dropped out in
2008/2009)
77
Y2
Secondary
School
Vice-Principal,
School record
Z1 Primary
School
Z4 Primary
School
Principal
Principal,
3.3%
Zero
Zero
5.1.2
How dropout rates are rendered inaccurate
Technically, a school dropout (chuoxue, ) in China refers to students

who have left school and no longer attend school before completing the end of an
education cycle, apart from graduation, promotion to a higher grade, grade repetition,
school transfer, death or having officially approved school leave. (National Center
for Education Development Research 1992) The official dropout rate is measured
annually, using this formula:
15
Change in Ss numbers at the beginning of the previous and this school year
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- x 100%
Ss number at the beginning of this school year
But in practice, the dropout rate is far from reflecting the actual situation of
school dropout---an open secret that is known to the teachers, parents, students,
school principals and even the local education administrators.
One of the limitations
with the dropout rate is its inability to reflect the situation of hidden dropouts, who
are as the locals describe it physically present but mentally absent.
The following
conversation with a hidden dropout shows that the dropout rate is sometimes even
used by those who do not want to study as a grey area for them to be physically absent
from school but remain officially enrolled in school records:
[I] have given the class teacher 100 yuan, its private.
Me:
private?
Yes, only with that, the teacher will let you go on leave, come back to take the exam and
get the graduation certificate.
Me: Was that money requested by the class teacher or the school?
The class teacher.
Me:
15
Are there many others in your class on leave like that and come back to take the
September 1
78
exam?
Many in S.3, none in S.2.
Me: Why do they take such a long leave and not go to school?
[They] dont like school.
Me: Where do they go after taking leave?
They play video games, stay at home or go off to work.
Me:
Normally will they come back to take the exam?
Yes they can, just talk to the principal.

Me:
Can you just give the principal 100 yuan to have the graduation certificate?
Yes, somebody did it before.
Last year, the students can get the certificate by just
paying 100 yuan without taking the exam, but this year we need to take the exam to get
the certificate.
Me:
If you dont give them 100 yuan, can you still return for the exam?
No, you cant, you would be regarded as dropout.

Me:
How many students have taken school leave?
Many have left. We used to have around 200 students in one grade, now we have
almost half fewer students, with only 80 to 90 students left now.
Very few students want
to study.
100
79

1 80-90
(B1-Hidden Dropout-Ah Ming, G09/48)
Other complexities in accurately measuring the dropout rate include the

calculation of student numbers at the beginning (i.e. the first day of school) of the
previous and this school year:
At B1 Secondary School, students who arrived at school a few days after the first
day of the school year were not counted in the statistics.
At Y1 township, students who dropped out after completing P.6 but did not enrol
in S.1 were not reflected in the primary or secondary school dropout statistics.
The phrase students who have left school and no longer attend school contains
much grey area regarding the meaning of leaving school and no longer attending
school, making it insufficient in describing a variety of possible situations in reality:
At B2 Secondary School and Y1 Secondary School, students who stopped

attending school but expressed the intention to return for the graduation
examination were not considered as dropouts, even though they did not return to
school in the end.
At Y1 Secondary School, students who dropped out of school temporarily,

ranging from a few days to a couple of weeks, but returned to school were not
counted as dropout.
Some of them might even repeatedly drop out and come
back into school every few months.

At Y1 Secondary School, some students have been paid by the teachers to take
part in the graduation examination to achieve a higher completion rate and lower
dropout rate.
In many of the classrooms, 1/3 to 1/2 of the students who were noticeably
80
physically present but mentally absent, or what is known as hidden dropouts

(Lan and Zhang 2008), were not counted as dropouts.
The phrase apart from school transfer is another grey area:

Many of the school transfers were hidden dropouts who physically remained in
the school system but had already mentally given up their studies.
The phrase apart from having officially approved school leave could be abused
by students and teachers:
At B1 Secondary school and B2 Secondary School, some S.3 dropouts paid their
class teacher 100 yuan to be approved to take school leave (for about a few
months) and not be considered a dropout, so that they could remain enrolled and
still get the graduation certificate without attending classes.
Some made the
excuse of independent study at home.
The school administrators and class teachers, who report the statistics to the upper
levels of management, may lack the awareness of the specific nuances and
requirements during measurement or data collection:
At B2 Secondary School, the dropout rate was measured by the semester, but
used as annual statistics.
At County A Education Bureau, according to the bureau chief, the annual

dropout rate was measured by taking an annual average of the three years (S.1 to
S.3) of dropout numbers.
81
To conclude, the problem with the dropout rate as an indicator is that it

quantifies the dropping out situation, preoccupied with measuring the number of
dropouts, and does not offer clues for understanding the non-quantifiable aspects of
dropping out, such as the hidden form of hidden dropout, the time of students
dropping out throughout the school year and the reason of dropping out and entering
work.
5.2
The dynamics of school dropout: A cohort study
To escape from the limitations of the dropout rate, I conduct a cohort study that tracks
three groups of students, who are in the same grade, the same class, and the same
county, as they progress from P.1 to S.3.
My focus is not only on the change in
enrolment numbers, but also on the time of dropping out, the reason of dropping out
and the hidden form of dropping out, such as grade repeaters, school transfers and
hidden dropouts.
To gain insights that cannot be reflected by mere enrolment
numbers, I incorporate insights from interviews with class teachers, students and class
observation.
I also take into account of other possible indicators of dropout, such as
the number of applicants to the Senior Secondary Education Entrance Examination

(SSEEE), also known as zhongkao ().
My aim is to reveal insights into the
demographics, dynamics and hidden forms of school dropout, which cannot be

reflected by the conventional dropout statistics.
82
5.2.1
Grade-level dropout in Guangdong (across three semesters):
Points of exit and re-entry
In rural Guangdong, a few primary school students may make school transfers to
other schools in the urban areas to receive better school quality or to follow their
parents who work in the city.
But, students who end their studies in primary schools
are indeed, as a primary school principal said, virtually non-existent:
There are very few dropouts in our primary school, because traditionally we value
culture and education.
Perhaps some drop out in the secondary school Ive been
teaching for 30 years, 20 years of which have been in this school, [the enrolment] has
been 100%, the dropout rate is virtually zero, [even] in the past the enrolment was at
least 98% or 99%.
The reasons being, firstly, we have universalized nine years of
education, and secondly, theres nothing here for children this young to do.

[] 100%
98%99%
(B1-Principal-Zhu, G09/15)
The first sign of dropout in rural Guangdong generally takes place in the
secondary schools.
Using the enrolment statistics from B1 Secondary School, I track
the enrolment numbers of three secondary school grades (S.1, S.2 and S.3) across
three semesters.
A look at the grade level reveals insights into the dynamics of
students moving in and out of the system between the first (winter) semester and the
second (spring) semester, and between two academic years (see Table 5.3).
83
Table 5.3
Changes in the enrolment number of three grades across three semesters in
B1 Secondary School, Guangdong
(B)
40
39 (-1)
(C)
36
(D)
40
40 (0)
(A)
47
43 (-4)
(B)
43
40 (-3)
(C)
44
(D)
45
41 (-4)
38 (-2)
(A)
48
47 (-1)
40 (-3)
(B)
41
39 (-2)
(C)
63
(D)
60
Total
46 (0)
(new cohort)
32 (-4)
39 (0)
31 (-1)
45 (+5)
42 (-2)
169 (-5,+6)
56 (-4)
198 (-14)
212
56 (-7)
43 (-3)
151 (-6)
44 (0)
168 (-11)
179
S.3
46
162
S.2
Enrolment in
Winter, 2009
(change, -/+)
(A)
157 (-5)
S.1
Enrolment in
Spring, 2009
(change, -/+)
Total
Enrolment
in Winter,
2008
Grade
(class)
Total
Semester
42 (+1)
(Source: B1 Secondary School statistics)
I found that the most popular time of dropping out of school, or the points of
exit, are the transition from the winter to spring semester in S.3 (14 dropouts, 6.6%)
and the transition from the winter to spring semester in S.2 (11 dropouts, 6.1%).
This matches with the observation of many teachers that most of the students drop out
after they come back from the Chinese New Year holidays in the second semester of
S.2 and S.3.
Only a few drop out in the S.1 second semester (5 dropouts, 3.1%) and
in the transition from S.1 to S.2 (6 dropouts, 3.8%) because, according to many
teachers, the students are still trying to adjust to a new school environment and have
not yet given up on school.
Dropping out in the transition from S.2 to S.3 (5
dropouts, 3%) is also low because those who cannot tolerate school have already left
in S.2 and the remaining few who stay on would most likely tolerate it until the
84
second semester of S.3.

Students do not just drop out of school.
They also drop back into the school
(i.e. points of re-entry) mostly at the beginning of S.3.
An increase of six students in
S.3 is due to student re-entering the school system, a situation which according to the
principal is increasingly popular amongst former S.2 dropouts from work elsewhere.
At the beginning of the 2010 Spring semester, at least nine students had returned to
school from work.
school.
So, it is highly possible that there are more students re-entering
Unfortunately there is no way of verifying the exact number of re-entries
and dropouts because their numbers may have been cancelled out each other in the
same class.
5.2.2
Class-level dropout in Guangdong (S.1 to S.3):
Absolute and hidden dropouts
On the basis of teacher interviews and class observation, more insights can be
revealed about the types of school dropout and their population.
These insights
come from an in-depth focus on the enrolment changes of just one class across the
three years of junior secondary education (see Table 5.4).
85
Table 5.4
Changes in the enrolment number of a class from S.1 to S.3 in B1 Secondary
School, Guangdong
Grade/Semester
Enrolment
According to interviews with class
(change, -/+)
teacher, my observation
S.1 Winter
53
1 dropout in S.1,
S.1 Spring
Not available
5 transfer away
S.2 Winter
47 (-6)
S.2 Spring
43 (-4)
2 dropouts in S.2 spring semester,

2 transfer away
S.3 Winter
40 (-3)
At least 2 known transfer away
S.3 Spring
38 (-2)
1 transfer into class, at least 2 on long

leaves
By the end of S.3
Official statistics not
At least 8 left school but not counted as
available.
dropout because they later returned
My estimate: 30 (-8)
Total loss of students:
3 (6%) dropouts + 20 (38%) others = 23 (41%) students
(Sources: B1 Secondary School, Class Teacher)
From S.1 to S.3, the class teacher said only three (or 5.6%) of those who left
are considered as dropouts because they have officially terminated their studies and
are no longer enrolled in the school system.
I call them absolute dropouts.
She said many others had left but were not considered as dropouts because they
had transferred their studies to other schools.
A few others also did not come to
school but remained enrolled because they had taken long study leaves and had
promised to return to school for the end-of-term examination.
And a few others
were absent for a while (ranging between a few days to a few weeks) but returned
later.
Based on my class observation and interviews with students in that class, I
discover that a majority of them should be considered as what I call hidden dropouts
since they had already given up their studies like an absolute dropout except that they
remained physically in class or only had their name on the enrolment list.
86
School
transfer is only one of the means the students used to remain enrolled in the school
system.
Other means include taking long leaves, repeatedly dropping out and back
into school and dropping out after the beginning of S.3 second semester.
If one takes
these as signs of the behaviour of a hidden dropout, 30 students can be estimated to

remain by the end of S.3.
Therefore, apart from the three absolute dropouts, there
are also around 20 (or 37.7%) hidden dropouts.

But still, these signs are far from enough to accurately estimate the population
of hidden dropouts.
Many others remain until the end of S.3 but do not take part in
the SSEEE; some may apply for the SSEEE but do not show up; some may take the
exam only as a formality, for example, by turning in blank exam answers; some may
even go onto vocational schools after completing S.3 but drop out immediately in the
first semester.
And there are others who go through the school system without any
clear signs of identification.
The difficulty in identifying hidden dropouts is due to
its ambiguous nature, a problem which will be examined in Chapter 6.
5.2.3
County-level dropout in Yunnan (P.1 to S.3):
Dropout population and dynamics
In rural Yunnan, I survey the population and dynamics of rural school dropout
from the county level, with the goal of generating insights for comparison with rural
Guangdong.
The advantage of looking at the macroscopic level are (1) to more
accurately estimate the population of absolute dropouts by eliminating the factor of

school transfer which takes place mostly between schools within the same county, (2)
to more accurately estimate the population of hidden dropouts by comparing the
number of S.3 graduates and the number of SSEEE applicants.
Using County X
Year Book statistics, I examine changes in the enrolment of the same cohort of
87
students in County X from the time they enter P.1 in year 1999 and graduate from S.3
in 2008.
Particular attention is paid to five possible points of exit in the nine-year
education system, namely, P.1 entry, P.6 graduation, S.1 entry, S.3 graduation,
application to the SSEEE (see Table 5.5).
Table 5.5 Changes of enrolment number in County X, Yunnan from P.1 to S.3
Year (grade)
Number of students
Change in student
enrolment (+/-)
99 (P.1)
P.1 entrants: 4638
00 (P.2)
01 (P.3)
02 (P.4)
03 (P.5)
04 (P.6)
05 (S.1)
P.6 graduates: 4687
+ 49
S.1 entrants: 4482
- 205 (4.4%)
06 (S.2)
07 (S.3)
08
S.3 graduates: 4194
- 288 (6.4%)
SSEEE applicants from this cohort: 2819
- 1375 (32.8%)
(SSEEE applicants including repeaters: 3013
(excluding repeaters)
Of which, repeaters from previous cohort: 194)

(Source: County X Yearbook 2000, 2006, 2009)
From P.1 to the completion of P.6, the number of students increases by 49.
The slight increase is mostly due to repeaters from the previous cohort, because
school transfer from outside the county is not a significant phenomenon in County X.
According to several primary school principals, very few students drop out of primary
schools nowadays except the occasional one or two students who may drop out of P.5
and P.6 because of family reasons and the remoteness of the school in mountainous
areas.
In my interviews, I have come across a student from Z1 Primary School who

88
said two (7.4%) of her 27 classmates dropped out of P.5 and P.6 in 2004 and 2005.
class teacher from Z4 Primary School also said two (2.9%) of the 70 P.6 students
dropped out in the 2008/2009 school year.
Despite the insignificant number of
dropouts, P.5 or P.6 is nevertheless the first point of exit for the occasional few in
Yunnan.
The transition from P.6 graduation to the enrolment of S.1 is the second popular
point of exit where 205 (4.4%) students dropped out of the education system.
From S.1 to the completion of S.3, the number of students further decreases by
288 (6.4%).
There are however no county-level enrolment statistics for S.2 and S.3.
To understand the dynamics of dropout across the three years in junior secondary
school in Yunnan, I can only refer to a school administrators account of the situation
in Y1 Secondary School.
He said around 250 new students enter Y1 Secondary
School every year, where 4 to 5 students (2%) usually drop out in the transition from
S.1 to S.2, 1 or 2 students (0.08%) in the transition from S.2 to S.3, and 4 or 5
students (2%) in the second semester of S.3.
The dynamics of dropping out in Y1
Township in Yunnan seem to match with that in B1 Secondary School in Guangdong,

with the second semester of S.3 being one of the most popular points of exit.
Although 4194 students graduated from S.3, 1375 (32.8%) students do not
apply to the SSEEE and are likely to be hidden dropouts.
This county-level
percentage of hidden dropouts is similar to that of Y1 Secondary School, where

around 28% of their S.3 graduates do not apply for the SSEEE.
conservative estimate.
Again, this is a
There are still a number of hidden dropouts who, for example,
sign up for the SSEEE but did not show up, and others only go through it as a
formality.
89
5.2.4
School dropout as an increasingly hidden phenomenon
My estimates of the school dropout statistics in Guangdong and Yunnan are put into
Table 5.6 for comparison.
Table 5.6 Comparison of dropout statistics of a student cohort across the nine years of
education in Guangdong and Yunnan
Guangdong
Yunnan
Absolute dropouts
Hidden dropouts
Total
P.1 P.6:
zero
37.7%
43.3%
P.6 S.1:
zero
S.1 S.3:
5.6%
32.8%
43.8%
P.1-P.4:
P.5,
zero
P.6:
occasionally
couple in small villages

P.6 F.1:
4.4%
S.1 S.3:
6.6%
On the surface, the situation of (absolute) school dropout in Guangdong (5.6%) and
Yunnan (4.4+6.6%=11%) do not seem to be serious, with an annual average generally
kept under the officially condoned 3%.
However, the hidden situation of hidden
dropout, which cannot be reflected by enrolment statistics, is much more serious in

both places, with Guangdong (37.7%) higher than that in Yunnan (32.8%).
There is
a large discrepancy between the official dropout and my own study because many
hidden dropouts remain enrolled but have mentally given up their studies.
The
problem of school dropout has gone mostly hidden today.

In the eyes of many teachers and school administrators, hidden dropouts are no
different from absolute dropouts.
They are both seen as unwilling to study, or
what they often call yan xue ().
Yan xue has become a phenomenon since the
implementation of the pujiu ( , universalization of nine-year compulsory

90
education) policy.
According to the government, pujiu has been achieved all over
Guangdong province in 1996 and in County X in Yunnan in 1998.
Before pujiu,
family poverty or an inability to pay school fees was the main reason for school
dropout.
The number of dropouts has also changed. At Township Y1, according to a local
education official, the dropout rate has been reduced from at least 16% before pujiu to 3.75%
today after pujiu (see Table 5.7).
Table 5.7:
Number of dropouts at Y1 Township 10 years ago and today (total number of
students: 240)
Time Before pujiu in the 90s

Points of exit
P.6 to S.1
After pujiu today
8-9
1-2
S.1 to S.2
14-15
4-5
S.2 to S.3
14-15
1-2
Total number of dropouts
39 (16%)
9 (3.75%)
Although the number of dropouts has reduced and virtually no students drop out
because of an inability to pay school fees, there are more hidden dropouts with
feelings of yan xue today, as many principals and teachers told me.
5.3
The demographics of school dropouts and child workers
Insights into the population of school dropouts can be extrapolated to a national

estimate, using the total amount of absolute and hidden dropouts of around 43% (see
Table 5.6).
Take for example the 11 million rural students from the year 2000 cohort,
this cohort has an estimated (11 million*43%) 4.73 million of absolute dropouts and
hidden dropouts by the time they graduate from S.3 in 2009.
Insights into the population of dropout can also be used to estimate the
91
population of child workers in China.
I go for a conservative estimate, using only
the percentage of absolute dropouts (11% for Yunnan and 5.6% for Guangdong)
because it is hard to estimate how many of the hidden dropouts will enter the job
market.
An estimate of the population of child workers from the year 2000 cohort of
rural students in China would be (1.21 million*11% = ) 1.1 million from Yunnan and
(11 million*5.6% = ) 0.616 million from Guangdong.
dropouts will enter sweatshops in the cities.
But not all of the absolute
Some remain idle at home, others do
temporary work in the construction sites or shops in the villages and will enter the city
for work when they are older or have job referrals.
Especially for dropouts from
rural Yunnan, many of them prefer to find work in their county town or a nearby city
not too far from home.
Based on my interviews with child workers in the Pearl
River Delta, there are not many child workers in the factories and sweatshops in the
city.
According to a 15-year-old child workers experience of working in factories in
Guangzhou and Huizhou, back in the early 1990s, only 10 (or 5%) of a factorys 200
to 300 employees were under 18 while the others were mostly in their early 20s.
According to two other workers experience of working in various factories in
Dongguan in 2008 and 2009, the number of child workers remains low.
In factories
that are more organized and abide by the labour law, only four or five (or 0.7%) of its
700 employees were under 16, around 100 employees are between 17 and 19 and 600
employees in their 20s and 30s.
Even in the small, privately run factories which
generally do not abide by the labour law, only one 15-year-old girl of the 30
employees was under age 16 and the others were around 18 years old.
Insights into the dropouts popular points of exit also shed light on the age
characteristics of child workers.
Since the most popular points of exit are in the
second semester of S.2 and that in S.3, most of the child workers should age between
15 and 17.
Occasionally one may find workers who are 13 or 14-year-old dropouts

92
from S.1 and S.2.
It is rare to find workers younger than 11, which is the age of
attending P.6.
5.4
Conclusion
In this chapter, I found that the dropout rate, the most often used school quality
indicator to understand school dropout, has much limitation in reflecting the dynamics
of dropout and an increasingly hidden form of dropout I call hidden dropout.
cohort study of students from the same grade, class and county, shows that there are at
least 43% school dropout in both the Yunnan and Guangdong site.
But the situation
of school dropout seems to be more hidden in Guangdong, with fewer absolute

dropouts in Guangdong (5.6%) than Yunnan (11%) and more hidden dropouts in
Guangdong (37.8%) than Yunnan (32.8%).
The study also reveals insights about the
time of dropping out, which I call points of exit, the dynamics and the
demographics
of
school
dropouts
and
child
workers.
Based
on
the
11-million-student cohort from year 2000, 4.73 million students around the country
are estimated to have dropped out in absolute or hidden forms by the time they
graduate from S.3 in 2009.
The number of child workers from the same cohort is
estimated to be 1.1 million from Yunnan and 0.616 million from Guangdong.
93
Chapter 6
Poor families
Through the case of a girl from a poor family living below the poverty line, Chapter
Six
examines the complex
relationship between
school
access
and the
multi-dimensional concept of poverty.
6.1
Xiao Yuan, the poor dropout
At the center of Xiao Yuans living room is the most expensive asset her family
owned.
It was not a television set, as one would often find in a Chinese household
today, but a 175kg bag of rice worth of 500 yuan.

Her family lived in a rather remote village in the lowlands, also known as valley
terrace (baqu, ) in Yunnan, about 3km away from the County X town center.
They could barely make ends meet by renting out half of their two mu16 of farmland
and selling some of the rice and vegetables they make (see Table 6.1).
Table 6.1
Annual income of Xiao Yuans household

Source of income
Renting out 1 mu, or half of
her farmland
Growing beans, vegetables,
rice
Gross income/household
Gross income/person
16
1 Chinese mu (
Income (yuan)
500
Around 2000
Below 3000
Below 1000
) = about 666.67 square meters or 0.16 acre

94
Her family was one of the two poorest households in her village17, with a per capita
gross income of under 1000 yuan which is a level much below the poverty line by
the Chinese standard (under 1,500 yuan) and the international standards (World Bank:
under US$1.25/day or 2,988 yuan/year; United Nations: under US$1/day or 2,390
yuan/year).
Xiao Yuan used to have a family of six.
But she was orphaned when
she was only nine years old (or in P.2) when her father died prematurely and her
mother subsequently left the family with her younger sister, leaving only her with her
grandparents in their 60s.
Because of the loss of her familys breadwinner, her
family plunged into extreme poverty.
Photo 6.1
The most expensive asset in Xiao Yuans family was a bag of rice
17
In 2006, the government built a 400-square-feet house made of brick and wood for them. Since
2008, her family began receiving social security for the poorest, or dibao (
), at 80 yuan per month
per person.
95
Curiously, despite her familys extreme poverty situation, Xiao Yuan remained at
school and even moved onto the junior secondary school.
She was a good student
with good behaviour and had one of the top three academic results in class and would
have been capable of being promoted to senior secondary school.
But in the second
semester of S.3, before she reached the legal working age 16, she dropped out to work.
Her teachers described her case as yinpin chuoxue (dropping out due to poverty),
which is often cited as the reason in explaining school dropouts from poor families.
How is family poverty a factor for school dropout?
A comprehensive answer to this question requires an analysis of both the
economic and non-economic dimensions of schooling.
This case analysis will also
offer insights into families that plunge into poverty because of a loss of the familys
breadwinner, due to death, divorce, physical or mental handicap or chronic disease.
6.2
The economic dimensions of schooling
To understand the economic aspects of poverty as a push factor, or the economic

pressure for Xiao Yuans family to send her to school, the various costs of schooling
are examined.
Because of an incomplete set of data associated with Xiao Yuans
familys educational costs, the costs of enrolling other village children in the field and
the estimated income forgone by schooling at different levels are used.
6.2.1
Educational costs and benefits after the abolishment of school fees
Tuition and textbook fees
When she attended primary school in her own village, which was before the
96
abolition of school fees, she had to pay tuition and miscellaneous fees of 20
yuan/semester.
Since 2006, or since Xiao Yuan entered junior secondary school, the
Two Exemptions One Subsidy (liangmian yibu, ) policy was

implemented for poor, rural children.
Under the policy, she was exempted from
paying tuition and miscellaneous fee (xueza fei, ) and textbook fee
(shuben fei, ), which could have been 150 yuan/semester under the One-Fee
policy (yifei zhi, ); she was also provided with a living subsidy (shenghuo
fei, ) of 250 yuan/semester.
According to the official statistics, the rural households expenditure on
educational, cultural, recreational services (wenjiao yule yongpin ji fuwu,
) takes up an average of around 11% of the total expenditure over the past
decade and has fallen since the 2006 policy (see Table 6.2).
Table 6.2
Per capita annual consumption expenditure of rural households in China
Total expenditure
Expenditure on education,
Expenditure on education,
(yuan)
cultural, recreational
cultural, recreational services
services (yuan)
of total expenditure (%)
2000
1670.13
186.72
11.18
2001
1741.09
192.64
11.06
2002
1834.31
210.31
11.47
2003
1943.30
235.68
12.31
2004
2184.65
247.63
11.33
2005
2555.40
295.48
11.56
2006
2829.02
305.13
10.79
2007
3223.85
305.66
9.48
2008
3660.68
314.53
8.59
2009
3993.45
340.56
8.53
(Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2001-2010)
97
The statistics18, however, do not show the various the informal costs incurred in basic
education.
In practice, rural students have to pay three or four types of fees to go to
school, namely living costs, hidden costs, sponsorship fees and opportunity costs.
Living costs
For rural students living far away from school, they have to pay living costs while
they board at school during the week, which include meals, pocket money and
transport to and from school.
For Xiao Yuans family, the living cost was a
significant part of their expenditure on education, especially when she had to board at
the school during the week.
Her living costs were 20 yuan/week (or 800 yuan/year)
in primary school and 30 yuan/week (or 1200 yuan/year) in junior secondary school
(see Table 6.3).
Although the government offered a subsidy of 250 yuan/semester
since she was in S.1 in 2006, it was insignificant compared to her living costs.
18
The expenditure on education only takes into account of tuition and miscellaneous fees, sponsorship
fees, enrolment fees in kindergarten, fees for adult training courses. The statistics does not reflect the
actual spending from the household perspective, which may include living cost, because it is collected
at the school level divided by the population number.
98
Table 6.3
Annual living costs of Xiao Yuan at rural secondary school
Expenditure
Details
Cost
Total cost in a
year *
Daily
Breakfast (usually a
1 yuan
5 yuan x 20 x 10 =
steamed bun bought
1000 yuan
outside school)
Lunch at school canteen
2 yuan
(available meals at 2
yuan, 2.5 yuan, 3 yuan)
Weekly
Dinner at school canteen
2 yuan
Transport (20 km from
None, around 4
5 yuan x 4 x 10
home to school)
hours hiking in
= 200 yuan
the mountains
Pocket money
Total
5 yuan
1200 yuan/year
* There are 20 school days/week, 4 weeks/month, 10 school months/year

(Source: Y2 Secondary School student Xiao Yuan)
The burden on poor families is further complicated by corruption and other unjust
practices, which are not uncommon in many places at the local level.
At Township
Y1 Secondary School, according to a student, the class teacher held up the living
subsidy of bad students with behavioural problems and redistributed (all or some of)
the subsidy to other students in class.
living subsidies are said to exist.
At Town B1 Primary School, two types of
According to B1 Primary School principal, those
who are classified as not so poor get 100 yuan/semester (at primary level) or 50
yuan/semester (secondary), while those classified as extremely poor get 250
yuan/semester (primary and secondary).
The local village committee is said to
distinguish the economic situation amongst the households in the villages but no one
knows exactly what the standards are and it is said to depend on personal connections
with the village committee chief.
In Town B1, some students are said to get less
than the promised amount while others may not even get a living subsidy at all, as the
99
subsidies have become a source of corruption by the local government.
A Town B1
Secondary School class teacher:

Not every student receives the living subsidy, its up to the village committee to decide
which family is eligible In some villages, students get the subsidies using other peoples
names.
For example, there are three families but only two subsidies, our family situation
is similar so we share the subsidies amongst us (laugh).
In some villages, there are too
many people and so the subsidies can only be given to those in a more difficult situation.
Me:
Dont the government offer the subsidy according to the number of students at
school?
Its not like that, the school has no power to decide which student family is rich or poor.
The village committee makes the decision and submits a list to the town government.
Me:
Hasnt the government promised to offer the subsidy to every student?
No.
For example, there are 1000 students in this town, the government would only give
enough money for 800 students.
Not everybody gets it, but I dont know how they decide
who should receive the subsidy.
Some poor families also could not get it.
[
] 2 2 3
[]
[] 1000 800
(B1-Teacher Ye, G10/86)
100
Hidden costs
Being enrolled in class today is no longer enough to gain access to education as

new educational needs have been created and introduced into the school system.
These fees are hidden in nature because they are forbidden by the government; and
they are purportedly paid on a voluntary basis even though students actually do not
have a choice in practice.
Some of the hidden costs are linked to the private industry
of supplementary workbooks (jiaofu, ) which are particularly used for

preparing students for examination.
In Y1 Secondary School, since 2007 or 2008,
students have begun to be asked to purchase the supplementary workbooks on a

voluntary basis.
Although they are supposed to supplement the regular textbooks,
they are often used, or in some grades solely used, by teachers in class to prepare for
examination.
A S.3 student said the supplementary workbooks are crucial for
preparing for the SSEEE but she could only borrow them from her classmates as her
family could not afford them.
At Y1 Secondary School, for example, one set (i.e.
one workbook for each subject) of supplementary workbooks was designated for S.1
students and S.2 students (at 150 yuan/semester) and two sets (i.e. two workbooks for
each subject) for S.3 students (at 200 yuan/semester).
Usually the majority of
students purchase these workbooks, leaving out only those who cannot afford them.
At Y1 Secondary School, in 2009, 25 students (or 14%) of the 181 S.3 students did
not make the purchase.
insurance.
Other hidden costs include notepads, school uniform and
In total, the hidden costs can amount to between 320 yuan/year (for
primary school) to at least 508 or 608 yuan/year (for junior secondary school) in the
rural areas (see Table 6.4).
101
Table 6.4
Hidden costs of schooling at a primary and a junior secondary school
Item
Cost
Rationale given by the interviewee
Notepads
40 yuan/year
To get them in the same style and our prices are

also cheaper than that in the shops.
Supplementary
112 yuan/year
The school and the education system dont require
workbook fees
(300-400 yuan/year
the students to buy these but they signed up for
for junior secondary
them voluntarily to get more exercise
school*)
Summer: 63 yuan
For better school image, we will encourage
Winter: 75 yuan
students to buy its optional but students
School uniform
generally buy them.
Insurance
30 yuan/year
Its optional
Total
320 yuan/year for primary school

(508-608 yuan/year for junior secondary school*)
(Sources:
B1 Primary School principal, *Y1 Secondary School Administrator)
Apparently, school is much more expensive today (living costs: 1200 yuan/year,
hidden costs: 508-608 yuan/year) than before the abolition of tuition and textbook
fees when students had to pay only 300 yuan/year under the One-Fee policy (yifei
zhi, ).
New needs and fees, such as meals at the canteens19, supplementary
workbooks, insurance, are introduced as the school system becomes more modernized.
The increased school related fees are comparable to the increased expenditures in an
increasingly modernized life.
A farmer compared her needs for expenditure in life
before the market reform in the 80s or 90s and today after year 2000:
19
At Y1 Secondary School, in the 90s and before, there was no school canteen and students brought
their own cornmeal/rice and fire woods from home to cook at the school kitchen.
102
In the past there was never any problem with subsistence: we just ate what we grew.
There was no need to buy, but we just had no money left.
problem with subsistence and we have money left.
Now, theres also no
But the money we make is not
enough. We need to spend a lot, for example in renovating our house, sending our
children to school, buying chemical feed additives and chemical fertilizers.
(Z1-Mother of Xiao Jie, Y09/Fieldnotes p.8)
The cost of school choice
Although the issue of the sponsorship fee may not be relevant to Xiao Yuan, they
are key especially for children, especially the children of migrant workers, who are
enrolled in a school which is not in ones school district, they also have to pay a
sponsorship fee (jiedu fei or zexiao fei) every year.
Since 2009, the sponsorship fee
has been officially forbidden, but some schools are reportedly reserving some of its
fee-free paying student quotas as sponsorship fee-paying students.
In rural
Guangdong, sponsorship fees reportedly range from 300-400 yuan/year (for B2

Primary School) to 1000 yuan/year (for a junior secondary school of average ranking
in County A), or even 20,000 yuan/year (for the County As top secondary school).
Poor students who cannot afford sponsorship fees like Xiao Yuan have no choice but
to attend the school close to home.
The government does not seem to be committed to make the school system more
just, by providing the poor and the disadvantaged the same opportunities to enter a
school of their choice.
A County A Education Bureau vice-chief said:
We can only let the children realize their right to education, thats it.
You cannot require
us to adjust the structure of the system and even provide good quality that the people are
103
satisfied with.
For those who are incapable [of gaining access to quality schools], there
is nothing we can do about it Moreover, these fees may possibly contribute to the
construction of school infrastructure.
[][]

(A-Bureau vice-chief Xu, G10/88, 92)
Income forgone or perceived future benefits
The economic cost of schooling also involves the income foregone, usually
measured in terms of the estimated employment earnings in the labour market, by the
childs schooling (Woodhall 2004: 31).
To simplify the analysis, I treat the income
foregone also as the future benefits expected to be gained by graduates with different
educational levels.
The range of salaries is based on waged employment in the
urban areas in Dali city in Yunnan and the factories in Pearl River Delta in
Guangdong.
It does not include all employed people, including those in
self-employment and agriculture.
Those with a primary or junior secondary school
educational level could make 500 yuan by working in a restaurant, shop, construction
site, or as an unskilled blue-collar in a small- or medium-sized privately owned
factory, earning 400-1000 yuan/month, working 10-12 hours/day and sometimes
overnight; their job offers only two to four half-day rest per month and often no
insurance or benefits required by Chinas Labour Law.
Senior secondary school
graduates can find a job in a state-owned factory, or a managerial position in a

restaurant or shop, earning 800 to 2000 yuan/month with shorter working hours.
Those with a university degree can work as a school teacher, a civil servant, a white
collar worker in a private company, earning generally 1000 to 2500 yuan/month or up
104
to 5000 yuan/month, working from 9am to 5pm during weekdays only and enjoying
insurance and benefits required by Chinas Labour Law.
In the cost-benefit analysis,
however, only the monetary costs are used.
6.2.2
A cost-benefit analysis
Indeed, many rural parents in the field, including Xiao Yuans grandmother, in
the field conducted an informal cost-benefit analysis to decide whether or not to send
their children to school.
In fact, even the students themselves, especially those who
do not want to study, make a rough cost-benefit analysis to decide when to drop out.
A S.2 dropout once said it was meaningless to study beyond junior secondary school:
So what with studying?
Dont the university graduates also work for others after they
graduate? Why dont I enter work now?
Others can only work after finishing university,
but I would have already worked for many years with a lot of money.
(C1-Dropout Zhu, G09/)
The cost-benefit analysis or the rates of return to different educational levels can be
calculated using the simplified method or short-cut method by dividing the salary of
graduates of a particular educational level by the direct cost and opportunity cost in
attaining that educational level.
This method ignores the effect of age on earnings
and assumes a flat earnings profile throughout their working life (Woodhall 2004:
79-80).
The calculation is made using the previously mentioned costs and benefits
of sending Xiao Yuan to primary and junior secondary schools and the speculated
costs and benefits of educating her beyond junior secondary level (see Table 6.5).
105
Table 6.5
Education
level
P.1 P.6
S.1 - S.3
S.4 - S.6
University
Year 1-4
A cost-benefit analysis for educating Xiao Yuan from primary to university education
Costs
Benefits / income forgone
Rate of return
Tuition and miscellaneous fees: 40

yuan/year (tuition exempted by the school)
Living cost: 800-1200 yuan/year
Hidden cost: 320 yuan
Opportunity cost: nil, too young to be
hired
Tuition and miscellaneous fees: exempted
Living costs: 1200 yuan/year
(minus 250 yuan/semester subsidy)
- Hidden cost: 508-608 yuan/year
- Opportunity cost: could have earned
500 yuan/month working at the restaurant
opened by her relative
- Tuition and living costs: 4000-5000
yuan/year
- Opportunity cost: could have been
earned from a job paying at least 500
yuan/month
As an unskilled blue-collar in a
small- or medium-sized privately
owned factory, restaurant, shop,
construction site, earning 500-1000
yuan/month
(assume
800
yuan/month),
working
10-12
hours/day
and
sometimes
overnight, with only 2 to 4 half-day
rest per month and often no
insurance or benefits covered by
Chinas Labour Law
Annual earnings of a primary school graduate: 800

yuan/month x 12 months,
divided by the annual costs of investing in six years of
primary education: 6 years x 1600 yuan/year,
and times 100%
= 100%
Annual earnings of a junior secondary school graduate:
800 yuan/month x 12 months, divided by the annual
direct and opportunity costs of investing in three years of
junior secondary school education: 3 years x (1800
yuan/year + 500 yuan/month x 12months),
and times 100%
= 41%
Annual earnings of a senior secondary school graduate:
1200 yuan/month x 12 months,
divided by the annual direct and opportunity costs of
investing in three years of senior secondary education: 3
years x (5000 yuan/year + 500 yuan/month x 12
months),
and times 100%
= 43.6%
Annual earnings of a university graduate (2500
yuan/month x 12 months) divided by the annual direct
and opportunity costs of investing in four years of
university education (4 years x (15,000 yuan/year + 1200
yuan/month x 12 months)) x 100%
= 25.5%
- Tuition and living costs: 10,000-20,000

yuan/year (assume 15,000 yuan/year)
- Opportunity cost: could have been
earned from a job paying at least 1200
yuan/month
A job in a state-owned factory or in a

managerial position in a restaurant
or
shop,
earning
800-1500
yuan/month
(assume
1200
yuan/month)
As a teacher, a civil servant, a white

collar in a private company, earning
generally 1000-2500 yuan/month, or
up to 5000 yuan/month (assume
2500 yuan), working 9am to 5pm
during
weekdays
only,
with
insurance and benefits required by
Chinas Labour Law
106
With a 100% rate of return to primary education or the benefits double the costs after
graduating from primary school, it is most profitable to send Xiao Yuan to primary
school.
From a purely economic perspective, it is an economically rational
behaviour to send her to primary school.
But the rate of return drops drastically with
junior secondary education (41%), raises only slightly with senior secondary
education (43.6 %) and drops further in university education (25.5%).
Given the
much lower rate of return to junior secondary education, why did Xiao Yuans
grandmother continue to send her to junior secondary school?
If Xiao Yuan enrols in
junior secondary school, why did she later drop out in S.3 at age 15 instead of
continuing onto senior secondary school which has a slightly higher rate of return?
Being unable to find an answer with the cost-benefit analysis, I turn to the
non-economic dimensions of Xiao Yuans decision to continue and discontinue her
studies.
6.3 The non-economic dimensions of schooling
6.3.1
Why Xiao Yuan remained in school until S.3
The costs of sending Xiao Yuan to primary school and junior secondary school
(about 1500 yuan/year) take up at least 50% of the household income, or 1.5 times of
per capita income, which is a huge investment compared to an average Chinese rural
household which would spend an average of 11% on educational, cultural and
recreational services (see Table 6.2).
With only less than 1,500 yuan left to spend in
a year, Xiao Yuans grandmother grows her own food and generally subsists on a
vegetarian diet consisting of mainly rice, peas and eggs.
She can only afford buying
oil and other necessary consumables and has no money left for buying medicine.
107
In
terms of the expected future benefits of sending Xiao Yuan to school, the income
earned by a person with a P.1-6 education would be the same as someone with a S.1-3
education.
Given the high costs and relatively low benefits, junior secondary
education would have been considered useless for Xiao Yuan.
Moreover, as the
research findings in other parts of rural China show, girls are more likely to drop out
in the transition to or during their junior secondary education (Hannum 2003; Brown
and Park 2002; Connelly and Zheng 2007).
This belief is particularly popular in the
late 1980s in Town B1 or in the late 1990s in Township Y1, when the local economy
began to move towards a market-oriented economy.
As the economy offers more
job opportunities, work becomes an alternative path to success and is sometimes seen
as a better education.
Why did Xiao Yuan continue onto her junior secondary
education, given the high financial costs incurred, her familys poverty situation and
similar future earnings as a primary school graduate?
Pressure from parents
For many Chinese children, going to school is, first and foremost, a family duty and a
way to fulfill the expectations of parents.
I have talked to the parents, they didnt let me [drop out]
[]
(B1-Hidden dropout-Ah Mei, G09/63)
Some parents sent their kids to school to wan da xie, his mother said she let him do
whatever at school.
Me:
what is wan da xie?
You just stay in school but youre just there killing time, sleeping, but not studying.
Although youre physically here, youre mentally absent. I wont [go to work].
to wan da xie at school first.
I will go perhaps when I reach 18.
108
I want
I felt Im still young, I
shouldnt go to work now.
[] 18
(B1-Hidden dropout-Ah Chan, G09/36)
For those who cannot perform well, school is at least a place to hun (, idle
around) or wan da xie (, mature some more), or to idle their time away so
as to mature some more because they feel not old enough or ready to enter work and
the society.
Dropping out was not a better option
The intention to stay or leave school is never clear.
Even though students are
unwilling to study, they may still want to remain at school for various reasons.
Although school is undesirable for them, work is neither a better or possible option.
Thats why many are caught in limbo, repeatedly dropping out and back into school or
jumping between school and work.
work.
They belong neither to the school system nor
The undesirability of work, especially in terms of the long working hours, can
also be a reason:
[If I have to choose between work and school] then of course school, because with work
I need to do everyday.
But, when Im at school I would then want to work, with school I
need to recite the texts everyday.
[But afterall] Studying is not as tough.
(B1-Hidden dropout-Ah Yun, G09/10)
109
The boss will scold at me if I want to take a rest.
12
I need to work for 12 hours a day.
(B1-Hidden dropout-Ah Yun, G09/7)
The increasingly difficult employment market for underage workers also turns the
students who are unwilling to study into hidden dropouts:
Being short, the students just cant find any work in the society at this age.
They also
cannot do much heavy physical farmwork at home, so its better to stay at school for one
or two more years.
(B1-Principal-Zhu, G09/21)
Many of the hidden dropouts are surprisingly aware of the job market for them, in
terms of their possibility of finding a job, the type of jobs they can do, work
conditions.
This is because many of them have temporarily work experience during
the summer holidays.
They know if they were to drop out of school and enter the
job market, they would be regarded as a tonggong ( child worker) which is an

illegitimate working status so they need to go around that law to find a job.
Me: What is a child worker?
Ah Ming:
Some factories are more strict, [for them] anybody under 18 is a child worker.
It depends on the factory.

Ah Ming:
I dont think Im a child worker.
saying Im 19.
Ah Ming:
If somebody check our age, I could tell lies,
Child workers should be very young, like those under 16.
Even though we get discovered by the police, the boss will get caught and
penalized, I wont get caught, I would only be asked to go home.
18
19
16
(B1-Hidden dropouts-Ah Ming and Ah Ming, G09/7)
110
They know how difficult it was to get a regular job as a child worker, which is usually
not according to ones age, but ones height and appearance of maturity.
They also
need to go through a connection because nobody will hire child workers.
Hidden
dropout Ah Ming has been turned away by factory bosses because he was only 1.4
meter tall and did not look old enough.
Ah Ming:
My dad went looking [for a job for me] a few times, they said Im a child
worker and that they dont take child workers, so I can only stay at home.
Me:
Actually how did you guys find work?
Ah Ming:
We will only leave home once we have found the job, if not we would stay at
home.
Me:
Must you go through the recommendations of relatives, instead of responding to
those job advertisements on the street?

Ah Ming:
Im scared of following job ads on the street, I dont do that.
go through people we know.
Normally we
Job ads on the streets are not trust-worthy, many of them
are scams, like marketing scams.
I must find a stable and trust-worthy job. Its hard
to find work without a connection and if you are too young.
[]
(B1-Child worker-Ah Ming, G09/6-7)
The undesirability of staying at home is cited as another reason:

If he stay at home, his parents would want him to do housework, not letting him watch
TV, they would scold at him, and not let him go out to meet his friends or ask for anything.
They would rather be at school to hun.
111

(X-Teacher-Li, Y09/161)
They will get pocket money if they go to school, no money if they stay at home.
(Z1-Hidden dropout-Zhang, Y09/62)
Theres nothing to do staying at home.
Personal reasons
Other reasons of going to school include being with friends or learning about life.
Going to school for me is only a type of entertainment.
(Z2-Hidden dropout-Xiao Zhao, Y09/52)
At school I can learn about life.
(Z2-Hidden dropout-Xiao Zhi, Y09/52)
I would miss leaving [school] and the three years of friendship with my classmates.
May be its for one person [a boy at school], can I not say it?
[]
Pressure from peers
Given the universalization of education in her village, both Xiao Yuan and her
grandmother may also be put under the pressure from her peers in the village,
112
combined with pressure from the government, when deciding whether to continue
sending her to school.
When enrolment rates exceeds a threshold, as Williams (1983)
points out, the so-called remaining 10% of the households would be put under
pressure to send their children to school.
The non-economic benefits of schooling
Many rural Chinese parents in the field have expressed that they would rather go
into debt to send their children to school, as Bray et al. (2004) noted, because of their
belief in the future benefits which are not necessarily in monetary terms.
A rural
mother is willing to go into debt to send her daughter to go to university because of

the expected benefit that she can find a relaxing job and would not have to make a
hard living as a coolie (mao kuli, ).
She said:
If [my daughter] goes to university, even though she cant find a good job, she can find a
relaxing job and would not have to make a hard living as a coolie.
(Z1-Xiao Jies mother, phone conversation, 2011-8-4)
20
Retired Teacher He, now 59, who was educated during the socialist times under
Chairman Mao, also remained at school because of a strong belief in the benefits of
education.
Comparing himself with the students who do not believe in the use of
education today, he said:

My parents encouraged me, saying studying would always be good.
Since young I
believed that even though knowledge was not needed in many areas in the society then,
as long as I got knowledge and skills, they would be put into use in the future.
20
The full conversation, see Chapter 8.3.1

113
In the
past, we just wanted to study well and not think about whether education is useful or
not Students nowadays are too pragmatic.
They are unwilling to study if they could
see the immediate use of it.
(B1-Retired Teacher He, G10/8-9)
The obstacles he had to overcome to attend school were much more than they could
be measured in monetary terms.
The financial cost of education was actually not the
major obstacle as, he said, education during the socialist times was about what an
adult can earn between 1.5 to 3 weeks by working in the production team 21
(shengchan dui, ) in the village.
In the past, there were no other
school-related expenses, such as meals at the canteen, school uniform, insurance,

supplementary workbooks and extra-curricular activities; and students carried rice,
vegetables and firewood to cook at the school kitchen.
He estimated that only about
one-third of the dropouts at that time were indeed due to financial reason, and the
others were due to an inability to perform well at school and a lack of awareness of
the benefits of education.
Having received his primary to senior secondary
education from 1959 to 1970, the obstacles he faced included extreme poverty and
hunger during Chinas Great Famine from 1959 to 1961 and the politically most
chaotic years during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1968.
It makes me cry every time I talk about those days!
He said:
My family was in such a difficult
situation that my parents were even about to sell me to someone else [sobbing]
During the three years of the Great Famine, sometimes we had no staple food that we
had to chew the dry bean pods for the juice and spit them out, make a soup by grinding
21
During the socialist times, in Village C3, people get paid between 0.15 and 0.3 yuan for a day of
work for the production team while the cost of sending a child to school was a few yuan a semester.
114
the plant seeds into powder One Saturday after school, I was too hungry and fainted
on the way after walking some two hours.
(B1-Retired Teacher He, G10/8-9 and email correspondence)
There were even more non-economic obstacles for his former senior secondary school
classmate, Farmer Ye, now 59.
away.
When he was a few years old, Yes father passed
He was brought up by an illiterate mother, whom he said did not tell him to
go to school.
And his family was so poor that he had to earn his school fees by
collecting firewood in the forest after school and selling them in the market for 1 to
1.2 yuan per 100kg.
one single hope.
But he overcame all the obstacles to stay in school because of
He said:
Its just because I wanted to leave the village.
(C1-Farmer Ye, G10/69)
6.3.2
Why Xiao Yuan dropped out at age 15
And why did Xiao Yuan later drop out in S.3 second semester before she reaches
the legal working age of 16?
The accepted age of working and social connections in finding child work
Officially, one can begin to work legally at age 16 and needs to present a secondary
school graduation certificate in order to be employed.
115
In many of the employment
advertisement for shop assistants or factory workers, the minimum requirement is age
18.
But, in many of the villages I visited, it is locally acceptable to work once one is
in junior secondary school age, which is between 13 and 15.
Although there are no
officially legitimate channel to find work for such an age group, many rural families
depend on their personal connections, or guanxi, in their extended family or in their
local community (laoxiang, ) to find work for their children.
Despite lacking
in financial assets, rural families have guanxi, a key social asset to get almost
anything done in their life, ranging from getting a fake identity card, to getting a
secondary school certificate from the local school principal, getting a job in a foreign
city and other tasks that would not have been achieved by going through the official
channels.
In fact, many of the school dropouts would only depend on personal
connections to protect themselves from being cheated in finding a job and settling into
life in a foreign city.
Although Xiao Yuan dropped out of school before completing
S.3 and before having an identity card at age 16---the legal working age, she could
immediately find a job working as a helper at a restaurant opened by her relative in
the nearby Dali city.
Apart from having relevant social connections, the fact that
Xiao Yuan managed to be employed illegally also depends on the rather relaxed
requirements for being employed in unskilled work especially in a small city like Dali
in China.
As many child workers point out, many of them were offered a job even
without having their identity card checked.
The most important requirement, as it
has been suggested, is being tall and looking mature.
The loss of future security
The decision to drop out was also related to Xiao Yuans family situation and the
cultural expectations of children in the traditional Chinese family.
116
For Xiao Yuans
72-year-old grandmother, family wealth is not viewed merely in terms of material

assets: in fact, family cohesion could be a most fundamental asset as it brings about a
sense of security for the future.
She used to have a family of six, with her husband,
her son, her daughter-in-law and two granddaughters.
The premature death of her
only son at age 29 was the major blow to her sense of security for the future.
Photo 6.2
Xiao Yuans grandmother
She had three other children but all of them were girls and married and living in other
villages.
In the traditional Chinese society, especially one that is based on
agricultural production, having children especially sons are considered as providing

a sense of security against old age (fanglao, ).
They are expected to be the
family pillar (dingliang zhu, ) in maintaining the household finance and

care for their parents in old age as they continue to live with their parents after getting
117
married.
Xiao Yuans grandmother apparently had this traditional value as she
described girls as water splashed outside (bo chuqu de shui, ) as they

will join the family of her husband after getting married.
The loss of her son, or the family pillar, led to a breakdown of family cohesion.
She suspected her son was poisoned by her daughter-in-law, who left the family with
her younger granddaughter to remarry elsewhere one year later.
The last blow came
when Xiao Yuans grandfather also passed away the day before her S.3 graduation
examination in May.
When Xiao Yuan was then left with her grandmother, her
family plunged into a crisis of security for the future and she effectively had to
shoulder the responsibility of the familys only son or family pillar.
Even though
scholarships were available and money were not an issue for her to further study and
her grandmother could survive with the social security money provided by the
government, education is no longer seen as a future investment for Xiao Yuan.
Her
grandmother actually did not want her to go to senior secondary school, a path which
would lead to university and work away from home; all she wanted was for her to stay
by her side and be her caretaker.
She hoped that Xiao Yuan would work for a couple
of years in the city to make some money and then come back home to be with her
even though that would mean for her to be a farmer.
I hope she will come back here as soon as possible to be a farmer and get married,
thats all I hope. Why wanting her to come back?
Because there is only me here, we
have land that she can plough, when shes in her 20s she can marry somebody here.
(Z3-Xiao Yuans Grandmother, Y09/5)
118
Low self-esteem
The relationship between family poverty and the decision to drop out also has a
psychological dimension associated with the students low self-esteem or a lack of
face.
Xiao Yuan wrote in her dairy:
Those who like the colour black lack a sense of security, hate sunshine and likes to
hide in dark places.
wont tell him.
If somebody recognizes me, asks me why I was sad and crying, I
I hate this type of life; I hate losing myself like this.
Im used to hiding
away from sunshine and trying very hard to run away, but there is no place to hide
(Z3-Dropout Xiao Yuan, Y09/photograph)
From this excerpt of her diary entry, Xiao Yuan appears to be a girl who has a weak
sense of security and does not place a high value on herself.
Of the many factors
that affect her self-esteem, family poverty can be one of them as she might feel losing
out when compared to her peers whose families are more well-off.
Children with a
low-esteem are vulnerable to dropping out of school, as Xiao Yuan said in her diary
that, she wanted to escape and hide in dark places where nobody recognizes her.
Ah Xiang from Village C1 also dropped out because she felt humiliated by a
teacher who criticizes her family in public for being incapable of paying the school
fees.
She said it was not her poor academic performance or her familys inability to
pay the fees that push her out of school in P.5, or the final year of universal education
in 198722.
She dropped out because her self-esteem was hurt or, as she described,
not having face (mei mianzi, ).
She recalled:
22
In Village C1, in 1987, education was only universalized up to primary education which was only
five years long.
119
I did quite well at school and I also wanted to go to school, but we didnt have enough
money to pay school fees.
My dad asked our teacher to wait a few times, but each time
he still didnt have the money to pay.
Our class teacher didnt quite give me face, in
front of some 20 to 30 students, he asked me: you so and so, go stand outside, go ask
your dad to pay the school fees.
I felt really humiliated in front of the whole class.
couldnt swallow the humiliation so I left school He had asked me to pay school fees
many times already, I tolerated him because he did not do it in front of the whole class.
But this time, I was really hurt and had no face to see this teacher
teacher, the principal and my relatives came to my home.
In the end, that
But when I saw him, I just felt
bad and didnt have the courage to talk to him Even though I were to return to school, I
would not have the courage to face him.
How could I pay attention in his class?
I was
too stressed out by that teacher Even until today, over 10 years later, I am still scared
of him. I even have nightmares about him.
(C1-Dropout Ah Xiang, G10/34)
Ah Ye, who left school in P.623 in 1994, also dropped out because he felt inferior
to his peers at school when family wealth was compared.
At age 14, he left school
to find work in order to improve his home financial situation.

Our family was quite poor.
At that time, I lived at school together with my classmates
23
In Town B1, in 1994, universal education was only up to primary education which had been
extended from the previous five years to six years. Secondary school education was later
universalized in 1996.
120
during the week, came home only once a week.
My classmates got 3 to 5 yuan from
their parents as pocket money, but I only got 2 or 1 yuan, I didnt have money to play with
my friends.
I felt so guilty, because my family was poor and didnt have money to give
me. Also my parents didnt know how to teach me, they had to make a living so I left
school to make some money.
3 5 2 1
(C1-Dropout Ah Ye, G10/29)
6.4 Non-economic indicators of rural household wealth
Xiao Yuans family financial poverty, as indicated by her household income

falling below the poverty line, is not the only reason why she was barred from access
to school.
The breakdown of family cohesion, following the premature death of her
father and the subsequent departure of her mother, also deprived her of the
opportunity to further her education because she had to take up the role and
responsibilities of the family pillar expected of her in the traditional Chinese family.
There are many other non-economic indicators of rural household wealth, some of
which may directly or indirectly contribute to the children school access.
The rural household wealth, similar to what Sumner (2007) points out, can be
reflected by non-economic indicators, such as accessibility (as reflected by the
households physical location and distance to the nearest urban area), gender equality
(as reflected by the parents educational level), childrens education, structure of
housing, access to water and electricity, and sanitation.
In terms of the structure of
housing, houses with mud walls, wood pillars and a tiled roof (often known as a
mud-wood structure) are images of poverty.
121
Even though these houses can last for
at least 70 to 80 years and can reportedly survive through earthquakes in Yunnan,

many of the rural people would go so far as to take up work in the city, borrow money
and go into debt in order to build a new house with a brick-concrete structure, often
known as western house (), which is ten times more expensive to build, not as
warm in the winter and can only last for 50 years.
I once showed a villager a
photograph I took of Village Z in the mountains and full of houses with a mud-wood
structure (see Photo 6.3).
Instead of admiring the beauty of the natural environment
and the simplicity of rural life, the villager said: Such a poor place!
Photo 6.3
A mountainous location
and
mud
walls
are
some of the images of

poverty
The location of land owned by a household, the fertility of the soil, the local
weather and other environmental factors influential to the production of crops are also
indicators of rural household wealth.
In County X, there is a huge difference
between the amount of crops produced in the 2,000 meter-high mountainous areas (
) and that in the lowland or valley terrace, also known as baqu () in Yunnan
(see Table 6.6).
122
Table 6.6
A comparison of crop production between lowland and mountainous areas
in County X
Lowland area
Mountainous area
Corn
700-800 kg/mu
250 kg/mu
Rice
700-800 kg/mu
500-600 kg/mu
Tobacco
260 kg/mu
130 kg/mu
But, the area of arable land owned, the fertility of land and the local weather
have become less indicator of household wealth as salaried work became popular
among rural people and as villagers no longer depend on agricultural production to
make a living.
In the more developed rural areas like Town B1 in Guangdong, the
main source of living generally comes from both parents working at salaried jobs in
the urban areas throughout the year, leaving school-age children and the elderly at
home to grow staple food like rice for the familys own consumption.
Virtually
nobody in Town B1 today depends on raising livestock (except poultry) and

ploughing the fields for a living: at least one third of the farmland there is now
abandoned.
In Township Y1, a less developed rural area in Yunnan, the source of
income still mainly or partly comes from agricultural production, sometimes

supplemented by one parent working at a salaried job during the non-harvest seasons.
The various non-economic indicators of rural household wealth, as viewed by the
poor, are summarized in Table 6.7.
Table 6.7

Relatively well-off
Average
Poor
Location and
In comparatively flat and
In the mountains near the
Remotely located in the
Accessibility
easily accessible areas,
main road, 3+ hours by
mountainous areas (
1 hour by bus from
bus from county town;
county town.
valley terrace (
).
or
),
only accessible on foot

after getting into the
Many in Town B1 but
village.
few in Township Y1.
Many in Township Y1.
123
Parents
Both parents are literate
One parent is may be
Both are illiterate and
education
with a small gap in the
illiterate or half-illiterate
half-illiterate
educational level
between the mother and
father
Family
A family with family
A family with family pillar
A family with no family
cohesion
pillar and many sons
and sons
pillar due to parents

divorce, death or
mental/physical handicap;
With only girls
Area of arable
land
24
owned
At least 1.5 mu per
1 to 1.5 mu per person of
person, with parts or all
land
Less than 1 mu per person
of it abandoned
Amount of
- No livestock (except
- Livestock (pigs, poultry)
- No livestock (except
livestock and
poultry)
- Draft animals (a donkey
poultry)
draft animals
- Tractor, also known as
and an ox).
- No draft animals.
They buy rice and meat.
They eat what they grow
They eat what they grow
Grandparents at home
(rice, pumpkins,
(mainly cornmeal and no
may grow some.
vegetables, eggs), and
rice, vegetables, eggs).
restriction on diet
buy meat once a week
Mainly a vegetarian diet
Structure of
- Made of concrete and
- Made of brick walls,
- Made of mud walls, wood
housing
brick, also known as a
wood pillars and an angled
pillars and an angled tiled
Western house (
titled roof.
roof (the poorest
- Modern decorations,
- Some decorations, such
elsewhere is said to have
such as the use of glass
as a thin layer of white
a thatched roof).
windows, tiles, steel
cement on the surface of
- No decoration.
gate, a flat rooftop.
walls, crafted doors, use of
- Building cost between
- Building cost at least
tiles.
20,000-30,000 yuan
250,000 yuan
- Building cost at least
- includes a pigsty in the
- No pigsty
100,000 yuan
basement or in an
- includes a pigsty in the
attached house
iron buffalo (
Diet
No
).
basement or in an
attached house
24
By arable land, it refers to the responsibility land under the Household Responsibility System,
which is generally land fertile enough for growing staple food such as rice and corn. It does not
include those reclaimed by the farmers themselves in the mountains. For more details about the
System, see Brandt et al. (2002).
124
(Contd)
Home
New TV, DVD, fridge,
Second hand TV, one
No communication tools
appliances
home phone and a
mobile phone per family
and home appliances,
mobile phone per
except light bulbs for
person
lighting
Sanitation at
Modern kitchen, with
Rather big and clean
Small, dark, rather messy
the kitchen
titled floor and
half-enclosed kitchen,
open kitchen, using little
sometimes titled walls,
using firewood as cooking
firewood but mainly corn
using firewood as
fuel
cobs (without the kernels)
cooking fuel
as cooking fuel
Access to
Running tap water in the
Water from a nearby well;
Water from a well far
water and
house; Access to
Access to electricity but
away;
electricity
electricity
seldom use it apart from
Access to electricity but
simple lighting
seldom use it apart from

simple lighting
6.5
Conclusion
To understand family poverty as a push factor in school dropout, both the economic
and non-economic dimensions must be analyzed.
The economic dimension of
poverty was an important factor in the familys decision of sending Xiao Yuan to
school.
The non-economic dimensions of poverty are equally important.
In Xiao
Yuans case, they are associated with a loss of the family pillar, culturally specific
values and expectations on the role of children in the family, Xiao Yuans
psychological lack of well-being of being identified as a child from a poor family,
and the conception of poverty in the local context.
To help poor children like Xiao
Yuan to go to school is, therefore, much more complex than what can be simply
solved by the abolition of fees, the provision of financial subsidies and what can be
revealed by a cost-benefit analysis.
125
Chapter 7
Through the case of a P.5 dropout who has failed to perform well at school since day
one, Chapter Seven offers an ethnographic account of the relationship between school
access and parents literacy.
7.1
Ah Xing Fa, who failed school from day one
When he was born, his parents called him Ah Xing Fa () (b.1994).
His
nickname name means lucky (Xing as in xingyun, ) and wealthy (Fa as in

fada, ), which was his parents hope for him in the future.
came early on in his life.
In April 2006, in the second semester of P.5, he dropped
out of school and was only 11 years old then.

cars in a garage.
But, disappointment
At age 13, he had his first job washing
That lasted for only two months and was the only time when he
worked outside the village.
Since then he remained generally unemployed, apart
from doing occasional and temporary jobs for 20 yuan/day in his home village.
When I met him in Village Z1, he was almost 16.
His mother said that his class
teacher actually asked him to leave school about one week after the family house was
destroyed in a fire accident.
He said he was not liked at school because his school
results were poor, he seldom did his home assignments or paid attention in class and
he was often involved in fights with his classmates who bullied him for being poor,
especially after the fire accident.
He said he had lost interest in school long ago and
even hated his teacher who used to hit him in class.

126
Like many other dropouts, there are many reasons why Ah Xing Fa could not
perform at school:
the quality of teaching and learning in the multi-grade classroom
at the one-teacher school in Village Z1; the long distance between his home and
school, which took at least 40 minutes of trekking up or down the mountain, which
might have made it difficult for him to have the time and energy to finish school
assignment at home; and his punishing teacher and bullying peers.
But there was one fact that made him stand out from the other dropouts:
Xing Fa hated and had failed school since day one.
In P.1, he had problems with
concentration and could not catch up with the rest of the class.
the required assignments at home.
Ah
He never completed
He also hated going to school so much that his
parents had to hit him and accompany him in class.
He said:
The most I fear is going to school somehow I just couldnt sit still in class.
(Z1-Child worker Ah Xing Fa, Y09/73)
His former teachers blamed his illiterate parents, who had only attended P.1 and
P.6, for having a bad suzhi25 (quality) in offering a quality home education for Ah
Xing Fa.
He was often compared with his former classmate and a high achiever,
Xiao Jie, who has educated parents.
Principal Xu said:
(Z1-Principal Xu, Y09/90)
25
For a discussion of the term suzhi, see Literature Review Chapter 2.

127
Why are illiterate parents less capable of preparing their children for school
success compared to the educated parents?
Are illiterate parents incapable of
educating their children?

I will first compare the parents (the mother, in particular) of dropout Ah Xing Fa
and high achiever Xiao Jie in their skills of agricultural production for clues into the
parents suzhi, their form of literacy and ideology they practise in home education.
Then I seek to characterize the form of home education the parents practise in relation
to their attitudes on schooling, future work and life.
three questions:
In particular, I seek to address
What are they sending their children to school for? How is home
education carried out? What are the children taught at home?
Photo 7.1:
School dropout Ah Xing Fa
128
7.2
The literacy as a practice
For the locals, ones wenhua (, educational level or literacy) is often

related to ones suzhi (, quality).
A school principal said:
Many of our parents in this place are very backward, with a very low educational level
and a low educational awareness.
There is much limitation to their childrens home
education, because they dont have much of the school knowledge.
They only depend
on the teachers to give it to him.
One of the commonly used measure of ones suzhi is ones educational level.
In
the villages I visited, people considered with bad suzhi are illiterate or
half-illiterate who has never been schooled, has only attended but not completed
primary school, or had a relatively low educational level.
According to Village Z
statistics, the majority or 72.5% of the villagers have never been schooled or have
only attended primary school (see Table 7.1).
Table 7.1
Literacy in Village Z
Level of education
Population
Percentage
Never been schooled
169
20%
Primary school
442
52.5%
Secondary school
230
27.3%
University
0.1%
842
100%
Total
Source:
Yunnan Digital Village (2008)
129
Ones suzhi or literacy level is also measured by ones ability to understand the
official language (renzi, ) and how much formal school knowledge one has.
In
my observations, those who have never been schooled are mostly the generation of
grandparents or from the 1950s, who can only communicate in their local (County X)
dialect or their Yi ethnic minority language; those who have only attended or
completed primary school are mostly the parents generation or from the 1970s, who
can communicate in their local dialect as well as the official language but can
generally not write much Chinese characters; and those who have attended or
completed junior secondary school are mostly the childrens generation from the
1990s, who can speak and write in the official language.
However, for the locals, ones suzhi or literacy is much more than the type of
literacy one acquires and practises at school or than can be merely measured by the
number of years spent at school.
Principal Xu, in explaining why farmers with a
higher level of education are more financially well-off, said:

This has to do with the persons suzhi [quality], some of them are more intelligent,
some more diligent, more able to make plans, these people are more capable of guorizi
[living a good life].
Those who do not make plans for the future are financially worse off.
When you enter ones home, you can tell [a persons suzhi] by looking at how tidy one
keeps the kitchen, whether the floor is lined with tiles, whether one uses cement, bricks
and windows in the construction of the house.
not.
Some of the homes are very clean, some
There are also differences in their habits in life, the houses they live in.
130
Apparently, Principal Xu was referring to a certain literacy culture of the educated,

which as he described includes ones diligence, ones habits or values of making
future plans, ones ability to make money through agricultural production, the use of
bricks, tiles and windows in the construction of their house, certain values and habits
towards hygiene-keeping in the house and in the kitchen, or generally ones ability to
guo rizi (live a good life).
To understand the suzhi (quality) of Ah Xing Fas illiterate mother and Xiao
Jies educated mother, I will describe their literacy cultures using clues such as
their skills in making money through agricultural production.
7.3
The literacy practices of the educated: School literacy
The type of home education practised by the educated parents, often with an
urban background, can be described as school literacy.
It prepares the child to
succeed within the school system by equipping them with the right attitudes towards
the aim of studying, learning skills or habits, knowledge and future aspirations which
make their schooling experience meaningful and help them achieve success at school.
These parents mostly have an urban background or work as school teachers and
government employees (zhigong, ) who enjoy an average or above level of
financial status by local standards.
7.3.1
What for? Studying is for entering the university
In terms of the aim of studying (dushu, ), the educated rural parents focus more
on the extrinsic value of schooling as an investment leading to future success which
generally involves entering the university and finding a good job in the city with a
131
high, stable income.

for ones future.
In other words, the longer one studies at school, the better it is
Dropping out is not an option.
Even though the child fails at
school and wants to discontinue his/her studies, he/she would be asked to remain at
school to mature some more (wan da xie, ).
In China, an entrance to the
university is the conventional notion of success because upon graduation one would
be assigned an iron rice bowl (tie fanwan, ), or a stable job with a permanent
income provided by the government (bao fenpei, ).
Although the
government has stopped assigning jobs to university graduates since around year 2000
and there is increasing uncertainty for university graduates to find good jobs,
university entrance remains one of the conventional measurements of ones success in
China today.
Similar to Sun (2004)s findings of the well-off and poor parents in
educational expenditure, the educated parents focus on the long-term benefits of

education, even though the direct and opportunity costs can be high.
The educated
rural mother of Xiao Jie, for example, was adamant about sending her high-achieving
daughter to the university, despite the high school fees and an uncertain work prospect
for university graduates.
She said:
If [she] has the ability to further study, then let her go to senior secondary school and
then university.
Me:
But a very realistic question, how will you manage the school fees?
Oh my, who cares! They say it takes 10,000 to 20,000 yuan a year, well see then!
Me:
You dont worry that she cant find a job after she graduates?
Oh my, who cares! Well see then.
If she goes to university, even though she cant
find a good job, she can find a relaxing job and would not have to make a hard living as a
coolie.
1-2
132
7.3.2
How? Learning by conforming to the school system
Since early on in life, the children of educated households learn to adapt

and conform to the school system.
Under a strict control of the parents,
children are disciplined to conform to the school system in terms of their habits
of learning, the skills of studying, knowledge with little freedom to decide what
they want to learn and how they learn it.
Anything the parents teach or say to
their children is often done for the purpose of preparing their children for
success at school.
For example, they sacrifice as much of their free time to
accompany their childrens studies or to keep an eye on them.
High
Achiever Xiao Jies educated mother said she gave up the prospect of making
more money in the city in order to keep an eye on her childrens studies in the
village.
One teacher I met even quit her job to accompany her son through the
studies of senior secondary school.
Their childrens major role and
responsibility is to be a good student and score high in the school examinations.

When they come home after school, they are asked to do their homework instead of
doing house chores and are not allowed to play until they finish their homework.
Their learning habits, such as doing homework after school everyday, are regulated
and adapted according to the requirements of the school system.
Some parents
would even monitor or accompany their children while they do their homework.
As
a teacher observes:
The urban parents help their children dictate vocabulary every evening.
Some of them
are very cooperative with the schools education, by accompanying them in doing
exercises, reading them stories, taking them out to travel and participate in activities.
133
(X-Teacher Li, Y09/164)
Their linguistic skills are also aligned with the school system.
In the ethnic Yi
minority Village Z1, many of the parents even gave up speaking their native
minority language, but instead spoke the official Chinese language Putonghua,
to their children at home to help them adjust to school.
As a result, the
majority of Yi ethnic minority children from the 90s are said to be unable to speak
their own minority language.
To help align their childrens habits, skills and
knowledge with what is expected of in formal schooling as early as possible,

many parents enrol them at a kindergarten (which offers a three-year curriculum
for age 3-6) and a pre-school (which offers a one-year curriculum for age 6-7)
before primary school starts.
A teacher said she enrolled her son to a kindergarten
hoping that he would learn the skills of how to play and get along with others.
Im afraid he will be unwilling to study in the future, so I hope the kindergarten can teach
him how to play, teach him how to get along with his classmates and be good at dealing
with interpersonal relationships.
.
(Z1-Teacher Luo, Y09/109)
At the pre-school, the children learn to adapt their habit of learning at fixed times
using a timetable and develop the correct attitudes towards schooling.
The
pre-school curriculum is basically a replica of the P.1 curriculum with only the core
subjects of Maths and Chinese (see Table 6.2).
134
Table 7.2
Village Z1 pre-school timetable and curriculum
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thur
Fri
Morning self-study
Lesson 1
(7:30-8:10)
Lesson 2
Safety
Speak
Putonghua
Maths
Chinese
(8:20-9:00)
education
Putonghua
pinyin system
Lesson 3
Attitudes
Putonghua
Speak
Putonghua
Speak
(9:20-10:00)
education: I
pinyin system
Putonghua
Pinyin system
Putonghua
go to school
Lunch break
Lesson 4
Chinese
Free activity
Writing
Art
Attitudes
education: I
(1:00-1:40)
go to school
Lesson 5
Maths
Writing
Science
Free activity
IQ exercises
(2:00-2:40)
In Village Z1, pre-school education first appeared in year 2000 as a private business
of the primary school in the form of preparatory students (, yu bei sheng).
The parents had to pay 200 yuan/semester for their 5 to 7-year-olds to sit at the back
of P.1 class.
The preparatory students do not receive any particular instruction, other
than being asked to sit still and not misbehave.
Every year, there were around six to
eight preparatory students sitting in the P.1 classes. Since 2006, pre-school classes
have been formally held in an abandoned school building in a separate location and
have become a private side business run by the Village Z1 Primary School principal.
The enrolment of pre-schoolers has increased from 6 children in the past to 30
children in 2009, with another 30 students from other villages are expected to enrol in
the future.
In recent years, many rural parents are sending their children to
pre-schools because they see themselves as incapable of preparing their children for
success at school.
26
Z1 Primary School Principal26, who runs a pre-school privately in
Principal Zhang wanted me to help him raise 100,000 yuan to improve the quality of the pre-school
135
an old abandoned school building, said:

Before entering a formal school, children come here to receive an education which helps
formalize their learning in every aspect and develop good learning habits.
The students
will study better in the future.
(Z1-Principal Zhang, Y09/89)
The school is seen as the source of knowledge, and parents would synchronize
their home education around the school syllabus.
Whatever that is taught outside of
school is not considered knowledge, such as the knowledge needed in agricultural

production, in rural life.
And without the school knowledge, one is believed to
have little prospect for future success.

this thinking.
Even farmers themselves are influenced by
A farmer said, when asked what his dropout son most capable of:
My son is most capable of being a farmer.
If you cannot succeed at school, you can
only be a farmer.
Me:
Farming also requires the brain.
Farming does not require the brain, nor knowledge, you just need to follow others.
Me:
So does working in a factory require knowledge?
Working in a factory of course requires knowledge, there are machine parts, there is
order and you need to match the numbers [of the machine parts].
It doesnt require
much knowledge, only a little.

Me:
Isnt it the same with farming?
You can be a farmer without any knowledge.

Me: What do you want him to do in the future?
Without knowledge, I dont dare to expect him of anything.
Not being intelligent, he
cannot be successful in the future.
by replacing the mud-wood school building structure with a modern-looking brick-cement building
structure and modern school furniture rather than wooden chairs and desks.
136
[]
(C1-Mother of Dropout Ah Fu, G09/29)
7.3.3
What? Learning about striving for success and the fear of failure
Educated parents generally have high expectations of their children, hoping for
them to succeed at school and in their future career as dragon sons and phoenix
daughters in the future.
goal of entering university.
They plan the childrens future, prescribe them with the

As a teacher observes:
Even though their childrens ability is not high, the urban parents still want their child to
become a dragon son or a phoenix daughter.
Some rural parents think like that, but not
many.
(Z1-Teacher Zi, Y09/98)
These parents generally believe in their power to decide their own destiny
through education.
Phrases such as only knowledge can change ones destiny
(zhishi caineng gaibian mingyun, ) are often cited to make their

children study hard.
They teach their children to strive for success.
An educated
farmer who has completed senior secondary school told his grandson:
Opportunities dont just fall out of the sky.
You have to make your own luck.
(C1-Farmer Ye, G10/fieldnotes)
137
The belief in ones ability to change ones destiny is the same Confucian belief that
Rao et al. (2003b) draw upon to explain why the Chinese parents under study were
more likely than their Indian counterparts to push their children to achieve beyond a
certain level and make the effort to overcome their innate endowments.
They also often teach their children to fear failure.
Once, high achiever Xiao
Jie was severely reprimanded by her educated mother because she went out with her
friends in the evening instead of studying for her SSEEE.
Her mother threatened her
to study hard with what is considered as a dire prospect of being a farmer or entering
the vocational school.
If you dont study hard, you will cry when you know your SSEEE scores will only be good
enough to enter the vocational school.
7.4
The literacy practices of the illiterate: Life literacy
The type of home education practised in the households of uneducated farmers

and migrant workers can be described as life literacy.
Partly due to the parents
limited socio-economic resources, their limited school experience and limited free
time to keep an eye on their children, this approach does not prepare their children
with necessarily the right attitudes, learning habits and knowledge for school.
Instead, it prepares them for success in life or basically a good life.
138
7.4.1
What for? school is for learning about life
Virtually all the rural parents and students I have asked, whether educated or not,
recognize the notion that for one to be successful is to enter the university or further
study, as Cheng (1996) observed.
Unlike what many teachers believe, uneducated
parents do not lack the awareness of the extrinsic value of education.

many of them are incapable of relating to this notion of success.
In other words, its
often not a matter of willingness to further study, but ones capability.

the rural children are incapable of performing well at school.
However,
In many cases,
Ah Xing Fa himself
also regarded further studies as the only way to succeed in the society and saw
himself a failure as he has dropped out.
Me:
Have you regrets of dropping out of P.5?
Ah Xing Fa:
I have regrets. Afterall, I think I am a failure. If I were to continue
studying, I could have gone to secondary school, then senior secondary school.
When I
graduate from a key school, I will be assigned a [government] job.

Me:
Now you have left school, do you think you still have a chance to succeed?
Ah Xing Fa:
(hesitated for a long time) No.
(Z1-Child worker Ah Xing Fa, Y09/73, 82)
A S.2 dropouts father, himself only primary school educated, also said:
I of course want him to further study in the city in the future.
work at such a young age.
money.
I dont want him to enter
Its embarrassing for the parents. We also dont need his
But theres nothing I can do if he doesnt want to study.
will definitely make money to support him.
139
If he wants to study, I
(C1-Father of Child worker Ah Fu, G10/21)
In other cases, the child is capable of further studies but the parents are financially
incapable of sending their children to university.
Supporting a child to further
studies involves the tuition fee and living cost for three years of senior secondary
school (4,000-5,000 yuan/year) and four years of university (10,000 to 20,000
yuan/year).
For these parents, it is a dilemma to send children to further study, best
described by the popular Chinese saying bu shangxue deng zhe qiong, shangxue like
qiong (, If one doesnt go to school, one can expect
poverty; if one goes to school, one has it immediately).
The saying implies that the
parents are aware of the bad consequence of not sending children to school, but are
also unable to send them to school because of their economic situation.
Especially
for those who are incapable of entering top universities, the difficult employment
market for university gradates from medium-rank universities makes further studies
not a viable investment for the future.
Not being able to see how schooling can help them achieve their notion of
success, they focus more on the intrinsic value of learning to be a good person or
to learn about life (zuoren, ) and to be obedient (tinghua, ).
As a
rural school teacher observes:

During home visits rural parents told us: my kid is rather naughty, you educate him well
for me, scold at [or criticize] him, hit him when he is not well-behaved.
But when
teachers give them homework, the parents dont even look at it when they go home.
(Z1-Teacher Zi, 09/85)
140
A school dropout, when asked the purpose of going to school, said:
School is useful because it teaches us about life.
(Z2-Dropout Xiao Liang, Y09/personal exchange)
Some even considered schooling as a place to wan da xie () which is to

mature some more.
When asked the purpose of sending her child to school, the
mother of a dropout said:

Going to school is to learn a few words, mature some more, learn some knowledge, so
that he can go to work in the city.
(Z2-Mother of Xiao Liang, Y09/fieldnotes)
7.4.2
How? Learning by observation, self-discovery and practice
The uneducated parents do not have a plan to prepare their children to adapt to the
school system.
They exert much less control over the process of home education
where children are often given the freedom to decide what to learn and how to learn.
Their childrens learning often takes place during their playtime, with friends around
the village and without their parents company or knowledge.
Learning often takes
place on the spot as an unintended outcome of experience, participation and

observation in life.
It is much less pursued with a prescribed, expected outcome like
the educated, urban parents.
A six-year-old boy, for example, knew how to cook as
he spent much time at home watching his grandmother cook.
141
Photo 7.2
A six-year-old
boy was cooking fried rice, a

skill which he learnt from
observing his grandmother
The rural children are particularly strong in learning through discovery and
experience.
During my stay in the villages, the children have taught me a
remarkable wealth of informal knowledge about nature, some of which they acquire
by observation or by their own experience as they play in the mountains.
For
example, they know the usage of virtually every plant or tree around the village, in
terms of whether they are edible, can serve medicinal purpose, can be used serve as
animal feed; they can distinguish at least 10 types of firewood and which type is the
best for burning; they know the best method to cut trees without hurting themselves;
they know which insect is best to play with and where to catch them; they can invent
a variety of games using the available resources in nature to play with; they can tell
the time of the month by watching the moon, etc..
142
Photo 7.3
A boy showing
off his skill of catching a

squirrel
Even through they are running wild in the mountains and playing with their friends,
these children are learning the skills to get along with others and discovering their
natural
environment.
The
adults
from
these
households
jack-of-all-trades, outgoing and are good with interpersonal skills.
are
generally
Ah Xing Fa,
for example, was so friendly that he offered to be my tour guide in his village and
invited me to his home for tea and dinner.
As I entered his house, he immediately
tidied up the table, served me some local snacks and poured tea.
Instead of teaching their children to adapt to a school system, their parents
prepare them for life with, for example, the skill of independence and the sense of
responsibility.
Once I saw a six-year-old boy playing with a kitchen knife in front of
his sister and I asked her why he was not stopped.

143
She said their parents often let
them do anything to teach them to be independent, be responsible for their own action
or get up on their knees by themselves when they fall.
Let him play.
themselves.
Children in the villages like to play with knives, and they wont easily hurt
Even though they hurt themselves they wont cry.
Rural children wont
easily cry even though they fall on the ground, because we always fall. When we fall,
our parents wont lift us up.
They need us to get up on our knees by ourselves.
They
want to educate us to stand up by ourselves wherever we fall and whenever we face

difficulties in the future.
But in the city, children nowadays cry easily because they are spoiled.
At school, the
teachers are very nervous when somebody fall and they try to help them get up.
this, the children will eventually depend on others
Like
You guys are not close to the
nature, like us we grew up in a different environment, we often walk in the mountains and
we can easily find our way in a forest. When we take the ox out for grass, we need to
follow it wherever it goes, we often fall and our body often get pierced or scratched from
the grass, but we never cry since we were little.
Maybe we are stronger.
The children from the countryside are out in the village playing from the morning to the
evening.
Our parents wont know what happened throughout the day.
Whatever
trouble we get into out there, our parents wont solve them for us. Once my brother
drove a tractor off the road, my father didnt help him solve the trouble and let him
apologize to others.
My father said he was teaching him to manage his relationship with
others.
(Z1-High Achiever Xiao Jie, Y09/66)
144
Life is considered the major source of knowledge.
For these parents, if their
child cannot learn school knowledge (wenhua, ), they will let them learn skills
(jineng, ).
Letting young people work prematurely is seen much less in terms
of its financial returns, than as a form of education and training (duanlian, ) for
acquiring practical, social skills, for finding a purpose in life or for learning to be
tough (chiku, ).
B1 Secondary School Principal also adopts this method to
educate the poorly behaved students:

The bad students do not listen whether we use soft or hard techniques.
They would
still take part in fights, stealing and any school rule-breaking behaviour
Dealing with
such students, we send them home for one or two weeks to receive home education.
We require the parents to make him do some tough work in the fields, herd the cattle,
collect firewood.
Its quite a useful strategy because the lazy students would find it
tough to work if they drop out of school and would be motivated to study when they return
to school.
(B1-Principal Xu, G09/72)
Sometimes, working in the society offers an even better education than school.
primary school educated father said:

My fourth brother has only attended P.5, but he has a high level of knowledge.
He is
capable of using any type of computer, has his own factory, and he did it by self-study If
my child says he wants to study vocational schools, I would think its not necessary.
better to be an apprentice to learn to repair cars, for example.
Its
Its useless to go to
school to learn this.
(C1-Father of Child worker Ah Fu, G10/21-22)
145
7.4.3
What? Learning about accepting failure
Unlike the educated parents, illiterate parents teach their children to deal with
failure with a good attitude.
Unlike the educated (and urban) parents, many of
them do not seek to gain total control of their future.
When they fail, they relate
to ming (, destiny), which they say is already set before one is born and can be
only accepted and not be self-determined.
The attitude of zhizu (, being
satisfied with enough) is also often mentioned to justify circumstances of

misfortune.
Instead of being passive about their own life, they are actually
positively learning to deal with lifes misfortune with a good attitude. The
mother of a S.2 dropout, for example, did not want her son to be a farmer but she
accepted it because it was probably his destiny.
When comparing his son with
his uncle who had also dropped out of school but have great success today, she
told me:
Its destiny!
Me:
So, do you want your son to change his destiny as a farmer?
Destiny is set already.

Me: Whats your sons destiny?
Not capable of studying well, his destiny is perhaps to be a farmer.
Me:
Perhaps in your heart you want your son to be like his uncle?
I dont want that! I dont want! With no knowledge, he cant, I dont dare [to want].
Me:
So, what do you think your son is most capable of?
Hes most capable of being a farmer.
One can only be a farmer when one fails at
school.
146
(C1-Mother of Child worker Ah Fu, G09/29)
Uneducated (and often rural) parents are generally seen as having low
expectations of their children.
and future work.
In fact, they just have a different value towards life
Their expectation for them is not focused on making success in
school or becoming dragon sons and phoenix daughters, but living a good life which
would involve being a morally good person.
A farmer said she would be satisfied as
long as her son is a mature and good person who does not drink and gamble, can find
a job with an average salary in the city, take her to live in the city and make a family
there.
I only hope he can make a career then I would be satisfied I meant going into the city,
being mature, not smoking, not gambling, making a family, taking me out there Being a
farmer at home is a failure.
Me:
One should not waste his life being in his 20s.
Doing what would be considered as a success?
As long as one has money Here in our village, its okay if you have 1500 yuan left
every month.
...

1500
(Z1-Mother He, Y09/82)
Their attitude towards future work is generally any job as long as one can quit
being a farmer in the countryside because being a farmer is considered tough,
tiring, having a low standard of living, wasting ones life, and even a failure
147
(mei chuxi, ).
A farmer said:
Its sad being a farmer.
Everyday we have to chop wood, take the fertilizers to the field,
cut grasses, plough the fields.
Its not possible to rest a day.
Its tough, too tiring.
Its
better outside.
Me: Whats good outside?
The living standard is higher.
The standard of living here is too bad. We cannot eat
well, dress well.
(Z2-Mother of Child worker Xiao Liang, Y09/106)
7.5
Clues from agricultural production: Aptitudes for modernization
In Village Z, over 95% of the villagers still make a living based on agricultural
production.
But under the forces of an increasingly market-oriented economy, they
have to adapt their skills and decisions in agricultural production in order to maximize
their income.
The rural parents ability to adapt to the market, or their aptitude for
modernization, is also crucial in preparing their children for school, which is also run
under the pressure of modernization and the market27.
Therefore, I observe the way
they made money from agricultural production for clues into the type of home
education these rural parents provide.
My focus is on the rural mothers who occupy
a key role in their childrens home education as well as agricultural production in

Village Z, where the husbands are usually out in the city doing waged jobs like
construction work during the non-harvest season to supplement household income.
compare P.5 dropout Ah Xing Fas illiterate mother, who has only attended P.1, and
27
More on the market-oriented school system, see Chapter 8

148
his former classmate and high achiever Xiao Jies educated mother, who has
completed S.2.
During the two weeks I lived with her family, Xiao Jies mother, as many rural
parents, was often out busy working in the fields or gathering firewood in the forest.
Although she could not spend so much time checking up on her childrens school
work, she has a huge kitchen which allows her to monitor her children doing their
school assignment as she prepares meals.
Ah Xing Fas mother, in the contrary, did
not seem to monitor her childrens schoolwork, especially due to the fact that her
kitchen was only big enough for her to prepare meals.
And, Ah Xing Fa often went
to his grandfathers house to play after school and seldom even came home to sleep.
The seven months from March to September, when a variety of spring crops and cash
crops can be grown, are key for bringing in the core of a farmers annual income in
crop production (see Table 7.3).
Table 7.3
March
Farming schedule during the busy months in Village Z
Harvest winter crops (namely wheat, peas, broad beans); Till the soil; Grow
spring crops (namely corn and rice); Germinate tobacco seeds in hotbeds
April
Transplant tobacco plants from hotbeds into the fields
May, June
Apply fertilizer and pesticide; Weed
July
Pick tobacco leaves; Cure tobacco leaves which takes two months
August
Harvest spring crops
September
Till the soil; Grow winter crops such as legumes
Although the farmers in the village cultivate the same crops and livestock, there
are huge differences in their decision on how they spend their time and money in
growing crops and raising livestock.
Because each crop and animal varies in their
growth period, growth conditions and market value, different farm decisions and
inputs can result in different production yields and profit.
149
In crop cultivation, a
farmer has to decide the type of crops, the quantity, the size and the fertility of the
land used, and other environmental factors that would affect the yields of crops.
Both Xiao Jies family and Ah Xing Fas family have a similar size of land, which is
around 2-3 mu28 of paddy fields (tian, ), around 3-4 mu of fields on hillside
(di, ) and 6-7 mu of arid land (huangdi, or huangshan, )29.
With
regards to the average annual gross income made from agricultural production, Xiao
Jies mother can make 40,000 yuan while Ah Xing Fas mother can only make about
7,000 yuan.
Table 7.4
In Table 7.4, their decisions on agricultural production are compared.
A comparison of Xiao Jies mother and Ah Xing Fas mother in their annual
income from agricultural production
Crops or
Xiao Jies mother
Ah Xing Fas mother
Livestock
March to September - Spring crops
Rice
Type of land: paddy fields
Size of land: 3-4 mu
Size of land: less than 1 mu
Yield: 500 kg
Yield: 700 kg
Buy: none
Buy: 200-250 kg
Use: family consumption, enough
Use: family consumption, as pig feed
feed for 6 pigs

Corn
Type of land: semi-arid land
Size of land: 0.5 mu
Size of land: 3 mu
Yield: 1500 kg (40-50 kg/mu
Yield: over 1000 kg
fertilizer has been used since 2007
Buy: 1000-1500 kg
to increase yield)
Use: as feed for 8 pigs
Buy: None
Use: as feed enough for 6 pigs
Tobacco
Type of land: fields on hillside
Size of land: 5 mu (of which 4 mu
Size of land: 2 mu (all are rented from
28
1 mu = 667 square meters = 0.16 acre

Paddy fields are moist lands which are relatively flat and situated near a water source with side
ditches to contain water for growing rice. Fields on hillside are drier lands situated on slanting hill
slopes with relatively poorer access to a water source. Arid land, situated in the mountains with
poor agronomic conditions and without irrigation, is suitable for growing trees. Some arid land is
self-reclaimed from the forest.
29
150
are rented from others on 600
others on 600 yuan/mu)
yuan/mu)
Yield: 100 kg/mu, around 200 kg
Yield: 150 kg/mu, 800 kg
Use: for profit, 3000 yuan
Use: for profit, 20,000 yuan

October to February - Winter crops
Barley,
Type of land: paddy fields, arid land
Type of land, size: paddy fields (less
Wheat
than 1 mu), semi-arid land (1 mu)
Total yield: 1000-1500 kg (wheat),
Total yield: information unavailable
2000 kg (barley)
Use: as animal feed
Use: barley as animal feed, wheat

for profit at 2000 yuan
Legumes

Size of land: 0.5 mu
Total yield: 200 kg
Use: for family consumption, as
animal feed
Throughout the year - Crops, Trees
Vegetables
Type of land: fields on hillside
None, too busy
Size of land: 1 mu
Use: family consumption
Walnut
Type of land, size: arid land (over 10
Type of land: arid land
trees
mu), reclaimed land (7-8 mu), fields
Size of land: 4 mu
on hillside (0.5 mu)
Quantity: 80 walnut trees, grown since
Quantity: 60-70 walnut trees, grown
10, 5 and 1 year(s) ago
since 20 years ago
Yield: over 150 kg
Subsidy: None

Subsidy: 130 yuan/year
Eucalyptus
Type of land: arid land
Type of land: semi-arid land
tree (for its
Size of land: 3 mu
leaf oil)
Use: for profit, 2000-3000 yuan
Throughout the year - Domesticated animals

Pigs
Chickens
Buy: 6 piglets
Buy: 10 piglets, 1 sow
Sell: 6 pigs (after 6 months)
Sell: 3 pigs (after 1 year)
Profit: over 10,000 yuan
Profit: over 2000 yuan
20 chickens
10 chickens
Use: eggs for family consumption,
500-800 yuan of profit

151
Total annual gross income

About 40,000 yuan
About 7000 yuan
(plus 5000-6000 yuan her husband
(plus 7000 yuan her husband makes
makes from off-farm employment
from off-farm employment during
during non-harvest season)
non-harvest season)
The success of Xiao Jies mother in agricultural production is due to her strategy
in maximizing profit by growing a cash crop with the highest market returns and a
comparatively low risk.
She invests her resources (such as manpower, size of land,
fertile land) on tobacco production which accounts for half (i.e. 20,000 yuan) of her
total income (i.e. 40,000 yuan).
Tobacco production is one of the most profitable
agricultural activities with a comparatively low risk for farmers in Village Z because
its market prices are set by the Chinese government.
As of 2009, its market price
was an average of 16 yuan/kg, or between 3.6 yuan/kg to 21.2 yuan/kg depending on

the quality of the cured tobacco leaf.
Tobacco production, with a profit of
3000-4000 yuan/mu, is much more profitable than growing staple crops like corn and
rice, with a profit of only 600-700 yuan/mu.
To increase her profit from tobacco
production, Xiao Jies mother allocated more than half of her land (5 mu), of which 4
mu were rented from others.
She also used paddy fields, the most fertile type of land,
which can produce a higher yield of tobacco of 150 kg/mu compared to 100 kg/mu on
the fields on hillside.
As for the production of staple crops, such as corn (2 yuan/kg)
and rice (2.4 yuan/kg), which has a low market value and are solely used for
household consumption and as animal feed, she used less than half of her land.
152
Photo 7.4
A bundle of cured tobacco leaf
The production of walnuts (18 yuan/kg), with a 10% annual increase in market value,
is increasingly more profitable than tobacco, which has only a 40% increase from
1999 to 2009.
But its popularity has yet overtaken tobacco because walnut trees take
at least 10 years to yield walnuts of a good marketable size.
Xiao Jies family got a
better yield of walnuts as they started planting the trees 20 years ago.
Ah Xing Fas
mother, on the other hand, only started planting them since five and 10 years ago.
Xiao Jies mother also grows Eucalyptus tree (for its oil) and barley to supplement
income.
153
Photo 7.5:
Staple crops such as corn with a low market value are produced mainly for animal
feed and family consumption
Another major source of her family income comes from pig farming.
Pig
farming can be a profitable investment instrument, with pork prices doubling from 16
yuan/kg to 28-30 yuan/kg in less than two years from Dec 2009 to Aug 2011 in
Village Z.
But pork prices can vary from season to season and is subject to factors
like pig flu in the regional market and factors of supply and demand in the local
market.
For those who understand and abide by the principles of the market
economy and are sensitive to market changes, pig farming can be highly profitable.
Xiao Jies mother was well aware of the principle of supply and demand and was
154
sensitive to the best time to buy and sell pigs:

You have to look at the market economy, every year the prices of pork are the highest
between May and August.
There wont be much [profit] if you raise pigs now [at mid-year],
because it is customary for people to kill a year pig at home for the Chinese New Year
from October until the New Year.
pork and need to buy.
By mid-year, everybody will have finished their own
Pork prices are always the highest at mid-year every year.
56 78 [][]
(Z1-Xiao Jies mother, phone conversation, 2011-8-3/4)
She is also aware of reducing the time and input cost of raising pigs, because each
pig eats as much as 3kg (or 6 yuan) of corn and beans a day.
By adding 50 kg of
feed additives into the diet for each pig, she learn to speed up their growth from
two years to as short as six months for a piglet (buying price: 80-90 yuan/each) to
grow into a fat pig weighing 150 to 250 kg (selling price: 10 yuan/kg) for
slaughter.
To raise her profit, she usually buys 6 piglets at the end of each year,
keeps them for half a year and sells them at mid-year, when the prices are the
highest, for between 2000 and 3000 yuan/each.
Chickens can be another short-term investment option as they take as short as 1.5
months and as little as a couple of kg of corn for each baby chick (5 yuan for small
chicks and 10-16 yuan for big chicks) to grow into chickens (with a market value of
30 to 40 yuan each).
She generally keeps not more than 10 chickens because
keeping too many will not result in more profit in the village as there is not a high
demand.
She also has an ox to help her plough the paddy fields once a year and a
donkey to help carry firewood and pine leaves collected in the mountain.
They can
also be a long-term investment as the price for a young calf or donkey costs around
155
1200 yuan when small and can sell for 3500 yuan when they become an adult in a few
years.
Photo 7.6:
Xiao Jie and the 14-year-old cow that was later sold for 3400 yuan, three times its
buying price, to help finance her to senior secondary school
Sometimes, Xiao Jies mother also made tofu at home to sell in the village bazaar,
which is held every six days.
With 7 kg of soya beans (worth of 22.4 yuan), 200 g
gypsum powder and three to four hours of work, she produced 17.5 to 20 kg of tofu,
which she could sell for around 60 yuan or three times the cost of the raw ingredients.
156
Photo 7.7:
Xiao Jies mother making tofu the day before the village bazaar
Photo 7.8:
The bazaar in Village Z, held once every six days, was established in 2003 to
provide business opportunities for farmers
157
Photo 7.9
Photo 7.10
A butcher (front) and a woman selling home-made delicacy (back) at the bazaar
Farmers weave bamboo baskets during their free time to sell at the bazaar
158
Photo 7.11
Loose tobacco is sold illegally at 1 yuan/catty at the bazaar
In contrast, Ah Xing Fas mother did not seem to have a strategy that would
maximize her income from agricultural production.
She did not focus on tobacco
farming which only comprises of one third (2 mu) of her total land use.
And she
could only produce a rather low yield of 100 kg/mu as the tobacco was grown on the
less fertile fields on the hillside.
Instead, she invested two-thirds of her land (4 mu)
and the fertile paddy fields to grow staple crops (corn and rice), which are all used as
feed for the pigs.
Jies mother.
With 10 piglets and one sow, she keeps many more pigs than Xiao
Unlike Xiao Jies mother, she was not as sensitive to the principles of
the market and the changes of pig prices.

when she needed money.
She kept one sow and only sold the pigs
She could only make 3000 yuan from pig farming.

159
And
she kept the pigs for so long that they ate most of her staple crops.
She also was
unwilling to invest 1000 yuan to buy an ox to help her plough the fields.
She also
did not make extra income by selling things at the bazaar, saying she was too busy.
As their skills in agricultural production show, Xiao Jies mother has a higher
aptitude than Ah Xing Fas mother for understanding the principles of the market and
adapting to the market, which may help her align her home education with the
market-oriented school system.
So far, I have confirmed the connection between the parents educational level
and their suzhi or ability in making a living through agricultural production.
But it
tells little about the parents suzhi in terms of preparing their children for school, or
the relationship between parents literacy and their childrens school success.
To do
so, I refer to their habits of learning and attitudes towards schooling and the future.
7.6
Conclusion
Educated parents may have a higher suzhi or ability to excel in agricultural

production and in preparing their children for school, because of their ability to adapt
to the principles of modernization or the market underlying both agricultural
production as well as the school system.
But, contrary to what is often criticized,
illiterate (and mostly rural) parents do not lack the ability and skills in educating their
children nor the awareness towards the importance of education.
I have identified
school literacy and life literacy, representing two different systems of knowledge,
habits and values in child-rearing.
While their educated counterparts practise
school literacy at home, the illiterate parents practise life literacy which focuses
more on the intrinsic value of education; they also differ in their attitudes towards a
good life, future work, their learning habits and the knowledge taught at home are also
160
different from those upheld by the formal school system.
They focus on preparing
their children for a more general type of success in life, or a good life, while the
educated (often urban) parents are more focused in preparing their children for
success inside the school system.
However, when the life literate child, like Ah
Xing Fa, enters the school system, they are failed by the school system before they are
actually enrolled.
161
Chapter 8
Through the case of a hidden dropout who was notorious for being a cha sheng (bad
student), Chapter Eight examines the relationship between school access and the
implementation of education quality.
8.1
Xiao Liang, the bad student who was unwilling to study
Unlike many other students, Xiao Liang knew what he enjoyed doing and what
he wanted to do in the future.
He discovered his passion for music, especially
Tibetan music, when he bought his first CD at a village store.
Since primary school,
no matter if it was a New Year celebration or a singing contest at school, he took

every chance to go onstage to sing and perform.
He told me:
I wanted to become a singer, but the possibility is only 0.001.
0.001
(Y1-Hidden dropout Xiao Liang, Y09/fieldnotes)
But in the eyes of his teachers, he was merely a bad student who was
unwilling to study (yanxue, ).
The reason why students drop out is often
seen as an individual problem, in terms of their unwillingness to study, their level of

intelligence, etc..
162
There are many reasons for yan xue, in some cases, its personal, the student
him/herself doesnt want to study, in other cases, the familys home education cannot
catch up, slowly it will become a situation where the student is unwilling to study.
Me:
Do you think theres a relationship between the students unwillingness to study and
the teachers teaching?

There shouldnt be any, because we teach to one whole class, but some students are
basically unwilling to learn, due to their personal situation and certain habits acquired
when they were young.
(X-Vice-principal-Gao, Y09/171-172)
Me:
Those who started secondary school with poor results, will they continue to have
poor results when they get to S.3?

Thats very difficult to change.
They have low intelligence.
Its impossible to change.
(X-Teacher Li, Y09/160)
I think there is not a very direct relationship [between dropout and the quality of
education], because the main reason of dropping out is the students not putting much
emphasis on studying.
is their foundation bad?
Their foundation is bad and they cannot catch up later on. Why
There are many reasons, but its mostly because of the social
requirement of knowledge Hidden dropout is not the teachers problem. Their brains
are already somewhere else.
Its useless for the teacher to teach them If my S.2
students are very bad, can I change the situation?
Not giving up any student is a correct
attitude, but, the students ability is so far behind, and there is not only one bad student,
(sigh) these students are really too bad, no changes can be made.
[]

(B1-School Administrator-He, G09/91)
163
In some of the schools I visited, in the one-page school dropout reports (see Photo 8.1,
Photo 8.2, Photo 8.3), the term yan xue is often used as the only diagnosis of why
students drop out.
It has become a convenient word, or a buzzword, for teachers and
school administrators to over-generalize and over-simplify the complex and

multi-faceted problem of school dropout related to the students themselves, the
students family, the school system and the society.
Photo 8.1
An official report of a P.6 graduate who did not enrol in Y1 Secondary School
164
Photo 8.2
An official dropout report of a S.1 dropout in B1 Secondary School
Translation
(1) The students family financial situation: 1. poor; 2. average; 3. rather good; 4. rich
(2) School performance: 1. falling behind; 2. average; 3. good; 4. excellent
(3) Whereabouts after dropping out: 1.within this province (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, etc.); 2.
outside the province; 3. unknown
(4) The process of getting the dropout back to school: After numerous times of persuasion, the
student herself doesnt want to study, her parents also cannot do anything about it
165
Photo 8.3 An official dropout record in Y1 Secondary School in 2009
Translation:
(1) Reason of dropping out:
unwillingness to study
unwillingness to study (orphan, but his 83-year-old grandmother and cousin support him to go back to school)
social influence, unwillingness to study
social influence, unwillingness to study
(2) Whereabouts:
not enrolled, dropped out
dropped out
self-study at home
self-study at home
166
Xiao Liangs interest in music was also not well received and nurtured at school.
No
music lessons were offered in his primary school at that time, and the Western folk
songs30 taught at the secondary school did not interest him.
teachers, he was considered a cha sheng (bad student).
And in the eyes of his

His teacher said he was
actually a good student in primary school and only became bad in secondary
school.
His sister was also considered a bad student and was even persuaded to
leave school after she was known to have had a sexual relationship at age 16.
Although he had given up his studies since the second semester of S.1, he only
dropped out of school in S.2.
Before he dropped out of school, he saw the school as
merely a place to hun (idle around) or wan da xie (mature some more), which is
to idle their time away so as to mature some more before entering the society.
In explaining why he left school eventually, he said:
The longer I stay at school the worse I have become... I have failed after all.
Since the
day I walked out of school, I had sworn that I would never write another word again!
(Y1-Dropout Xiao Liang, Y09/fieldnotes)
What makes him a bad student in relation to the implementation of quality in

school management, teaching and learning?
How does this push him out of school?
I seek to understand the techniques of excluding bad students used in the school
system.
To do so, I examine the school management policies31 (xuexiao guanli
zhidu) of the primary and secondary schools in Town B1 and Township Y1.
30
The Western folk songs taught include Edelweiss and The Lonely Goatherd which are famous
in Western countries.
31
Not all school leaders follow their own management policy. For example, in Town B1 Secondary
School, teachers had not been evaluated for a few years according to its own policy and the promotion
of teachers reportedly depended on their relationship with the principal and other teachers.
167
Designed by the management committee32 of each school, the policy covers areas
including the management of human resources (i.e. the definition of work roles of
school principal, management committee members, administration staff, class
teachers, subject teachers, school doctor, librarian, security guards, students, etc. in
terms of their duties and responsibilities), the management of their performance (e.g.
performance appraisals, amount of workload, ethical conduct, attendance), school
resources and environment.
The policy for evaluating school principals
performance, set by the County Education Bureaux (xian jiaoyu ju) and the
Township/Town Central Schools (zhong xin xiao), will also be examined.
8.2
Definitions of discrimination between good and bad attributes of students
8.2.1
Evaluation of student performance
Officially, cha sheng (bad students) are called houjin sheng (students who are
falling behind) at school.
This label is generally associated with poor academic
performance, with scores under 60 as well as bad sixiang pinde (ethical conduct).
One of the ways to define their personal attributes is by setting up a code of student
behaviour, which is ethical norms or standards, and enforcing it with a penalty for
violation.
Table 8.1 is the code of student behaviour and the associated penalty used
in B1 Secondary School.
32
The school management committee generally comprised of the Principal, Vice-Principal, Dean of
Teaching and Learning Affairs (jiaodao zhuren), Dean of Conduct and Discipline (zhengjiao zhuren),
Dean of General Affairs (zongwu zhuren).
168
Table 8.1
Code of student behaviour and score deduction system in B1 Secondary
School
Marks will be deducted, when the student:

1. does not wear school uniform during the flag raising ceremony (1 mark)
2. wears long hair, bald, untidy attire, use foul language (1 mark)
3. wears earring, keeps a bald head, with untidy appearance and uses foul language
(1 mark)
4. is late-coming or early-leaving (1 mark)
5. does not keep order and discipline in class and the corridors (1 mark)
6. does not finish homework without reason (1 mark)
7. is absent during morning self-study and flag-raising ceremony (2 marks)
8. is absent when he/she is on duty (2 marks)
9. spits on the ground, throws fruit peels, waste paper and chalk on the floor (2
marks)
10. draws on the walls, blackboard, desks, notice boards or makes them dirty (10
marks)
11. climbs over school gate and walls (5 marks)
12. tramples on the grass, picks flowers, damages trees (5 marks)
13. rides a bike or motorbike on campus (2 marks)
14. makes noise and plays ball, card games, chess, etc. during the rest times in the
afternoons and evenings on campus (2 marks)
15. is criticized by name for violating class order (1 mark)
16. smokes or drinks alcohol (5 marks)
17. is absent from class (5 marks/lesson)
18. damages school property on purpose (20 marks)
19. goes into a conflict with a teacher or scolds a teacher (5-25 marks)
20. cheats in examination (15-25 marks)
21. gets into a fight, blackmail, stealing or other law-breaking behaviour (15-40
marks)
22. refuses to accept ones mistakes or receive education after violating school rules
(20 marks)
23. is involved in a romantic relationship on campus (10-15 marks, and the parents
will be immediately alerted)
24. makes a connection to the public mains electricity supplies without permission or
cooks meals in the dormitory; drops things from a height (10 marks)
25. plays with firecrackers on campus (10 marks)
Penalty:
Students with 30 marks deducted will be criticized publicly by the class teacher.
Those with 50 and 60 marks deducted will be reported to the school for record.
Those with 70 marks deducted may be persuaded to drop out.
(Source:
B1 Secondary School Management Policy, p. 70-71)
These attributes of the bad students are arbitrary and the code of student behaviour is
ad-hoc.
They are added and amended in the interest of the teachers to forbid any
type of student behaviour that would undermine their authority in maintaining order.
169
And at different levels of the school system, evaluations are carried out to manage the
bad students.
punishment.
The code of behaviour is also enforced with penalties and
According to this set of norms, Xiao Liang would have violated almost
all of them and may be persuaded to drop out as a penalty.
One of the forms of
punishment Xiao Liang was put under for his drinking and gambling behaviours was
to have his living subsidy, which is offered to poor students by the government,
confiscated and redistributed to others.
In his own class, the class teacher had also
set up an evaluation of students academic performance and ethical conduct to punish

Xiao Liang to clean the toilet because he scored the lowest (see Photo 8.4).
Photo 8.4:
Xiao Liang is
highlighted to score the lowest in

his class in a public evaluation of
students academic studies,
ethical conduct, discipline and
personal hygiene.
The bad student is also defined in relation to the good student (jianzi sheng),
who scores 80 or above in academic performance.
The sanhao (three-good)
student is someone with not only good academic performance, but also good ethical
conduct (which is vaguely defined as a model student who has love for the
170
motherland, the people and for serving the collective, and has respect for teachers)
and good physical health (defined as someone who has the habit of physical training,
good hygiene habits, is motivated, healthy, civilized, active in participating in
extra-curricular activities).
8.2.2
Division of classes
Putting students in different classes at the beginning of P.1 and S.1 is another
way to discriminate between good students and bad ones.
Since the first day they
enter the primary or junior secondary school, students have been defined good and
bad according to their performance in pre-schools, the primary school entrance
interviews or their P.6 end-of-semester examination results.
Since 2004, in County
X, primary and junior secondary schools have not been allowed to group all the good
students in classes called suzhi ban (quality class), but schools continue to put
good and bad students into different classes.
According to a primary school vice
principal, good students can generally be distinguished from the bad ones by P.2.
In X Secondary School, classes are generally comprised of the same number of
students with good, average and bad academic results, except one class with more
good students and another with more bad students.
8.2.3
Seating arrangement
The arrangement of classroom seating is another technique of discriminating between

bad students and good ones.
In the junior secondary schools, high achievers are
usually assigned to sit in the centre while under achievers are assigned seats at the
back and the periphery.
In class instruction, the teachers gaze generally does not

171
cover beyond the three or four rows in the center so that those sitting at the very back
and periphery are ignored by the teacher.
very back in secondary school.
Xiao Liang said he had always sat at the
He said he volunteered to remain in the back
because he did not want to breathe in the chalk powder when sitting close to the
blackboard.
He also admitted feeling excluded:
The teacher looks after those with high school results, but not those with bad results.
As long as we dont disturb the teachers in class, we can do whatever we like.
[]
(C1-Hidden dropout Xiao Liang, Y09/6)
The use of seating arrangements in excluding under-achievers is not significant in the

primary school as the seating generally changes every week where each student is
allowed the chance to sit in the front.
Photo 8.5 Bad students usually sit at the back and the periphery and duck behind a pile of
books on the desk to escape the teachers attention in class, as in this picture of a secondary
school in Yunnan.
172
Photo 8.6 A hidden dropout at

a P.1 class in Village Z2.
8.3
Differentiating the treatment of bad students
Under the pressure of performance appraisals inside individual schools, bad

students are given a different treatment at school compared to the good students.
Performance appraisals are carried out usually once a semester using a variety of
specific, measurable indicators or targets (zhibiao), designed and prescribed by those
on the higher ranks or the above (shang mian) in the school system.
Generally
expressed as percentage and numbers, indicators describe what education quality is

about in reality; they also serve as targets or norms for the purpose of quality
control or prescribing a fixed or non-negotiable standard regarding what quality
should be about.
The prescriptive function of targets is often referred as yin zhibiao
(hard targets) or zhihuibang (the conductors baton) in Chinese.

173
8.3.1
Evaluation of school principals performance
Similarly, the performance appraisal targets reflect the way quality is

interpreted by the upper ranks of the school administration; they also constitute and
prescribe the way how quality should be interpreted and implemented in the junior
secondary school.
The major targets used in evaluating the school principals
performance are the promotion rate (shengxue lv) (which is the number of graduates
being promoted to the next education cycle) and the students performance at the
Senior Secondary Education Entrance Examination (SSEEE) (zhongkao).
Table 8.2
shows some of the quality control targets and the scoring scheme used in the
performance appraisal for junior secondary school principals in County A.
174
Table 8.2
Performance appraisal of junior secondary school principals in County A
Target
Score
Scoring scheme
Excellence rate
10
Gain 10 points when ranked 1 to 5 in the county;

Gain 2 points when ranked 21 to 26 in the county.
S.1 Average score
10
(similar to the scoring scheme for excellence rate)
(for S.1 and S.2)

S.1 Passing rate
20
(similar to the scoring scheme for excellence rate)
25
Lose 2 points for every 0.1% increase.

dropout rate is over 3%
Retention rate
over 94%
15
Percentage of students at the beginning of S.1 continuing

onto the end of S.3. Lose 3 points for every 1% decrease.
SSEEE
participation rate
25
Percentage of a cohort of S.1 entrants who participated in

st
SSEEE. Gain full points when ranked 1 within the county;
Lose 1 point (or 3 points for the countys key school) for each
rank drop compared to the previous year
SSEEE excellence
rate
10
Percentage of a cohort of S.1 entrants with excellent scores in

SSEEE. The scoring scheme is similar to SSEEE
participation rate
SSEEE passing
rate
25
Percentage of a cohort of S.1 entrants who pass in SSEEE.

The scoring scheme is similar to SSEEE participation rate
SSEEE average
marks
10
The total average SSEEE marks of a cohort of S.1 entrants.

The scoring scheme is similar to SSEEE participation rate
Promotion rate to
senior secondary
25
Percentage of a cohort of S.1 entrants who are promoted to

senior secondary schools. The scoring scheme is similar to
SSEEE participation rate
(for S.1 and S.2)
(for S.1 and S.2)

Dropout rate
Under 2%
Lose all points when
The evaluation of school principals work performance alienates them from their
own work, making them focus on achieving the targets (dabiao).
means become the end itself.
In other words, the
Many school principals and teachers reported having
no choice but adopt the dabiao mentality to focus their work on achieving the
prescribed targets.
A principal said:
175
We follow the governments requirements on the educational processes, finish the

textbooks and give the students something of interest.
(Z4-Principal Ren, Y09/13)
Maximizing students performance at SSEEE and increasing the promotion rate

become the focus of a school principals work as they reflect the quality of a school.
And maintaining the school image is crucial as it will affect the parents decision to
enrol their children and thus the schools financial status as a result of the sponsorship
fee33 paid by the parents.
A parent said:
Whichever school has a good quality, with better SSEEE results and more graduates
entering the key junior secondary school, I send my child there even though I have to pay
to get in.
(C2-Parent Ye, G10/85)
In many cases, the dabiao mentality of school principals has even led to the expulsion
of low achievers who are considered as tarnishing the school image as they drag down
the school performance at the SSEEE and the promotion rate.
Students who do not
want to study are allowed to take a long study leave from school and remain
officially enrolled 34 .
For these students, examinations become a meaningless
formality as they can get a graduation certificate even though they do not pass or even
sit in the examination.
In some cases, a school principal in Jiangsu Province has
reportedly organized ninety four S.2 students to substitute for the S.3 low achievers to
take the SSEEE in order to achieve high examination results at SSEEE (Yangtse
33
34
See Chapter 7 for sponsorship fees

See Chapter 5.1.2 regarding Hidden dropouts
176
Evening Post 2009, June 24).
In Hebei Province, bad students have reportedly
been asked to drop out of school before the SSEEE in order for the school to achieve
high examination scores (Hebei News 2010; Yanzhao City News 2010).
8.3.2
Evaluation of teachers performance
The teachers performance is generally evaluated in four areas, namely, 40%

performance (ji), 30% ability (neng), 20% ethical conduct (de) and 10%
efficiency (qin).
A teachers efficiency refers to whether he/she fulfils designated
duties, attends school meetings and ceremonies and the number of days of absence
he/she takes, prepares teaching plans for classes, marks the students assignment.
teachers ability refers to the number of research articles he/she publishes and the
ranking of the journal the articles are published in.
A teachers ethical conduct
refers to whether he/she obeys the school rules, obeys the code of professional
conduct for teachers, is not engaged in anti-social behaviour such as pornography,
gambling, drug abuse and trafficking and gets along well with colleagues.
Evaluating ones ethical conduct is subjective, and teachers generally receive full
marks in all these three areas as long as they have not made any major mistakes.
A teachers performance is seen as the most important amongst the four areas
and accounts for at least 40% of the overall evaluation.
It is also the only part where
the teachers work is quantified in terms of objective standards and is linked to the
students performance.
It also introduces competition amongst the teachers as they
are evaluated on the basis of how well their students perform compared to other
classes of the same grade at school and in the township or the county.
Table 7.3
shows how the performance of teachers is evaluated at Y1 Secondary School.
177
Table 8.3
Performance appraisal of teachers at Y1 Secondary School
Standard
Score
Scoring scheme
Average
scores
30
Class average County average x 90% x 30

(gain 3 more points if final score is over 30)
Passing rate
Percentage of students in class with over 50 marks County

passing rate x (90% x 6)
Excellence
rate
For students with over 90 marks and ranks 1st in the whole form
nd
of the same subject, teacher gets 1.8 points; if ranked 2 ,
rd
teacher gets 1.4 points; if ranked 3 , teacher gets 1 point; if
th
ranked 4 , teacher gains 0.5 point. In other cases, teacher
gets 0 point.
Bad students
rate
Teacher gets 2 marks if he/she has no students with under 50

marks. For students with under 50 marks and ranked bottom
th
4 in the whole form of the same subject, teacher gets 1.8
rd
points; if ranked bottom 3 , teacher gets 1.4 points; if ranked
nd
st
bottom 2 , teacher gets 1 point; if ranked bottom 1 , teacher
gets 0.5 mark.
Retention rate
Teacher loses 1 point for every student missing since the first
day of the school year
Retention rate,
compared to
other classes
Total
Teacher loses 0.5 point for every student missing compared to

other classes
Bonus points
50
For every S.3 student promoted to the key senior secondary schools,
class teacher gets 3 points and the subject teacher gets 2 points.
For every S.3 student with an SSEEE actual score of over, the class
teacher gets 2 points and the subject teacher gets 1.5 points.
For every S.3 student with an SSEEE accumulated score of over 600,
the class teacher gets 1.5 points and the subject teacher gets 1 point.
For every S.3 student being promoted to senior secondary school, the
class teacher gets 0.2 point and the subject teacher gets 0.1 point.
For every student who can further their studies in Sports, Music and
Arts majors, the subject teacher gets 0.5 point.
For every student whose average score is over 90 at the end-of-term
exam, class teacher gets 0.2 point and subject teacher get 0.1 point.
Many teachers have also reported adopting the mentality of achieving targets
as the evaluation results are linked to a system of merits (such as the award of honour,
public compliments, money premiums, job promotion, etc.) and demerits (such as
public criticism, monetary penalty, job demotion).
178
At Y1 Secondary School, for
example, teachers are awarded an honour at the township or county level when his/her
students perform the best in examination and his/her class has the highest retention
rate.
At Z1 Primary School, teachers are awarded one yuan for every examination
score higher than the townships average and are penalized 15 yuan for every score
below the townships average.
penalized or criticized.
For those with poor appraisal results, they may get
Their salary has also been linked to their performance
appraisal results under the Performance-Linked Pay (jixiao gongzi) reform of the
civil servants salary introduced across the country since 2010.
will also lead to job promotion.
The appraisal result
At Y1 Secondary School, only the top 20%, or eight
of its 40 teachers with the highest appraisal results each year can be considered for a
promotion to the next rank (jinji).
Since 2009, in County X, the teachers pressure
for job promotion has further intensified as their ranking is revised every three years
which means the teachers may be promoted or demoted according to their evaluation
score.
In many schools, Post-Exam Staff Meetings (kaoqing fenxi hui) are often held
where the subject panel analyzes the teachers performance, criticizing those with the
worst test scores by name and praising those with the best scores.
A teacher said her
passion in teaching had worn out under the pressure from the superiors and constant
comparison amongst teachers:
During that first and a half year when I first began teaching, I put in more effort than
other teachers into preparing each lesson.
I talked about only half of the examination
questions in the supplementary materials, and focused mostly on the textbook.
But
some students reported to my superiors saying I was not responsible and my colleagues
like to compare our students scores. As time passes, I also became assimilated into
the system. The exam approach to teaching is easy and is popular especially for the
female teachers who are more focused on their own childrens education.
179
(X-Teacher Zhang, interview 2010-3-17/2)
Although the evaluation of school principals and teachers performance is

intended to increase their work performance, it becomes an exercise of control over
the teachers performance where students are excluded in the process.
The diversity
of students abilities and other factors in the teaching and school management
processes are ignored under an arbitrary link between the school principals or
teachers performance and the students examination scores.
The character and
strengths of students, especially those who may not be in academic subjects, are
ignored and not respected under a sole focus on academic ability.
Many teachers
have become petty administrators as they take up an instrumental attitude towards

education, preoccupied with achieving high assessment scores.
Achieving quality
targets also becomes a type of competition amongst the teachers and school
administrators for status or face.
A school administrator said:
Achieving targets gives a sense of pride.
It shows the school quality is good and
people will know about it.
(Y1-Administrator Luo, Y09/122)
Moreover, bad students with poor academic performance are likely to be excluded,
especially in S.2 and S.3.
They are kept physically present in the classroom only for
the purpose of achieving a high retention rate.
A teacher admitted:
To be honest, in S.2 and S.3, on the surface we tell the bad students not to give up, but
in fact the teacher couldnt do anything but let them sit there, be quiet and not disturb the
teacher and other students in class.
In S.3, we basically cannot look after the bad
students, because its already close to the examination time. Actually, they cant be
180
changed because they themselves dont want to study. In the senior levels, you can
only be concerned about your top students in order to achieve a high Excellence rate and
Promotion rate to key schools.
monetary reward.
For every student entering key schools we get a small
Then, try your best to help the average learners to enter senior
secondary schools so as to increase your own Average Scores.
(X-English Teacher Li, Y09/165)
Another teacher also admitted putting the focus on good students, describing them
as teachers pets in class:
The excellent students are the teachers pets in class, if they havent performed well in
an exam, many teachers will offer their care and concern.
If many good students have
been taught by you, that will certainly prove that you are a good teacher.
Then you will
be more liked by the superiors, enjoyed more opportunities than others and receive more
bonus.
(X-Teacher Zhang, interview 2010-3-17/15)
8.4
Alienating students from their everyday reality

8.4.1
Textbook and curriculum design
Rural students, especially those who are weak in learning academic subjects, are
alienated in a curriculum that is urban-oriented and is not relevant to their rural
environment.
Rural students, especially those who perform poorly in academic
results, may find the curriulum rather abstract to grasp because they cannot
181
experience the subjects in real life.
But, the problem with the textbook or curriculum
design is not merely and simply about these urban concepts.
As some teachers
have pointed out in the interview, this problem can easily be solved by the teacher
giving background information or adapting to a local example.
Some students
actually reported their interest in learning about foreign concepts and an increased
curiosity in classroom learning.
We should arouse the students desire for a better living environment.
If you use
examples from their surrounding environment, the students will only know about their
own environment.
Y1-Administrator Zi, Y09/38-39

The more serious problem with the textbook and curriculum design has to do
with the re-definition of the source of knowledge, new roles of learners and teachers
and the difficulty in adapting to the changes.
Before the curriculum reform, which
was introduced to the primary and secondary schools in 2003 in Town B1 and
Township Y1, the textbook was seen as the only source of knowledge, providing all
the necessary materials for classroom teaching and learning.
After the reform, the
new textbooks cover a wider range, but less in-depth knowledge, intended as a mere
guideline for teachers who are expected to supplement with materials from other
sources such as the newspaper or the internet to adapt to the students needs.
The
curriculum reform also re-positions the role of teachers and students in learning.
Before the reform, teachers and textbooks were seen as the only source and authority
of knowledge while students were passive learners waiting to be spoon-fed and rote
learning was the major form of classroom learning.
182
After the reform, students are
expected and are required to take an active role in learning; and teachers are expected
to inspire, facilitate and collaborate with the students in the process where the
textbook is only one of the sources of knowledge.
Adapting to the new role of
teacher and learners is especially difficult for rural teachers, especially those from the
older generation.
In Township Y1, one-third of the rural teachers, who are older than
40 years old, are said to have difficulty in adapting.
A local education bureau
official said:
After all [old teachers] have used the old teaching materials for over 20 years.
Its not
that easy for them to change their way of thinking and teaching and adapt to the new
materials all of a sudden.
Moreover, they wont and arent able to find supplementary
learning materials outside the textbooks. They are not well-read and dont even know
how to use the computer.
On the other hand, younger teachers can adapt more easily
and teach very well using the new materials.
They are more capable of using the
computer to find materials online, and they have read more books and have more
knowledge.
(Y1-Administrator Zi, Y09/31)
Much resistance also comes from teachers who are hesitant about the change of roles.
A great majority of teachers are worried about questions like:
If the teacher is only a
facilitator and collaborator in student learning, will the students be able to grasp the
knowledge? How will they perform in the examinations?
(Y1-Administrator Zi, Y09/31)
Given the lack of teaching and learning equipment, the new curriculum, which
183
emphasizes learning through experience, is also difficult to implement in rural schools,

especially with science subjects such as Chemistry that call for hands-on experiments.
A primary school teacher said:
The new teaching materials include too wide of a range of knowledge.
student needs to learn what used to be in the S.1 curriculum
Now, a P.2
The teachers cannot
teach it well and primary school students cannot take it. The smart students learn better
but those who are not that smart cannot understand at all.
(Z3-Teacher Cha, Y09/153)
8.5
Discrimination between core and non-core subject knowledge

8.5.1
Methods of assessing subject knowledge
Bad students who are generally weak in academic subjects are also excluded in
a curriculum where academic or core subjects are prioritized over non-academic or
non-core subjects.
One of the means of determining the importance of core
subjects over non-core subjects is the method of student assessment.
Core
subjects are examined (kaoshi) on questions designed by the county or city/prefecture

education department, but non-core subjects are only tested (kaohe) on a
non-compulsory basis on questions designed by the school teachers.
In some small
village schools, non-core subjects are not even tested.
8.5.2
Timetable design
The school timetable also determines the importance of core subjects over
non-core subjects.
The morning sessions, when students are most attentive, are

184
generally allocated to subjects that are considered core or will be examined.
vice-principal said:
In designing the timetable, Music, Sports and Arts lessons serve to help relieve the study
pressure from the exam subjects of Chinese and Maths.
So we arrange Chinese,
Maths to be in the first two lessons because the brain works the most efficiently in the
morning after the morning exercise. And we put one period of Music, Sports or Arts in
the third or last lesson in the morning and afternoon.
12
3
X-Vice-principal Gao, Y09/172
By identifying subjects as core and non-core, teachers often focus their attention
on core subjects and ignore non-core subjects.
Studying at school is particularly
monotonous for low achievers because only the core subjects are taught.
Xiao Liang,
for example, never had lessons in music, his favourite subject, until S.1.
Non-core
subjects such as Computer and English (in primary school) are not even given a time
slot in the timetable.
And lessons that are assigned for non-core subjects, usually
Art, Music, are often replaced by core subjects even though they are allocated time
in the timetable and are required by the government to be there.
This happens
usually towards the end of the term before examination and at small village schools,
where specialized subject teachers and relevant learning equipment such as computers
are lacking35.
At the one-teacher school in Village Z2, for example, only Chinese
and Maths were discovered to be taught everyday even though time was allocated in
the timetable to study Politics, Science, Music, Arts and Sports.
At Y1 Secondary
School, non-core subjects such as history, biology, music, arts are skipped in S.3, to
35
For the distribution of education resources, see Chapter 9

185
prepare for the six core subjects to be examined in the SSEEE (see Table 8.4).
Table 8.4
Xiao Liang (S.3) s class timetable at Y1 Secondary School
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thur
Fri
Chinese
English
Politics
English
Chinese
Period 1
Politics
Physics
Maths
English
English
Period 2
English
Maths
Chemistry
Chemistry
Maths
Period 3
Maths
English
Chinese
Physics
Art
Period 4
Chinese
Sports
Politics
Sports
Chinese
Politics
Morning
self-study
Lunch
Period 5
Chemistry
Chemistry
History
Chinese
Period 6
Chinese
Policies
Physics
Computer
Period 7
Physics
Maths
English
English
Period 8
English
Chinese
Music
Maths
Dinner
Night
English
Chemistry
Maths
Chinese
English
Chemistry
Maths
Physics
self-study 1
Night
self-study 2
The progression of subjects from the primary school timetable to the junior
secondary school timetable often presents an adjustment challenge for under achievers,
especially from small villages where non-core subjects are not taught.
In the
primary school, the timetable mainly focuses on the three core subjects, namely
Chinese, Maths, the Integrated subject (which includes politics and integrated science).
But in secondary school, there is a sudden increase to six core subjects, namely
Chinese, Maths, English, Politics, Chemistry and Physics.
English, which was only
introduced in S.1, was the least popular subjects for the six dropouts I interviewed
were the subjects with the poorest performance36.
36
A S.3 dropout said:
In 2009, students at Y1 Secondary School perform the worst in English and Chemistry at SSEEE,
186
Today, I still dont know what the 26 alphabets are.
26
(C1-Child worker Ah Wei, G10/50)
Table 8.4 shows the increase of subjects that Xiao Liang was taught from Z2 Primary
School (P.1 to P.4) to Z1 Primary School (P.5 and P.6) and Y1 Secondary School (S.1
to S.3).
Table 8.5
The subjects that Xiao Liang were taught from P.1 to S.3
(Subjects that are newly introduced from the previous year are highlighted in bold italics)
Level
Subjects taught
P.1
Chinese, Maths
P.2
Chinese, Maths
P.3
Chinese, Maths, Integrated subject
P.4
Chinese, Maths, Integrated subject
P.5
Chinese, Maths, Integrated subject (Politics and Science)
P.6
Chinese, Maths, Integrated subject (Politics and Science)
S.1
Chinese, Maths, English, Politics, Biology, Geography, History, Music, Art,

Sports
S.2
Chinese, Maths, English, Politics, Biology, Geography, History, Physics, Music, Art,
Sports
S.3
8.6
Chinese, Maths, English, Politics, Physics, Chemistry, Sports
Control of school life
For bad students like Xiao Laing, school life is often described as life in
prison.
This may have to do with the school timetable which controls the students
life from 6:30am to 21:40pm Monday to Friday afternoon and Sunday evening and is
designed around the activities of resting, eating and studying only (see Table 8.5).
with a passing rate of 56.76% and 56.78% respectively.

187
Table 8.6
Y1 Secondary School (Summer) Timetable
Time
Arrangement
6:30am-
Wake up
6:30-6:45
Breakfast
6:45-7:15
Morning self-study
7:15-7:45
Morning exercise
8:05am-
Prepare for class
8:10-8:50
Period 1
9:00-9:40
Period 2
9:40-10:00
Mid-day exercise
10:00-10:40
Period 3
10:50-11:30
Period 4
11:30-13:50
Lunch
13:50-
Prepare for class
14:00-14:40
Period 5
14:55-15:35
Period 6
15:45-16:25
Period 7
17:15-19:20
Dinner
19:20-
Prepare for class
19:30-20:15
Evening self-study 1
20:25-21:10
Evening self-study 2
21:30-
Prepare to sleep
21:40-
Dormitory lights off
Even good students complained about the long hours of study and endless amount of
assignment.
When it comes to the evening self-study [the last period of study in the day], I feel so
tired that I will yawn or even fall asleep
that I cannot finish.
There are too many subjects and assignment
Everyday we have 2 hours at least to do the assignment so I
have to copy answers, some of the classmates dont even hand in the assignment.
[]
2
(Z1-Good Student Xiao Jie, Y09/113)

188
8.7
Conclusion
In this case analysis, I have shown how bad students are defined or how student
quality is institutionalized, discriminated, managed and eventually excluded or
expelled out of the system in relation to the techniques used.
The techniques of
institutionalizing student quality include defining bad students through the code of
student behaviour, the division of classes and arrangement of seating; differentiating
the school principals and teachers treatment of bad students under the pressure of
performance appraisals; alienating them from their everyday reality by the design of
textbooks and curriculum; discriminating core and non-core subject knowledge by
the design of assessment method and timetable.
When children are defined and
discriminated into good and bad students with respect to their personality, ethical
conduct and behaviour, rural background, interest and performance ability in different
subjects, inequality is effectively produced in the school system.
189
Chapter 9
Through the case of a hidden dropout from one of the remote, under-resourced
schools in the villages, Chapter Nine examines the relationship between school access
and educational equity with a focus on the supply of quality teachers.
9.1
Ah Qiong from remote, under-resourced schools
In China, the natural villages (ziran cun, ) are in the lowest tier of the
rural hierarchy, characterized by its remoteness and sparse population.
Depending
on the accessibility, primary schools in these areas have been either completely shut
down or have had the upper levels relocated to the less remote areas in the
administrative villages (xingzhen cun, ) or the townships/towns, leaving
behind only teaching sites with the lower levels.
These schools are often extremely
under-resourced in terms of the supply of teachers and students, as characterized by

the one-teacher schoolrooms (yishi yixiao, ) with one teacher and a
multi-grade classroom in Township Y1 in Yunnan and the sparrow-sized primary
schools (maque xiaoxue, ) with fewer than five students in a classroom in
Town B1 in Guangdong.
Like many of the children from the natural villages, Ah Qiong from Village Z2
received his P.1 to P.4 primary education in his own village, attended P.5 and P.6 in
the administrative village which is about two hours away on foot, received his S.1 to
S.3 education in the township about three to four hours away on foot.
190
But at the
beginning of S.3, at age 15, he left school and worked for two weeks at a construction
site in a nearby city.
dropout.
Although he returned to school later on, he was a hidden
Unlike Ah Xing Fa from Chapter 7, Ah Qiong was not a low achiever at
school since day one; her performance in the primary school was average, but when
she went to the secondary school in town she could not catch up.
By the time she
reaches S.2, she practically gave up her studies and remained in school until S.3 to
work in the factory.
She explained she did not have a good academic foundation
early on in the primary school.
The low quality of teaching in the primary school
was attributed as one of the reasons, which Ah Qiong described as a lack of control
over classroom discipline:
Our primary school teachers never took our studies seriously.
fun in the classroom.
In the past we just had
It was a really happy time, but the teachers didnt manage the
students discipline in class.
It felt like I had learnt nothing, except a very blurred idea
When we went up to P.6 I couldnt catch up with my studies, so I didnt want to go to

school.
(Z2-Dropout Ah Qiong, Y09/49)
How does the distribution of educational resources in geographically

disadvantaged locations become a factor for school failure?
I begin with a review of the governments approach to educational equity as
underlined by the School Merger (chedian bingxiao, ) Policy recently
introduced to allocate resources from the rural areas to urban areas.
I then focus on
the quality of rural teachers and their teaching with regards to their recruitment,
attrition and work motivation.
191
9.2
The governments approach to the distribution of resources
When discussing the problem of equity in educational development, many

practitioners focus on the quantity of resources such as the availability of certain
learning equipment and facilities like computers or multi-media classroom and
teachers with a certain level of qualification between the rural and urban areas.
But, even though resources are given, I noticed that in many of the village
schools I visited in Township Y1 and Town B1 the expensive TV and DVD player
supplied by the local city government had seldom or never been used because the
rural teacher does not know how to use it or does not have the habit of using
technology in teaching.
Some of the school infrastructure which was built or
renovated using a large amount of money are even abandoned soon after its
completion due to a drop in student number.
In Town B1, in 2008, an additional
school building was built for B1 Primary School, using 300,000 yuan of Hong Kong
donation and putting the school in a debt of 100,000 yuan, but was abandoned
immediately after completion due to a drop in student population.
192
Photo 9.1
An empty school building which went abandoned immediately upon its completion
due to a drop of student number. The bottom floor was later rented to a private kindergarten.
The School Merger policy for rural primary schools, first mentioned in 2001,
was one of the government policies that reportedly aimed to improve the distribution
of resources in basic education in rural areas.
The key part of the policy involves
plans to close down schools in the villages, redistributing educational resources (such
as students, teachers, teaching and learning facilities) from the less accessible, rural
areas, and merging them with larger Centre Schools (zhongxin xiao, ) in more
easily accessible, urban areas.
The rationale behind, as County A education bureau
vice-chief explains, is often in the name of equity:
Whats the use of investing a lot of money into the villages?
There are too few people
in the rural schools and they live far apart, which is not easy to manage.
So we get the
students to come to town, centralize the hardware and software in the centralized
school, optimize the allocation of resources to let rural students to have access to the
193
best teachers.
Its more efficient like this.
Our goal is to narrow the educational
inequity Our vision is aimed at the long-term development. Although we need to take
care of everybody, there must be a minority of people that we cant take care of. We
can only do what benefits most people first.
(A-Bureau vice-chief Xu, G10/88, 92)
But the policy receives the biggest resistance from parents in the small, remote
villages who are concerned about safety for their young children from the lower levels
(P.1 and P.2), to walk two to four hours, sometimes on dangerous mountain trails, to
the Centre Schools.
There is also the concern for the young children to be away
from home at such a young age and take care of themselves while boarding at the
school during the week.
Because of the resistance of parents in remote villages, only
the upper grades (P.3 to P.6) of remote schools have been re-allocated.
As a consequence, the provision of primary education in the natural villages
become even more under-resourced as schools become incomplete or teaching
sites with only the lower grades (P.1 and P.2, sometimes also P.3), with much fewer
students and teachers in multi-grade classrooms, as characterized by one-teacher
schoolrooms and sparrow-sized schools.
In County A, of its 282 primary schools
and teaching sites, 84 (29.8%) have fewer than 40 students or 21 (7.4%) have fewer
than 20 students.
In Township Y1 and Town B1, the most under-resourced village
schools I have come across have only 7 students in the whole school (C1 primary
school), 1 student in a classroom (C2 primary school) and 1 teacher in the whole
school (in Z2 primary school) (see Table 9.1)
194
Table 9.1
Conditions at the most under-resourced village schools in the field
C1 primary school
C2 primary school
Z2 primary school
Distance from the

Centralized School
Maximum number
of students and
teachers in the past
15km
Around 10km
Over 20km
In early 1990s, the

school had a
maximum of over
200 students.
In 1995, the school

had a maximum of
290 students, where
each classroom with
over 50 students.
Number of students
and teachers after
the School Merger
Policy
The school only had

7 students in all
grades
The school had only

6 students, where
one of the
classrooms had only
1 student
Number of students
(in each level)
P.1 3
P.2 2
P.3 2
3
P.1 3
P.2 2
P.3 1
3
The school used to

have two teachers,
teaching P.1 to P.4 in
two multi-grade
classrooms, each
with around 60
students
The school only had
one teacher teaching
two grades (P.1 and
P.2) in a multi-grade
classroom with 37
students
P.1 27
P.2 10
Number of teachers
The redistribution policy also triggered a school transfer fever (zexiao re,
) following a huge drop in school quality for the lower form students remaining
in the remote teaching sites.
Families with the financial capability transfer their
children elsewhere to a school of better quality in the town or county town.
More
students are moving to the urban areas to study, leaving those who cannot afford
behind in the rural areas.
According to County A Bureau Chief Wang, the student
population in county town increases by 100 to 150 students every year.
The school
transfer wave is a major cause for the drastic drop in rural student population, even
though a low birth rate under a strict implementation of the One-Child policy37 in the
90s is also a factor (see Table 9.2).
37
The One-Child policy reportedly brought down the fertility rate in rural areas from 5.8 children per
woman in 1970 to an estimated 1.8 in 2007 (National Population and Family Planning Commission,
2007 July 9).
195
Table 9.2 The impact of school transfer triggered by the School Merger policy at C1
Primary School in 2003
Number of
Year 2002 (before
Year 2008 (after
redistribution)
redistribution)
Around 20
2 to 4
students per class
Photo 9.2
C2 Primary School, which used to have over 50 students in a class, has now only
two students in a class.
One of them is later transferred to study elsewhere.
196
Photo 9.3
At Z2 Primary School, only one teacher is left to teach two levels in a multi-grade
classroom, where P.1 students sit on the left and P.2 on the right.
The School Merger Policy did not decrease the percentage of under-resourced
rural teaching sites in the rural school system, but even increased them from 26.5%
(2001) to 30.6% (2008).
In Township Y1, 27.8% (398 of 1432) of the student
population still study in the teaching sites and 38.5% still study in multi-grade
classrooms.
In County X, there are still 225 teaching sites (of which 179 are
one-teacher schoolrooms, the others two-teacher schoolroom), together with 14

incomplete primary schools and 78 complete primary schools.
In 2008, according to
the Ministry of Education statistics, 1,163,388 (6.86% of all entrants in China)

students continued to enter multi-grade classrooms and teaching sites while 4,311,746
(4.17% of all enrolled in China) remained enrolled in them.
197
9.3 Teacher quality: recruitment

9.3.1
Teacher qualifications as an indicator of quality?
Practitioners seem to generally view that the quality of teachers in terms of

their qualifications, so that the higher their qualifications the higher quality they are.
In County X, the majority of teachers are considered qualified because 46% of its
teachers had a teachers college degree, 35% had a university degree and only 18%
had their qualifications from senior secondary school or secondary-level teacher
training38.
But, teachers with a higher qualification are not necessarily better or
more suitable for the rural students those with a lower qualification.
In the eyes of
the students, a good teacher is generally defined in terms of his/her academic and
pedagogical competences and devotion to teaching.
A student said:
Many teachers are good people, but are not suitable to be teachers.
Therere also
many teachers who have excellent subject knowledge but have problems with teaching
skills.
These teachers I think are more suitable to do research instead of dealing with
students
I think a good teacher is someone who can use his/her charisma to attract
the students while the transmission of knowledge.

difficult to put it in words.
Its a kind of charisma.
Its very
Its like showing that he/she cares about the students.
(X-Student Zhang, interview 2010-3-17/14)
38
Under the Professionalization of Teachers (jiaoshi zhuanye hua,

) reform, all primary
school teachers, who were previously required to have at least graduated from a secondary teacher
training school (zhongzhuan
), are now required to graduate from a normal college (dazhuan
); and all junior secondary school teachers, previously required to have at least graduated from a
normal college, are now required to graduate from a normal university (daxue
).
198
And the official qualifications only show the latest qualifications, with no details
regarding the time or the context when their qualifications were attained.
The
qualifications acquired after in-service training (hanshou, ) or self-study

(zikao, ) can indeed be a false indicator of a teachers actual competences.
To understand a teachers competences, it is necessary to trace back to the time
they entered the school system, or their entry qualification (yuanshi xueli,
), and analyze the characteristics of the system at that time.
One needs to know (1)
the teachers entry qualification to understand their academic competence, (2) the
quality of the teacher training school they graduated from, for example whether the
school is managed by the provincial or county government, to understand their
pedagogical competence, and (3) the historical context when they gained their
qualification, for example whether it was before or after the reform of teacher
education and expansion of higher education, to more precisely understand their
academic competence compared to others in their time.
Such information can be
obtained only by interviewing every teacher in the town/township or having access to

somebody from inside the school management, who has worked at the school for a
long time, has a superb recall memory and was willing to help.
My analysis is focused on the teachers in Town B1 in rural Guangdong, given its
vanguard position in experiencing the challenges brought by the rapid socio-economic
development in China.
To help me understand the quality of junior secondary school
teachers there39, Retired Teacher He from B1 Secondary School was the best source.
The 58-year-old retired teacher, having studied there as a junior and senior secondary
school student (from 1965 to 1970) and later worked at the same school for 22 years
(from 1979 to 2002) as a teacher and an Administrator of Teaching and Learning
Affairs and continued to live on-campus after retirement, provided an inside look into
39
There was only one junior secondary school in Town B1 at the time of research.
199
the entry qualifications of all the secondary teachers.
Given his superb recall
memory pertaining to the teachers entry qualification, their time of entering the
profession and the quality of the teacher training attended, I was able to come up with
a detailed analysis of the types of teachers calibre (see Table 9.3).
Table 9.3
Types of secondary school teachers at B1 Town (in 2010)
Type of teachers,
Details on teacher
Time of entering
Entry qualifications
composition
the system, age
1 teacher graduated from a

university during Chairman
Maos time
14 teachers from
province-level
secondary-level teacher
training)
3 teachers from top-ranked
universities)
3 teachers from Hunnan
province graduated from
province-level
training)
---
Before pujiu;
Age: 56 (four years
before retirement)
During pujiu;
Age: 30-49
5 teachers from
county-level
training)
10 unqualified substitute
teachers with no teacher
training upon employment
5 in management with few

teaching duties,
1 on long sick leave,
therefore, only 8 are teaching
2 in management,
only 1 is teaching
These teachers were hired from
a poor area in Hunnan province
during pujiu.
Since Town B1 is inhabited by
Hakka people, these teachers
who are not fluent in the Hakka
language may have difficulty in
communicating with the
students parents.
---
8 or 9 of them were transferred

from B1 Primary School during
pujiu. Amongst them, 7 were
secondary school graduates, 1
(a sports teacher) a junior
secondary graduate, 2 from
secondary-level vocational
schools specialized in nursing
and computer
---
Calibre
High
High
High
High
Low
Low
4 teachers from low-ranked

After pujiu;
low
universities
Age: 24-30
In total, there are 40 teachers on the roster. But, 7 are in the management with few teaching
duties, 1 on long sick leave, so only 32 teachers were actually performing teaching duties.
(Source: Interview with B1-Retired Teacher He, G11/13-14)
200
Principal Zhu from B1 Centralized School helped me understand the qualifications of

the primary school teachers from his school in town and the 14 teaching sites in the
villages.
Principal Zhu, who also manages all the 88 primary school teachers in the
villages, could only give a rough account of every primary school teacher in Town B1
with some missing details, such as the specific profile of teachers qualifications in the
Centralized School in town compared to that in the primary schools in the villages
(see Table 9.4).
Table 9.4
Types of primary school teachers at B1 Town (in 2010)
Teachers entry qualifications and

Time of entering the
Calibre
their number
system
Before and during pujiu Low
Around 60 unqualified substitute
40
teachers or people-hired teachers
graduated from junior and secondary
schools
3 teachers from high-quality
During pujiu
High
1 teacher from Hunnan province
During pujiu
High
graduated from high-quality
elsewhere
Over 10 teachers from low-quality
During pujiu
Low
secondary-level teacher training
schools
10 worker-turned-teachers with senior During pujiu
Low
secondary school or junior secondary
school qualifications
In total, there are 88 primary school teachers. Of these, 36 teach in the
Centralized School in town.
(Source: B1-Principal Zhu, G11/22)
In Town B1, following the promulgation of the Compulsory Education Law in 1986,
intensive efforts were poured in from 1987 to 1991 to universalize primary school
education and from 1993 to 1996 to universalize junior secondary school education41.
40
Substitute teachers are paid by the county government while minban teachers were paid by the
local villagers. Both did not receive proper teacher training before entering the profession.
41
The achievement of the universal education target was based on a set of prescribed targets such as
201
I use the universalization of nine-year education, or pujiu () as a general time

frame to categorize the different types of teachers quality in different periods, namely
before pujiu (1986 and before), during pujiu (1987 to 1999) and after pujiu
(2000 and onwards).
9.3.2
Two types of unqualified teachers recruited during the universal
education period (1987-1999)
The majority of the teachers in the basic education system today entered during
pujiu (1987-1999), especially in 1993 and 1994 for primary school teachers and 1996
for junior secondary school teachers.
In Town B1 Secondary School, this type of
teachers comprises 87.5% (i.e. 35 of all its 40 teachers).
They were born between
late 1960s and early 1980s, and were in their 30s and 40s.
The events that
characterize the quality of teachers from this period include a rise in student numbers,
a high demand for teachers and the reform of teacher education in 2000.
In the
primary schools in Town B1, all the primary school teachers came from either before
or during pujiu.
But not all of them were of low quality, and the quality between
primary and junior secondary school teachers in the same town can be hugely
different.
High-quality teachers-of-all trades in secondary schools
Not all rural teachers are of low quality as is often claimed.
At least in the B1
Secondary School, 20 of the 40 teachers were of high caliber although only 12 had
major teaching duties as the others were either in the management or on long sick
leave.
And three of the 88 primary school teachers in Town B1 are of a high calibre.
enrolment rates, see Chapter 5

202
These teachers are considered high-calibre both in their academic and pedagogical
competences because they graduated from the university or the high-quality
secondary-level teacher training school, or zhongshi (), before the reform of
teacher education.
Amongst the 20 secondary school teachers, 14 were from the
provincial zhongshi, three from a zhongshi elsewhere in Hunnan province and three
from the university.
Before the reform of teacher education, each city has at least one secondary-level
teacher training school to provide full-time pre-service training for rural teachers.
Managed by the city and provincial government, such teacher training schools are
generally of top quality.
Although zhongshi graduates were, by the then government
standards, only qualified to teach primary schools, almost all of them were assigned to
teach junior secondary schools.
Indeed, those graduating from the provincial-level
zhongshi were at that time and are even still considered as of the highest calibre in the
school system.
They had excellent academic competence because the seats in
zhongshi were at that time so limited that only one or two students with the best
SSEEE results in each township/town could enter.
They were also highly competent
in pedagogical skills or the basic skills (jiben gong, ), which are especially
useful for teaching primary school students.
A zhongshi graduate recalled:
Everyday we had to do six basic trainings: one page of Chinese calligraphy, one page
written by chalk, one page written by ink pens, one page of composition written in
Chinese pinyin [or Chinese romanization], during our self-study each one of us had to get
on the stage to give a 5-minute speech, and we had to answer one question asked by our
classmates up the stage.
Giving a speech was to practise the way we posture our body,
our ability to express and our guts while standing in front of the class In the second
year, we had teaching practice that each one of us had to pretend to be teachers for our
classmates.
I still remember saying to my classmates up on the stage: students, do
you understand?
203
(A-Teacher Xu, G19/95)
Although zhongshi graduates were not specialists in the knowledge of each subject as
were university graduates, their strength was being a generalist or what is often
known as a teacher-of-all-trades (wan jin you, ).
There were three
disciplines in zhongshi: general (who were trained to be both Chinese and Maths
teachers), arts and sports.
Being a teacher-of-all-trades, the teacher is capable of
teaching any subject, a skill which is particularly useful in rural schools where there is
often a short supply of teachers and each teacher generally has to teach three to even
five subjects.
Low-calibre substitute teachers in primary schools
However, there is a huge difference in quality between the primary and junior
secondary school teachers even in the same town.
In Town B1, an overwhelming
majority (80 of 88) of the primary school teachers---compared to only about half (15
over 32) of the secondary school teachers---are of low calibre.
The teachers are considered low-calibre because they had not received any
professional teacher training and their entry qualifications were low when they
entered the school system.
Some of them were only fresh graduates from junior and
senior secondary school; some had not even finished junior secondary school.
The
quality of primary school teachers suffered more under pujiu because some of the best
primary school teachers were transferred to teach secondary school.
204
The demand
gap in the primary schools then was filled in by a considerable number of

people-hired teachers42 who entered the system before pujiu and had the lowest entry
qualification.
A school principal described the quality problems of these teachers:
In China, people with very bad or below average abilities become teachers Many
became teachers because they had nothing to do after graduating from junior secondary
school Some teachers were really incompetent, some even made mistakes in writing
Chinese characters.
(B1-Principal Lin, G09/20)
Some were graduates from the secondary-level vocational schools (zhongzhuan, )

but specialized in a completely different field other than education, such as nursing or
computer.
The same problem happened to Y1 Secondary School during pujiu when
7 (or more than a fifth) of some 30 teachers at school were graduates from other
irrelevant disciplines such as tobacco or coal mining.
Many of these teachers used
rural schools as a springboard to enter the civil service in the urban areas.
They just dont understand what education is. Although there are seven teachers, they
had to interact with a few hundreds of students, when these students go to senior
secondary school, they cannot compensate for the study problems they had in junior
secondary school.
7
[]
(Y1-Official Zi, Y09/34)

42
The difference between government-hired, people-hired and substitute teachers is in the level and
source of salary. Government-hired teachers (gongban,
) are paid with a stable income by the
Central government. People-hired teachers (min ban,
) had their salaries paid by local villagers
on a level much lower than the government-hired teachers. Substitute teachers (dai ke,
), whose
salary is much lower are paid by the local county government, are hired to replace people-hired
teachers as their employment are banned after 1985.
205
A past mistake in educational development often has serious consequences in the

quality of teachers today and the future.
During the ten years of pujiu from 1987 to
1996, the local government was overly concerned with achieving the policy target
within a time frame prescribed by the upper levels of the government, without
understanding the local challenges and evaluating the future impact.
At that time,
one of the local challenges was the soaring student enrolments because birth rates in
the 1980s were on the rise under an improved economy at the beginning of the
Opening Up reform and under a loose implementation of the One-Child policy.
Between 1996 and 2001, Town B1 had a record-high number of enrolments, with over
3600 primary school students and 900 junior secondary school students.
Another
major challenge at that time was the lack of graduates from the province-level
zhongshi, which were even shut down between 1966 and 1979 during the Cultural
Revolution.
The problem from the past not only has an impact on teachers quality
today but also in the future when the majority of teachers hired from the pujiu period
reach retirement age.
Almost all the substitute teachers became government-paid teachers (gongban,
) later on after receiving various means of in-service teacher training or
continuing education, for example, part-time in-service training (hanshou, ) and
self-taught
examinations
(zikao,
).
Some
are
what
called
worker-turned-teacher who did not receive any teacher training upon entry to schol
system but were allowed to enter the system, with the identity of a worker, under a
teacher replacement system called dingban () to replace their father upon his
retirement as a teacher.
Although they carried the identity of a worker (zhigong,
), or non-teaching staff in the school system, many of them were actually

performing the duties a teacher (jiaoshi, ) under the yigong daijiao ()
206
system.
All of them are supposed to be given teacher training after they entered the
system, but the training is generally considered a mere formality and is not taken
seriously43.
Actually the majority of teachers are only after the degree.
They had not really learnt
anything.
(B1-Principal Lin, G09/18, 96)
During the school holidays, there are also seminars organized by the county
government and professional development activities44 organized by the individual
school for teachers to improve their skills.
But they are believed to be of little use.
A school principal said:

Some of the teachers quality is very low, that its not realistic for them to improve
through these few activities. Their problems are mainly in two areas: firstly their subject
knowledge is very limited and secondly they have not received any professional training.
(B1-Principal Lin, G09/18, 96)
Apart from the substitute teachers, other low-calibre teachers were graduates
from low-quality zhongshi which were managed by the county government who
wanted to train enough teachers in a short time.
According to Retired Teacher He,
graduates from the county-level zhongshi were not as competent in their academic
competence because enrolling at the county-level zhongshi only requires about 80%
43
Part-time in-service training requires the teacher to attend a certain number of hours of lectures at an
institute during holidays, write a dissertation which some teachers said are copied from the internet and
take examinations.
44
At school, sometimes teachers are organized to sit in other teachers classes to learn from each other.
207
of the SSEEE scores to enter a province-level zhongshi.
9.3.3
Young, qualified but low-quality university graduates recruited after the
reform of teacher education (2000-present)
The quality of teaching, particularly in the primary school, may suffer particularly
with the entry of highly qualified teachers with college or university degrees, with
specialized subject knowledge but often described as lacking the pedagogical skills.
These teachers are not of top calibre, at least when they first entered the job, because
they come from low-ranked universities which require only a very low college
entrance examination score.
They are born after the mid-1980s and are trained after
the expansion of higher education and the reform of teacher education in 1999.
In
Town B1, four secondary school teachers and no primary school teachers belong to
this category.
Even though they may have more specialized subject knowledge than
teachers graduated from zhongshi, they are generally weak in their pedagogical skills,
which are particularly important in teaching rural primary school students.
zhongshi graduate said:

Its one thing for the teacher to understand, but its another thing to be able to make your
students understand
Many college and university graduates tried to explain an idiom
to primary school students, but the students dont understand, their explanation was too
difficult the graduates from zhongshi are confident in front of the class that we can
even scold at students, but the university graduates are so shy that they cannot even
scold at their students up on the stage.

... []
(A-Teacher Xu, G19/95)
208

The aim of zhongshi is very precisely focused on nurturing teachers, whose pedagogical
skills are better than the university graduates.
Although many of the teachers today are
university graduates, their studies and training at university are not aligned with the
reality of the work at school.
So there are teachers who are highly qualified but have
very bad pedagogical skills.
(X-Administrator Duan, Y09/168)
The expansion of higher education and the teacher education reform in particular
may also affect the recruitment of high-calibre people to become teachers in the rural
schools.
This is because, before the reform, teachers were guaranteed a job upon
completing their teachers training in zhongshi and rural parents wanted their children
to have a stable job---a mentality called gathering early harvest (ge zao dao,
But after the reform, one has to pay for three years of senior secondary
).
education and two or four more years of college or university, which is a much higher
cost for rural families, to enter the profession.
In the past the countryside was very poor, so the parents wanted their children to find a
job as soon as possible after they finish junior secondary school.
They wanted their
children to reduce the familys burden rather than furthering their studies in senior
secondary school and the university.
So in the past, many high-calibre students went to
teachers school.
(X-Administrator Duan, Y09/168)
209
In the poor areas where the government is reportedly too poor to employ enough
teachers, the majority of university graduates cannot even find full-time teaching job
in the rural schools even they want to.
In County X, 270 people once competed for
eight full-time positions as a primary school Chinese or Maths subject teacher in the
rural areas.
According to a university graduate from Township Y1, university
graduates generally need to apply at least two to four times before they can
successfully be hired.
And for every 100 university graduates at their school, only 7
or 8 are employed as teachers, a few would return to their home villages to become
substitute teachers45, a few would enter the civil service, a few would join the army,
while the rest would work in the urban areas as property agents and in other
professions.
9.4
Teacher quality: attrition
The quality of teachers in the rural schools today suffered another blow with two
waves of brain drain during and after pujiu.
Salary and the lack of school funding
are indeed the major concern but the problem is more complex than can be solved by
raising the salary and offering incentives.
9.4.1
Loss to other professions
During pujiu, at least 10 teachers left the primary schools between 1985 and
1991 and around 10 teachers left the secondary school from 1985 to 1996 in Town B1
for the civil service or the private sector.
45
Besides salary, the lack of promotion
Those who are willing to work in the villages as substitute teachers usually come from the same
village. Even though they have the same workload with only a 500 yuan/month salary which is only
one third of a regular teachers, they see living at home and being close to their family as a benefit.
210
prospects at school is a major factor for many teachers to change their profession.
This is especially true given the variety of opportunities available in the job market at
the beginning of the Opening Up economic reform.
According to Retired Teacher
He, these people were bright (youxiu, ) and progressive in their thinking
(you huoli, ).
For them, the prospect of being promoted to a higher position
in return for their hard work and capability offers job satisfaction.
But promotion is
less likely to happen at a primary or secondary school compared to the civil service.
For example there are 7 or 8 people in one police station. Amongst them, 4 or 5 are
superiors and only 1 or 2 are subordinates.
Compared to a school with only a few
people in the management level, 70 to 80 teachers and 1300 students to manage, the
work is tougher.
And it is more difficult to become a superior and realize ones effort at
the school.
78 45 12
70-80 1300
(B1-Retired Teacher He, G11/)
9.4.2
Loss to urban schools
After pujiu, between 2003 and 2009, the expansion of senior and junior
secondary education in County Town A is the major trigger of the second wave of
brain drain characterized by teachers transferring their work to urban schools.
Over
20 of the best teachers in B1 Secondary School transferred their work to schools in

the county town, leaving only 49 teachers left.
Because they had to compete in
examinations to work in the urban schools, all these teachers had the highest academic
competence.
They were all university graduates before 2001.
Meantime, the demand for teachers in rural schools has decreased because of a
211
reduction of the rural student population (see Table 9.5 and 9.6).
Table 9.5
Number of primary school students in Town B1 during and after pujiu
Year
1991 (during pujiu)
2009 (after pujiu)
2010
Number of students
Over 3600
Over 710
673
Table 9.6
Number of junior secondary school students in Town B1 during and after
pujiu
Year
Around 1998
2008 (after pujiu)
2009
2010
553
451
352
(during pujiu)
Number of students
Over 900
The number of enrolments per year now, according to B1 Primary School Principal
Lin, is only one-third or one-fourth of the past.
The reduction in rural student
population is due to a strict implementation of the One-Child policy in the 90s, when
the number of children per family went from three or four to one or two.
It is also
caused by parents transferring their children to study at better schools, especially

since B1 Secondary School ranked only 21st or 22nd of the 23 secondary schools in
County A in SSEEE scores.
In Town B1, 20 primary school teachers have been
transferred to work in the county town since 2000 and eight junior secondary school
teachers since 2007.
These teachers are not necessarily the best because they had to
offer bribery and go through certain personal connections with relevant government
officials for the school transfer.
There are also hidden benefits of working in the urban schools that attract rural
teachers to transfer to the urban school.
Although teachers working in the villages,
town/township and county town receive the same monthly salary from the
government, the financial incentives and other benefits they receive from the school
vary greatly.
Under the Compulsory Education Operating Funds Guarantee

212
Mechanism in Rural Areas (nongcun yiwu jiaoyu jingfei baozhang jizhi,

), schools receive the basic operating funds from the central or/and
local governments46 according to the number of students enrolled and the per student
standard set by the provincial government.
fees from the parents.
Popular schools also receive sponsorship
The more students are enrolled, the more funding a school
receives from the government and the parents, and the more money the school can set
aside for a variety of bonuses (jiangjin, ) for teachers.
The end-of-year bonus
in some schools in County town A was reportedly 2500 yuan, which was about one to
two times the monthly salary, but only a few hundred in Town B1 and nothing in the
villages.
Other benefits include invitations to banquets on Teachers Day and other
school events.
But, for village primary schools like C1 Primary School where there
are only 10 students, the school does not have enough money to set aside as bonus for
teachers or, in fact, not even enough budget to maintain the daily operation of the
school.
In fact, the village schools often do not receive the promised amount because of
local corruption.
At least two village school principals in Town B1 reportedly had to
use some of the operating funds on red packets (hongbao, ) or kickbacks for
county officials before receiving the school operating funds, on other forms of bribery
in the name of student insurance and internet connection even though there was
no internet in the villages (see Table 9.7).
46
The operating funds of schools in County A are given by the Guangdong provincial government.
In County X, schools are funded by the Central government, Yunnan provincial and city government?
213
Table 9.7
Operating funds and expenditure of C1 Primary School
Items
Expenses (yuan) by semester
Electricity (for cooking meals, fans,
35
pumping water from the well)

Water (from the well)
None
Maintenance
None
Gas
~150
Teaching supplies (e.g. notepads,
Over 100
chalk)
Telephone service
21/month
Teachers travel expenses (for
400
(126/semester)
attending seminars elsewhere)

Printing costs
5 for each student
Teachers textbooks, reference
At least 200-300 (a book costs about 15
books
yuan) (assume 250 yuan for 3 teachers)
Entertainment expenses (e.g. tea)
At least a few hundred (assume: 300 yuan)
Total expenditure
Government funding
1,411
1,440 minus kickbacks in the name of
internet connection fee (15/student) and
student insurance fee (2.5/student) to the
county government
= 1,265
(Source: C1 Primary School Principal Xu in 2009)
Moreover, rural teachers generally see the urban areas as a better place to live
and work as well as for their childrens education.
Who doesnt want to move to a better place?
is not very good.
living is better.
A teacher said:
The standard of living in the countryside
In the urban areas we may get a higher bonus and the urban way of
Here in the countryside, people are contented too easily, they live one
day at a time, theres no competition, the competition out there is stronger.

were still young.
Afterall,
I think everybody has such a desire, but they are just limited by their
ability and the environment.
214
(B1-Teacher Xu, G09/2)
9.5
Teacher quality: work motivation
Meantime, teachers today often report a lack of motivation or display behaviour

such as pursuing a second career and gambling.
The problem with the teachers
motivation and devotion is the result of their feelings of injustice in the school system.
9.5.1
Second career and gambling
In Town B1, it was common for teachers to pursue a second career or be

involved in gambling to earn extra money to supplement their salary.
At least four
teachers were found to be running a store with the help of their family members
selling groceries and stationery in the town or in their village.
When they have
finished their classes, which were usually just one or two classes a day, they were
generally spotted in their own store managing its operation.
Some others were even
involved in gambling in their dormitory at school when they were not teaching in the
day.
A teacher even joked that her store was her main career followed by teaching
because more time and energy were spent at her own store instead of at school.
The
phenomena of teachers having a second career and gambling after class are signs of a
lack of devotion in teaching, a problem seen as in huge contrast to the work morale of
teachers in the past before modernization set in.
In the past, because there were no cars, teachers from the county town had to walk very
far to come to our town to teach. When they come here, they live here. With nothing
like TV, they were completely devoted to teaching.
215
But now, teachers leave school
immediately after class, on their motorbike they go home or get involved in their second
career.
Nobody lives in the school dormitory anymore.
Even though they have a
school dormitory, its only for taking afternoon naps or an occasional overnight stay.
(X-Bureau Vice-chief Xu, G09/32)
Teachers who entered the profession before the 80s had a strong sense of responsibility,
especially for those from the 60s and 70s.
Before the economic reform and opening-up
in China, teachers took their work very seriously, had a very strong sense of
professionalism, everybody had a fixed social role.
very little, or with only a job.
People were satisfied even with
Meantime, our thinking was guided by the thoughts of Mao
Zedong, such as Serve the People, Behave altruistically for the common good, Serve
whole-heartedly.
contribution.
Everybody tried their best to do their work well, with a focus on
Things are the opposite today, that people focus on the level of their salary
and return.
6070
[]
80
(B1-Principal Zhu, G10/76)
The reason why teachers pursued a second career was partly because their salary
which was between 1200 and 2400 yuan/month 47 could no longer satisfy their
demand for a higher standard of modern living, which involves buying a car and
owning a modern house.
Teacher Zhu said he opened a grocery store in the 1990s
47
In County A, in 2010, the salaries of primary and secondary school teachers for different rankings,
in ascending order, were: 1200-1300 yuan (for secondary school third level and primary school
second level), over 1300 yuan (for secondary school second level and primary school first level),
1700-1900 yuan (for secondary school first level and primary school superior level), 2300-2400 yuan
(for secondary school superior level).
216
because his salary was only 280 yuan then but he needed 160,000 yuan to modernize
his old wooden house into one with a concrete structure.
He said the net profit from
the grocery store he opens in the village is between 20,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan which
is more than what he as his wife could earn as primary school teachers.
I also wanted to be a dedicated teacher but reality doesnt allow me to be like that
With the teachers salary alone we cannot live a good life.
(C1-Teacher Zhu, G09/32)
Moreover, since Chinas economic reform and Opening-Up in late 1978, money is
increasingly becoming the measure of success.
not highly valued even by the teachers.
In such a value system, education is
Teacher Zhu said:
My mom was only educated up to P.3 but she can now write everybodys names in the
village.
If we were to close down our shop today, we have 30,000 to 50,000 yuan but
how much do the two of us earn [as teachers]?
Theres no difference between being
educated and not educated. And you may not live a good life even though you are
educated, and you may live a good life even though you are not educated.
35
(C1-Teacher Zhu, G09/32)
217
Photo 9.4
Teachers gambling
at the school dormitory after

class
9.5.2
Feelings of injustice
Teachers have also reported feelings of injustice in terms of the salary and
workload at the level of the government work system or the school.
Despite being
part of the civil service (shiye danwei, ) , many teachers do not feel they
receive the same remuneration as the civil servants because they often receive many
hidden incentives, such as invitations to banquets, red packets, gifts and even
apartments.
The distribution of workload at school is another issue.
A teacher
admitted being less devoted to his students after learning that he had to teach 16
lessons a week when some teachers at school got only 4 lessons.
218
He said:
Next year I wont care if the school has enough teachers.
I just wont teach 16 lessons
a week. Whats the use of working so much? We wont get any incentives in the end.
Teaching 16 lessons a week is considered a lot in secondary school because we also
have to mark the students assignments.
Some teachers even have 4 lessons a week.
The school wants me to do the work of four people but doesnt have any money to
compensate us. We certainly wont be responsible like this.
My attitude in teaching
this year is worse than before, because I feel it is really unjust.
And some students are
not so easy to teach and wont understand us no matter how much effort we put in.
4 16
16
4 4
Establishing a good relationship with ones superior is even seen as more important
than teaching the students.
I dont need to be very hard working in teaching.
As long as I have a good relationship
with my superior, even though I dont do very well its okay.
To put it simply, as long as
your superior says you are okay, you are.
9.6
Conclusion
The meaning of education quality can be misrepresented by quality indicators, such as

the use of the teachers latest qualifications in understanding teacher quality.
To
make teaching qualifications an accurate indicator of teacher quality, one needs to

refer to his/her entry qualifications and understand the local context such as:
did the teacher gain entry qualifications?
when
in which teacher training school did he/she

219
gain entry qualifications?

qualifications?
qualified in?
at what academic level did the teacher get his/her entry
What is the quality of the teacher training school the teacher was
Moreover, understanding the quality of rural teachers must go beyond
a simply reduction to their qualification and relates to the teachers attrition situation
and their work motivation.
When the local perspective is taken, one understands the
low quality and lack of teachers in rural schools is not as simple as it can be solved by
an increase of government funding, teacher salary and the recruitment of university
graduates.
The problem is also due to a sense of inequality, lack of school benefits
that are outside of the formal system and other social benefits.
220
PART III
Discussion and Conclusion
In Part III, the common assumptions about school dropout introduced earlier are
examined using the theoretical lenses introduced previously; the appropriateness of
each of the theoretical lenses in explaining school failure amongst the disadvantaged
in poor, rural areas will also be critiqued (Chapter 10).
The aim is to bring the
empirical insights from the field into the theoretical realm by engaging them in a
critical dialogue with the relevant literature, and to review a wide range of
theoretical issues but only insofar that they are relevant to the four case
studies---concerning education quality as covered in the literature review.
Based on
the critical insights drawn, I draw an overriding conclusion about the discourse of
education quality prevailing in the literature and the nature of the educational system
in contemporary China today and make suggestions for future studies (Chapter 11).
221
Chapter 10
The causes of school failure:
A critique of some leading approaches to
education quality
Chapter 10 revisits some of the empirical insights gained in the case studies of school
dropout (see Chapters 5 to 9) in relation to the theoretical approaches to education
quality reviewed in the previous chapter.
I also critique the shortcomings of the
theoretical approaches in understanding and explaining why children in poor, rural

China drop out of school and enter work.
10.1
Family poverty as a factor
10.1.1 Neither costs nor benefits:

ignored
the childs other concerns in schooling
A major flaw of the human capital approach in explaining school enrolment is its
ignorance of the childs interests, concerns and motivation which in fact do play a
major role in the childrens decision to continue or discontinue their studies.
Viewing school enrolment as guided by the utilitarian purpose of maximizing family
welfare, the economic approach does not distinguish between the parents and the
child in their motivation, concerns, purposes and perceptions in their schooling
decision.
The United Nations special agency on labour, the International Labour
Organization (ILO), also frames the problem of child labour in utilitarian terms:
222
Child labour not only prevents children from acquiring the skills and education
they need for a better future, it also perpetuates poverty and affects national
economies through losses in competitiveness, productivity and potential income.
Withdrawing children from child labour, providing them with education and
assisting their families with training and employment opportunities contribute
directly to creating decent work for adults.
(ILO 2012; my emphasis)
The human capital approach, or specifically a cost-benefit analysis48, is often

taken to examine family poverty as a factor in school dropout, with the assumption
that schooling is an investment decision concerned with the efficient use of financial
inputs (or costs) in relation to financial outputs (or benefits) (Mason and Khandker
1996; Boyle et al. 2002; Brown and Park 2002; Hannum 2003; Bray 1996; Bray, Ding
and Huang 2004; Bray and Bunly 2005; Knight, Li and Deng 2008; de Brauw and
Rozelle 2007; Akyeampong 2009; Wang 2001; Sun 2004Li, Guo and Xing 2009; Jin
2009).
And the abolition of school fees and provision of schooling subsidies for the
poor, as implemented by the Two Exemptions One Subsidy policy in China (Jiang and
Feng 2004), are believed to help the poor children go to school (Bray and Bunly 2005;
Bray, Ding and Huang 2003).
The economic dimension of schooling is seen in very narrow terms in a
cost-benefit analysis in terms of the direct costs such as tuition, uniform, textbooks,
stationery, transport, board and accommodation, opportunity costs or the earnings
forgone by ones schooling, and the perceived future benefits in terms of earnings.
The school enrolment decision of the poor is often reduced to mere consideration of
costs and benefits and the conclusion that the availability of financial resources is the
determinant of school enrolment for those in poverty.
48
Poor families are assumed to
For details about the Human Capital theory and cost-benefit analysis, see Chapter 3.2.1
223
prioritize economic benefits over the non-economic benefits of schooling whereas the
financially well-off prioritize the non-economic benefits such as enriching ones
knowledge, enjoying life, acquiring a new social status (Hao 2009).
The poor are
believed to lack the resources to commit to long-term investments when pressed by

the demands of basic daily survival. (Bray, Ding and Huang 2003: 53).
is described as useless when the costs are higher than the benefits.
Education
As Hao (2009)
points out, the cost of educating a university student in China today takes 14 years and
at least 50,000 yuan after completing the nine-year compulsory education; |university
graduates need at least eight years to pay off the money invested in education if they
find a job with an average salary of 2,000 yuan/month and are able to save 500
yuan/month.
The poor are assumed to lack the awareness of the use of education
or hold the so-called Education is Useless belief (jiaoyu wuyong lun, )49,
and focus more on short-term economic gains in the labour market than the long-term
economic benefit of schooling (e.g. Shi 2000; Yu and Zhang 2006; Hao 2009).
The so-called Education is Useless belief is seen as common in China
especially in the 1980s and 1990s after the introduction of the Reform and Opening
policy when there were plenty of work opportunities in the private sector so that one
could quickly be launched from rags to riches.
As Yang (1992: 101) observes the
situation in the 1980s:

There appeared great crops of free youth waiting to be engaged in any lucrative
business. In order to become rich, they either farmed on the land, were
employed by the newly flourishing rural factories, or learned particular skills.
The desire of each family for instant wealth was reflected in a prevailing attitude
that education was useless, tasteless, and profitless especially when peasant
parents saw how much and how quickly money could be earned by more hands
participating in the family economic business.
49
In addition, education was seen
The Education is Useless theory will be discussed again in Chapter 11.3.2 as a theory about the
rural parents lack of educational awareness.
224
as a waste of time and money compared with the benefits of early employment.
In the 2000s, the Education is Useless theory is believed to become popular again
amongst the rural, following the expansion of higher education and a flood of highly
educated students competing for a limited number of jobs in the labour market.
As
Hao (2009) argues, for the poor people, studying or schooling is considered a useless
or unworthy investment when it generates little benefit, which can be whether one
can be promoted to the university, find a job or a good job after finishing ones studies
and make much money at work.
Poor families are seen as more concerned about
their childrens career prospects and improving their immediate financial situation
rather than enriching their knowledge, enjoying their life (Hao 2009).
Poor families
are found to mainly consider the direct and opportunity costs of education whereas the
well-off families mainly consider the childrens future benefits (Sun 2004).
But in reality, there are often conflicts of interest between the parents and the
children in school enrolment.
The economic function of schooling, as Bray and
Bunly (2005) point out, constitutes an important part of the school enrolment decision
of a family, or in particular only the parents.
While the parents decision to send the
child to school may be more in line with the assumption of the human capital theorists
in educational investment associated with costs and benefits, the childs decision to
continue or discontinue his/her studies may often times have nothing to do with costs
or benefits of schooling.
The children have entered school out of many other
motives and reasons which have nothing to do with cost or benefit, at least not in
investment terms, and thus they cannot be translated and measured in monetary terms
as a human capital theorist would in a cost-benefit analysis.
As shown in the cases
of Xiao Yuan and other hidden dropouts (see Chapter 6 in this study), some hidden
dropouts reported the reason why they remain in school even though they do not want
225
to was because neither of the alternatives of dropping out of school and entering work
was desirable.
Others remain at school because they see school as entertainment, a
place for being around with friends, or just to idle their time in order to wan da xie
(mature some more).
Xiao Yuans grandmother, after the loss of her son, prefers
having her granddaughterher only guardianleave school after completing junior

secondary school to work for a few years and come back to the village to get married
to take care of her so as to provide her with security against old age, more than having
her daughter, despite her excellent school performance, furthering her studies and
going to the city with a possibly better financial prospect.
The psychological dimension of poverty is also an important push factor, as
shown in the case of Ah Xiang who felt a loss of face after being publicly humiliated
by her teacher for being poor.
As I have found in the field, household wealth as
perceived by the rural poor can be in terms of local factors such as the structure of
their house, the hygiene of the kitchen, the level of parents education, the quantity of
livestock, etc.
Alternatively, a belief in the use of education for a better future, as the
cases of Retired Teacher He and Farmer Ye (see Chapter 6 in this study) show, can be
a very strong motive for one to remain in school despite being in extreme hunger and
poverty.
Using participatory methods to understand the voices of the poor, Narayan
et al. (2000) in their study describe the multi-dimensional dimensions of poverty

beyond mere monetary terms, associated with the lack of material well-being
(especially food, but also housing, land and other assets that lead to hunger and
physical deprivation), the psychological aspects (e.g. their lack of voice, power, and
independence that subjects them to exploitation, inability to fully participate in
community life that leads to a breakdown of social relations), the absence of basic
infrastructure (e.g. roads, transport, water), illness (due to lack of healthcare), the lack
of physical, human, social and environmental assets rather than income.
226
Poverty
often causes feelings of shame that can push one to drop out, as in the case of Ah Ye
(Chapter 5) and in the many news reports of rural parents who committed suicide as
they felt ashamed of being financially incapable of sending their child to university
(Renmin News 2003 July 18; Xinhua News 2004 August; Xinhua News 2005
September 21; Xinhua News 2006 July 15).
The meaning of poverty for the poor
can also vary by gender, age, culture and other socio-economic factors.
10.1.2
The complexity of cost:
the poors concerns simplified
Conventionally, the problems with school access are reduced to the concerns of
mere education costs and opportunity cost amongst the poor, as in India and
Bangladesh (Nambissan 2002; Kabeer, Nambissan and Subrahmanian 2002).
The
problem of child labour, as a sign of problems with school access, is often reduced to
mere economic poverty:
Child labor is just one example of the inefficient mechanisms of risk
diversification adopted by asset-poor people. In the long term this strategy of
risk prevention and mitigation, which could be optimal given the constraints
faced, tends to erode poor peoples few productive assets and might endanger
their already limited ability to generate future income.
(Regalia 2000: 5)
But, the concept of poverty or cost is more complex than can be easily identified
and translated in monetary terms.
In particular, the opportunity cost, defined as the
total value of opportunities students forego while attending school, is difficult to

identify, let alone to measure in monetary terms.
In the literature, two types of
opportunities foregone associated with the private investment in schooling are

generally identified: (1) the income that students could have earned in employment
227
while attending school, and (2) the alternative use of their time, such as helping out
with household chores, while attending school (see Woodhall 2004: 31-32; Wang
2001: 12).
As it is often reported in the literature, opportunity cost or particularly
the alternative usage of the time spent in schooling is hard to measure because the
value of ones time cannot easily be measured into monetary terms, and identifying
it depends on the context (see e.g. Woodhall 2004; Bray 1996; Boyle et al. 2002).
The opportunity cost depends on the local context.
In a study of a Miao ethnic
minority village in China, the importance of learning embroidery skills at home for
girls at age 12 or 13 in finding a husband was found to be an important opportunity
cost that cannot be easily translated into monetary terms (Cheng 1997).
The
determinants of opportunity cost involved also depend on a variety of contextual

factors and are arguably all the relevant economic and non-economic contextual
factors affecting school enrolment.
As shown by the case of Xiao Yuan who loses
her parents in primary school, the opportunity cost of sending her to school in junior
secondary school is not merely the wage foregone.
The opportunity cost for her also
involves costs that cannot easily be measured in monetary terms, such as helping
with the house chores at home and taking care of her grandparents.
As many have
already noted, opportunity costs are often difficult to determine outside of the cultural
context.
Others have used proxies to incorporate qualitative insights in determining the
opportunity cost.
For example, to understand the different enrolment rates between
boys and girls in rural Gansu Province in China, Brown and Park (2002) use proxies
such as the number of children, per capita expenditure (aimed at understanding the
parents ability to invest in childrens education), the educational level of the father
and the mother (aimed at understanding the parents willingness to invest in childrens
education), the distance to school, school fees, student-teacher ratio, teachers with
228
post-secondary education, the availability of rainproof classrooms (aimed at

understanding the parents decision to send their children to school in relation to
school quality).
To understand the factors affecting girls enrolment at school in
several African countries, Colclough et al. (2003: 54-59) use the age of local girls in
marriage (for understanding the cultural practice of early marriage), the percentage of
female teachers in school (to understanding the status of women in the labour force),
and the girls religion (for understanding their Muslim or Hindu religious
background).
But, the economic dimension of schooling is much more complex than can be
solved by the aforementioned proposals, and it is doubtful that a cost-benefit analysis
alone can represent the complexity of the problem, without the researchers resorting
to other approaches.
As Cheng (1997) noted, quantitative studies are deductionist
and are limited in estimating school dropouts, as the researchers choice of proxies is
often arbitrary and is based on the researchers own bias about a given context rather
than understanding the context from the local perspective50.
Not all contextual
factors can be easily translated into measurable proxies to be used in the quantitative
analyses.
For example, as Brown and Park (2002) themselves have also noted, the
opportunity costs affecting the girls enrolment are also related to the labor market
conditions such as the status of women, the differential treatment of boys and girls at
school, the boys and girls different levels of motivation to study, the different family
support for boys and girls in educational attainment, the cultural practice of girls
leaving the family after marriage.
The determinants of the opportunity costs for poor
families in sending children to school would take into account information such as the
locally accepted age of working, the perception of education and work, the cultural
50
The problem with the assumptions built into the choice of proxies will be discussed in Chapter
10.3.2
229
status of women in the society, and the possession of social connections or social
capital.
Social capital, as Narayan et al. (2000: 55) found in their study, is
particularly essential for poor people to meet their everyday needs as they are unable
to afford formal insurance to protect themselves especially in the event of crises such
as natural disasters, financial crises, health emergencies, unemployment.
Other
determinants of opportunity costs mentioned in the literature include the availability

of employment opportunities in the labour market (Zhou et al. 2003; Wang 2001), the
parents expectation of their children to help them at work (Tsang and Kidchanapanish
1992), the location of the school (distance and travel time) and the quality of teaching
and teachers (Boyle et al. 2002).
10.2
Parents literacy as a factor
Why do children of illiterate parents tend to fail or underachieve at school?
This
section offers a critique of the Education is Useless beliefs and the meaning of
literacy or what it means being literate (which in Chinese can be translated into
phrases such as you wenhua, you suzhi), as they are conventionally conceptualized to
blame the illiterate parents.
10.2.1
Literacy as a practice: Beyond a technical definition of literacy
Conventionally, literacy is defined as a positivistic, functionalist concept using

the Systems approach.
In China, for example, the government defines literacy in
terms of the acquisition of a certain number of commonly used Chinese characters

(renzi, ), which will allow one to read the popular newspapers and journals,
230
cope with the basic writing needs in daily life.
In 195351, as required by the
Chinese government, the basic level of literacy required was 1000 characters for
farmers, 1500 characters for migrant workers and 2000 characters for the civil
servants.
An illiterate (wenmang, ) is defined as someone who cannot
read up to 500 Chinese characters, and a semi-illiterate (ban wenmang, )

is someone who can only read between 500 and the required number of characters.
In many other countries, according to UNESCO (2005: 157), literacy is also
defined using a systems approach in terms of the ability to read easily or with
difficulty a letter or a newspaper, the ability to read and write simple sentences, by
the number of years enrolled in school.
Recently, many studies are increasingly
acknowledging the various definitions of literacy in terms of other approaches.

As reviewed by the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2006 titled Literacy for Life,
literacy can be understood not only as an autonomous set of skills (according to
the systems approach), but also as applied, practised and situated (according to
the critical approach), as a learning process (according to the humanist approach)
and as text (according to the poststructuralist approach) (UNESCO 2005:
148-152).
But, in many international studies of literacy, the systemic approach
remains to be used to understand anyones level of literacy and the concerns are
technical, associated with the method of measuring, evaluating the effectiveness of
the investment of educational resources, and justifying for government investment
in literacy programs.
Using a technical conception of literacy in policy planning is problematic
because, firstly, it assumes only one legitimate type of literacy and those who are
not versed in the official literacy are stereotyped as illiterate, ignorant and
51
As required by the Notice regarding the standards used in eradicating illiteracy and the
implementation of graduation examination (<
>)
231
backward (Papen 2001).
A technical definition of literacy, being reductionist in
nature, also cannot represent the different types of knowledge and processes of
learning that take place outside the school.
The famous Chinese anthropologist
Fei Xiao-tong (1992 [1947]), in his seminal work titled Bringing Literacy to the
Countryside (wenzi xiaxiang, ), offers his critique:
In the eyes of those living in cities, country people are stupid (yu, )
When peasants, walking in the middle of a road, hear a car honking behind them,
they become so nervous that they simply do not know which way to jump.
Then the drivers of those cars slam on the brakes, stick their heads out of the
window, spit and curse, and call those peasants stupid! If that is stupidity,
then country people have been wronged That is a question of knowledge, not
of intelligence. In the same way, when city people visit the countryside, they do
not even know something as simple as how to chase the dogs away; but we
should not call them idiots just because they are frightened by barking dogs.
(p.45, my italics)
Apparently, literacy is acquired and practised not only inside the schoolroom.
But, the definition of literacy in the development context is seldom discussed by
researchers of educational development, except by linguists and anthropologists (in
particular Brian V. Street).
According to Street (1984), conceptualizing literacy in
terms of the number of words known or the number of years spent at school would
be appealing to an autonomous conception of literacy, which assumes literacy as a
universal, technical and neutral technology capable of being detached from specific
social contexts and often constructed for political purposes.
Since literacy skills
are acquired not only inside the school, literacy needs to be understood as a socially
constructed practice, rather than simply a technical and neutral skill, which is:
always embedded in socially constructed epistemological principles. It is

about knowledge: the ways in which people address reading and writing are
232
themselves rooted in conceptions of knowledge, identity, being.
Literacy, in
this sense, is always contested, both its meanings and its practices they are
always rooted in a particular worldview and a desire for that view of literacy to
dominate and to marginalise others.
(Street 2001: 7-8)
Many studies have examined literacy not merely in terms of certain technical skills,
but a socially constructed practice practised outside of school and an ideology
embedded in and specific to different contexts (see e.g. Street 1993; Street 2001;
Prinsloo and Baynham 2008).
Street (1984) in his study of literacy practices in a
village in Iran identified the maktab literacy, associated with the knowledge and
attitudes taught in a traditional Islamic school in a village, and the commercial
literacy, associated with the necessary commercial knowledge and attitudes as
practised by the village entrepreneurs in order to survive in the local fruit marketing
business.
Literacy as a practice in context has also been examined in relation to the
quantity of books kept in the household, the type of writing and reading tasks required
in the daily life (Stites 2001), institutional structures, social relationships, economic
conditions, historical processes and the ideological formations or discourses in which
literacy is embedded (Papen 2001), the teaching methodologies Islamic and Eritrean
teachers used which are found to be much more than just chanting (Wright 2001).
As I find out in the case study of Ah Xing Fa (see Chapter 7 in this study), the
meaning of literacy (wenhua or suzhi), for the villagers, is much more than mere
knowledge one acquires at school which can be merely measured by the number of
years spent at school.
Oftentimes, it is associated with practices in life which has
been referred by the locals as ones diligence and a variety of modern habits and
values, such as ones habits or values of making plans for the future, ones ability to
make money through agricultural production, the use of bricks, tiles and windows in
233
the construction of their house, certain values and habits towards hygiene-keeping in
the house and in the kitchen, or generally ones ability to guo rizi (live a good life).
The literacy practices are concerned not only with ones knowledge acquired at school,
but also with ones learning habits and perceptions towards the aim of schooling, the
future and success.
Specifically, I examine the parents perceived aim of education
(what is schooling for?), their habit of learning (how do they learn?) and what they
learn at home (what do they learn?).
I discovered that Ah Xing Fas illiterate
mother and Xiao Jies educated mother embrace very different types of literacy,
which I call respectively, life literacy and schoolroom literacy.
Another way of
understanding their literacy practices is to understand the mothers skills of making

money through agricultural production.
I find that the educated mother of Xiao Jie
has what can be described as a stronger aptitude for modernization than the illiterate
mother, for example, by being more sensitive and adaptable to market changes.
This
disposition may be a crucial attribute of the parents in helping their children prepare
for success at school.
10.2.2
The hidden rules of the game: a critique of the students
unwillingness to study and Education is Useless theories
In this study, children with illiterate parents (like Ah Xing Fa in Chapter 6) and
other socio-economic disadvantages such as poverty (like Xiao Yuan in Chapter 6),
rural status (like Ah Qiong in Chapter 9), etc. seem to be more likely to underachieve
or drop out of school.
Socio-economic disadvantages in school access tend to
reproduce across generations.
The intergenerational link is well documented in
studies done in many countries, as in Bolivia (Burchfield et al. 2002a), Nepal

(Burchfield et al. 2002b), Bangladesh (Cawthera 2003) and Ghana (Valerio 2003).
234
In China, similarly, the children of manual workers tend to end up in the vocational
track (e.g. Thogersen 1990) and the children of rural and less educated parents are less
likely to further their studies beyond junior secondary school and are more likely to
drop out before they complete their basic education (e.g. Kipnis 2001; Yang 2006b).
To explain why school failure tend to reproduce across generations, many
practitioners and researchers often cite reasons such as the students unwillingness to
study (yanxue, , see Chapter 8) and the parents Education is Useless belief
(jiaoyu wuyong lun, , see Chapter 7).
They generally recognize that the
problem of poverty is more complicated than a mere economic problem associated

with a lack of family income; instead, they locate the problem in the students (e.g. for
their lack of willingness to study, their poor school performance, poor attitudes
towards schooling) and the parents (e.g. for their lack of formal education (wenhua),
their stupidity or ignorance (yumei), their lack of awareness or short-sightedness of
the use of education, unwillingness to send children to school, lack of concern for
their childrens school performance, their mentality of waiting for (deng, ),
depending on (kao, ) and asking (yao, ) the government to help them, and
other backward beliefs associated with rural living) (e.g. Zeng 1998: 29; Zhang 1998:
53; Pang 2003; Liao 2006: 231-239; Zhang and Wu 2008).
Some also locate the
problem in the culture of the rural people by drawing upon anthropological accounts
by, for example Fei Xiaotong (1992 [1947]) on the characteristics of the rural society
in China and Oscar Lewis (1959, 1961, 1965, 1966) on the culture of poverty of the
urban poor in Mexico, New York, Puerto Rico and Cuba (Li and Zhao 2006; Xiao
2010).
Their suggestion for using education as a means of poverty reduction is to
implement awareness-raising campaigns and enrolling farmers into literacy programs

to change their backward beliefs, to educate them about the importance of schooling,
and to give them school knowledge.
235
Locating the source of inequality in the students unwillingness to study, his/her

parents or his/her culture, such as their so-called Education is Useless belief, is to
focus merely on a cultural account which some argue as problematic as it is deficit
thinking or what is known as blaming the victim (Valencia 1997).
Although the
anthropologists contribute a treasure of nuanced accounts about the social practices,

values, character traits and social system of the poor people, they are often
appropriated and misused by deficit thinkers in accounting for the reproduction of
socio-economic inequalities and perpetuation of the cycle of poverty.
As Foley
(1997) points out,

[Oscar] Lewis list of cultural trait of the poor evokes a powerful negative
image of poor people as a lazy, fatalistic, hedonistic, violent distrustful people
living in common law unions, as well as in dysfunctional, female-centered
authoritarian families who are chronically unemployed and rarely participate in
local civic activities, vote or trust the police and political leaders. For anyone
wanting to indict the poor, the culture of poverty theory is a powerful metaphor
that spawns a sweeping, holistic image. It provides public policymakers and
the general public with a relatively nontechnical, yet scientific way to
categorize and characterize all poor people.
(p. 115)
Interviews done in this study with the underachieving students also show that their
problem is more complex than a mere unwillingness to study and have to do at least
with their inability to perform (see Chapter 7).
The Education is Useless belief has
been challenged by interviews with Chinese parents who, regardless of their level of
education and occupation, are found to have high expectations of their children in
future study or university study (Cheng 1996).
The reason why the Chinese rural
parents have high expectations of their children can be due to the desire to escape the
stigma of being considered a peasant (Kipnis 2001), their Chinese cultural belief in
ones ability to overcome individual differences or innate endowments (Rao, Cheng
236
and Narain 2003; Rao, McHale and Pearson 2003).
It can also be due to shame, as it
is often reported in the news that the shame associated with poverty has pushed some
rural parents into commiting suicide as they felt ashamed of being financially
incapable of sending their child to university (Renmin News 2003 July 18; Xinhua
News 2004 August; Xinhua News 2005 September 21; Xinhua News 2006 July 15).
Instead of blaming the victim as in the cultural accounts, some take the Critical
approach by turning their attention to the structures of the school system, just like
Bowles and Gintis (1976) who argue that the school system reproduces unequal
economic relations in the capitalist workplace52.
In the Chinese context, studies of
the macro- structures of the school system as contributing factors of dropout or poor
school quality have examined the lack of resources in the rural schools, the
governments lack of expenditure on education, a lack of a pre-schools in rural areas,
and a lack of financial help for poor students in school access (Yang 2006b; Hua
2010).
The Chinese Hukou household registration system which distinguishes
residents in China into urban and rural and the decentralized management and
funding system of rural education in China are also identified as the structural causes
of inequalities (Shi 2008).
On the micro- level inside the school, researchers have
examined how the design of textbooks and examination questions contribute to the
exclusion of rural students---regarding the use of urban or foreign concepts (such
as high-rise buildings, the internet, zoo, microwave, a cup of milk, a piece of
bread), the use of a formal register of language, the requirement of students
creativity based on ones extensive reading and awareness of current affairs in the
society---because they are regarded as irrelevant to the rural students daily reality,
rural background and concerns (Yu 2004; Xiao 2006; Shang 2007) or the hidden
national curriculum of life in rural schools (Li 1999).
52
See Chapter 9.2.2 for details

237
Yu (2004) made a similar
argument based on the structural differences she found by comparing the school
timetables, teaching plans, and teachers qualifications in the rural and urban schools.
But, without looking at the perceptions and response of participants in the school
system, such a crude application of the Critical theory risks being deterministic, rigid,
over-simplistic in their theory of reproduction and overlooking the agency of
individuals.
Given that neither a cultural approach nor a simplistic application of the Critical
approach can well explain school failure, a more sophisticated account would amount
to examining both the structures of the school system (such as the set of attitudes
towards education, habits and knowledge embraced by the school) and the
participants perception and choices.
Such an account is exemplified, as I have
previously reviewed in Chapter 9.2.2, by Willis (1977)s study of resistance by the

working class children against the authorities at school and in the society and by
Bourdieu and Passeron (1990 [1977])s study of the cultural capital which is passed
on in school to legitimize and reproduce existing arbitrary power relations defined by
the dominant social class and can also serve as resources for individuals to acquire to
change their disadvantaged socio-economic position.
In the context of China, only a
few studies locate the causes of the problem in both the structures and the individuals.
Wang (2009), for example, looks at the schools role in reproducing social inequalities
with a focus on the rural teachers resistance.
In her ethnography of the teachers life
in a rural school, she found that the structural mechanisms in the school system such
as the teaching curriculum, teachers workload and the school management style do
not address and accommodate the needs and interests of the rural teachers, which only
call for their resistance in the form of indifference to their students well-being,
retreating to their shell of private interests associated with personal enjoyment and
even giving up their professional ethics to engage in activities such as gambling and
238
drinking during class time.

In my study of why school failure tends to reproduce itself (see Chapter 7 in this
study), I conduct a sophisticated account using the Critical approach.
I compare Ah
Xing Fas illiterate mothers practices of literacy and that of high achiever Xiao Jies
educated mother and found that the illiterate and educated parents play a different
game in sending their children to school.
Given their different access to resources
and different values, the game that educated parents tend to play aims to prepare
their children for success inside the school system, while illiterate parents tend to aim
towards preparing their children more directly for success in life without a formal
education.
It is true, of course, that the educated parents do not completely ignore
the preparation for their childrens future success because acquiring success inside the
school system will also lead to future success outside of the system; but it seems that
the type of success acquired outside the system matters only insofar as it is in line
with the meaning of success perceived inside the school system.
The fact that
illiterate and educated parents are playing different games in home-educating their
children for school can be seen in the character they have developed or the behaviour
they are socialized into.
As Han Shaogong (2008) points out, the rural children
who have only been educated up to junior secondary school or a low

educational level are energetic, jack-of-all-trades, down to earth, with strong
practical and social skills and good relations with others, while those who has
a college or university degree are generally skinny with pale faces, long hair, dull
and sullen eyes and who, indulged in their own strange manners, do not seem to care
to blend in with other people (p. 5) or what is commonly known as nerds who
perform very well at school but lack social skills and knowledge in the real world or
in Chinese gaofen dineng ().
Their chosen game of sending children to school is defined by a specific set of
239
hidden rules (qian guize, ) associated with certain purposes of schooling,

certain habits of learning, certain notion of success and future aspirations.
I call
these rules hidden because they are not part of the formal design of the game, but
parents are expected to follow them in home educating and preparing their children
for success in the game they choose to play.
For example, educated parents view the
purpose of schooling as for entering the university while illiterate parents see it as for
learning about life; educated parents teach their children to learn by conforming to the
school system while illiterate parents teach their children to learn by observation,
self-discovery and practice; educated parents tend to teach their children about
striving for success and fear of failure while illiterate parents tend to learn about
accepting failure.
The Chinese literature on parenting skills, for example, the
Havard Girl, Liu Yiting: A True Chronicle of Suzhi Cultivation (Liu and Zhang 2000)
offers a rich resource of the variety of hidden rules educated parents practice in
preparing for their childrens school success in China.
In the best-seller, Lius
educated and urban mother describes how she prepares her daughter from the womb
to her admission by full scholarship to the Ivy League university.
When she was
only 15 days old, Lius mother begins to stimulate her sensory organs: eyes, ears, nose,
tongue and skin.
Lius mother sets her to memorize Tang dynasty poems at
18-month-old, trains her concentration by studying in noisy environments and expects

her to write 250 characters a day in her diary during her primary years.
During the
vacations, her parents take her on trips to improve her knowledge of society.
All her
playtime is devoted to experience-building activities.

Similar to Bourdieu and Passeron (1990 [1977])s study of cultural capital, this
study of hidden rules which takes into account the parents values, perceptions and
choices, offers a more sophisticated account of school failure than locating the
problem merely in individuals or in the structures of the school system, such as a
240
lack of resources or government expenditure.
Because the hidden rules can be
taught and acquired in school, children from poor, rural background or other
socio-economically disadvantaged positions (like Xiao Jie) can acquire these rules to
rise to success; on the other hand, those like Ah Xing Fa who had no opportunities to
acquire these rules will tend to fail at school.
Therefore, the role of education can
serve to reduce socio-economic disadvantages for some, while at the same time
reproducing socio-economic disadvantages for others.
The study is also significant
for understanding why development initiatives such as poverty reduction through

education and the eradication of illiteracy are more complex than simply enrolling the
children of rural families in school.
10.3
School quality as a factor
Instead of blaming the so-called bad students in terms of their personal character and
their lack of willingness to study, I examine the structures of the school system in
terms of the implementation and evaluation of education quality (particularly with the
use of dropout rates and teacher qualifications as indicators of education quality) for
reasons why certain students are called bad and why these students are blamed as the
cause of school dropout.
10.3.1
When means become ends: the creation of bad students, teachers as
petty bureaucrats, Quality Education as another policy of control
The fact that certain students, such as Xiao Liang (Chapter 8), are called cha
sheng (bad students) shows that the school system is run using a functionalist
approach to education quality.
The problem with the functionalist approach to

241
implementing education quality is its preoccupation with instrumental questions

regarding the means of implementation (e.g. how can Quality Education be achieved?)
rather than questions regarding the ends of the educational reforms (e.g. why is
Quality Education important?
serve?).
for what or whom do the Quality Education reforms
The functionalist approach to implementing education quality often ignores
questions of power even to the exclusion of certain students and teachers.
For the
functionalist, quality is also implemented to the exclusion of bad students and the
alienation of teachers and school administrators from their job.
As my study of Xiao Liangs school shows, the school defines and discriminates
good and bad students by means of the code of student behaviour, the division of
classes, and seating arrangement; the school differentiates the treatment of good and
bad students by means of exercising performance appraisals for school principals
and for teachers; the school discriminates between core subject knowledge and
non-core subject knowledge by the design of the content of textbooks and
curriculum, the method of assessing subject knowledge, and the school timetable.
For the school principals, teachers and students, the school quality control indicators,
including the dropout rate, are often seen as the ends or means for achieving their
personal goals, for example job promotion and higher financial incentives, rather than
the means to achieving certain educational goals.
That is why school administrators
and teachers become petty bureaucrats whose focus is on achieving the ends.
For
the students who do not want to remain at school, the dropout rate (see Chapter 5.1.2),
in particular, is seen as a grey area in the school system that they can make use of,
usually by means of bribing their class teacher, to allow and legitimize their absence
from school without losing their place in the official school record.
Quality
indicators have lost their meaning in understanding the quality of a school, apart from
being personal tools to achieve personal interests.
242
The concept of quality as used in government policies such as Quality

Education, as Bakken (2000) points out in his analysis of modern China, is often an
object in government control:
Human quality gradually appears as an object of enquiry, intervention, and
surveillance of human behaviour. Peoples morality and their physical, mental,
and behvaioural qualities become important for the sake of state power and the
nation: objects for the techniques of social discipline and social engineering
linked to the alleged eradication of social decay and the promotion of economic
growth.
(p.1)
He notes how the focus on implementation (focused on questions of how? rather

than for what?) distorts the very purpose of education into a variety of elaborate
disciplinary techniques used in controlling human quality in the school system, such
as the use of complicated scales and indexes, penalty, merits and demerits in
evaluating students and teachers performance.
He draws upon Foucaults (1991
[1975]) concept of disciplinary power, which is regarded as a distinctively modern

form of power, practiced in the forms of norms and techniques, exercised at
nottheir central locations but at its extremities, in its ultimate destinations, with
those points where it becomes capillary, that is, in its more regional and local forms
and institutions (Foucault 1980: 96).
And the consequence of using disciplinary
techniques in the school system, as Bakken noted, is often the alienation of teachers
and students from teaching and learning so that teachers become petty bureaucrat:
The class teacher becomes a petty bureaucrat, and a master of ceremonies for
intricate scientific methods of evaluation. The administrative work of the
class teacher has become too minute and too rigid; mark-setting is too frequent
and too detailed. The system destroys the creativity of both teachers and
students. One main criticism is that, with too many rules and regulation in the
243
evaluation process, many class teachers cannot but adopt an administrative

approach towards education.
(ibid., p. 273)
Even the Chinese government and many Chinese researchers take a functionalist
approach to understand education quality in the implementation of the Quality
Education (suzhi jiaoyu) reform, which was officially made into a guiding policy
for all educational reforms across China in 1999 (The CPC Central Committee and
the State Council 1999).
Much of the government discourse and Chinese literature
on the implementation of Quality Education revolve around the purpose of nation

building.
In a genealogical analysis of the official discourses since the 1980s, Lin
(2010) shows that the campaign is predominantly serving the interest of the state in
nation building rather than the individuals interest in personal development:
[It] is not to train critical thinking so that citizens are able to use knowledge to
liberate the mind from bondage of habit and custom, as proponents of a classic
or western-style liberal education would emphasise. Instead, it presumes an
inadequate and incomplete human being and instills correct moral principle
and ideology, to train perfect beings so as to prevent the mind from being
contaminated by bad influences of a free market economy.
(p. 2)
Dello-Iacovo (2009) made a similar point, pointing out that the government has
identified the skills Chinas workforce needs to acquire which it sees as critical to
sustaining its modernization drive (p. 242).
Kipnis (2006), in a genealogical
analysis of the suzhi discourses, points out that the term suzhi has special connotation
in the Chinese context which means more than a description of quality but is related
to power and government control.
Suzhi in the ancient texts is often used to refer to
a persons natural endowment which cannot be changed, but since the late 1970s the
244
term suzhi has been used mainly to refer to human qualities53, such as moral qualities,
mental qualities and physical qualities, which can be cultivated and nurtured in ones
social environment, with sacred overtones in its improvement as the countrys mission.
Lin (2010: 7) points out that the concepts of the peoples suzhi, education and
global competition are for the first time linked together in an articulation for national
development in a speech made by Deng Xiaoping on May 19, 1985:
Our national strength and sustained economic development depend more and
more on the suzhi of the working people and on the quantity and quality of
intellectuals. If education is successful in a big country with a population of one
billion, our resources of rencai would be the strongest among all nations. Once
we have rencai, with the help of our advanced socialist system our goals will
surely be achieved.
(Deng 1985)
Kipnis (2006), in his genealogy of the suzhi discourse in post-Mao era, describes that
the discourse is tied in with a series of political, economic, social, cultural and
linguistic events including the implementation of the birth control policy, the return of
competition to the education system and job markets, and the centrality of nationalism
to the Partys self-legitimization (p. 312). Elaborate details are given about the
means of implementing Quality Education, such as reducing school hours and the
amount of homework, adding subjects in labour, art and music or organising all sorts
of extracurricular activities (see Kipnis 2001).
Other measures implemented include
putting the evaluation focus on the education processes rather than the outcome, a
curriculum reform by using new textbooks (Gu and Zhang 2010).
But they are
generally concerned with instrumental questions related to the means of policy

implementation, rather than on normative questions related to the meaning of quality
53
The quality of non-human entities or of human institutions like the education system is referred to as
zhiliang (
).
245
and purposes of implementation.

Much of the Chinese literature on Quality Education also assumes the purpose of
the reform as for nation building.
They ask questions such as: how to cultivate
rencai (high-quality people) for the country through education?
A diversity of
attempts have been made to explore the meaning of Quality Education in relation to
various, sometimes not well-defined, educational ideals, such as self-management
(zizhu), education democracy (jiaoyu minzhu) and people first (renmen) (Lin
2010: 15), happiness (yukuai) (Lu et al. 1994), individuality (gexing) (Zhang
1996), creativity (chuangzao xing) (Qi 1999) and even ideas borrowed from other
Western education theories such as the North American notion of competence
education (Kipnis 2006: 299), or simply the opposite of the notorious yingshi jiaoyu
(examination-oriented education) system 54 (e.g. Gu 1996).
However, the
discussion is often arbitrary because there is a general presumption, whether explicitly

stated or not, that Quality Education reforms are for nation building.
Any definition
of meanings without a discussion of purposes (questions of why should?) is only a

rhetorical means in enforcing implementation.
With the purpose of Quality
Education assumed as for nation building, the slogan of an all-round development in

the areas of ethics, intellect, physique, aesthetics and labour (de, zhi, ti, mei lao
quanmian fazhan), often used by the government as the essence of Quality Education
(The CPC Central Committee and the State Council 1999), becomes another reform
measure to implement certain one-size-fits-all educational standards for everybody
(Gu 1996; Zhang 1996).
That is perhaps why many of the Quality Education
measures proposed to reduce students burden actually increase the burden as students
are expected to excel in not only the core subjects but also the non-core subjects such
54
An exam-oriented education is associated with a focus on increasing the promotion rate, a focus on
the core subjects and skills that will be examined, a preference for high achievers and an exclusion of
low achievers, a teacher-centered methodology (Xia 1995)
246
as physical education, art, labor and technical skills and social practice, and to
participate in a variety of extra-curricular activities (Chen and Xu 2008).
The
problem generally found in the Chinese research on Quality Education is that the
Chinese researchers generally presume the purpose of the campaign is for nation
building.
10.3.2
Teacher qualifications as indicator: evaluating quality for what?
Teacher qualification is often used as an indicator by practitioners and

researchers as the major, if not only, reflection of the quality of teachers and teaching.
Other indicators of the quality of teachers and teaching that have also been used
include the teachers age, teacher-student ratio, teachers salary, job ranking55, number
of years of experience, the number of substitute teachers, female teachers and teachers
specialized in English and other non-core subjects, and even down to some specific
abilities such as speaking Putonghua without an accent or writing Chinese characters
correctly (Lewin and Wang 1994; Zhang 1998; Park and Hannum 2001; Liu 2002;
Pang 2003; Yu 2004; Ren, Lin and Gu 2005; Liao 2006; Shang 2007; Yuan et al.
2009).
In other countries, researchers use a similar list of indicators in
understanding the quality of teachers and teaching (Bennell and Mukyanuzi 2005;
Mpokosa and Ndaruhutse 2008).
Curiously, the development literature seldom
attempts to understand or discuss the various meanings of teacher and teaching quality
and is mostly focused on measurement in terms of the aforementioned indicators.
It
is only in the literature on teacher education (e.g. Zumwalt and Craig 2005; Goodwin
and Oyler 2008) where a good teacher has been discussed and defined, in one view
55
The quality rankings for primary and secondary school teachers in ascending order are: intern
(jianxiqi), third level (sanji) (only for primary school teachers), second level (erji), first level (yiji), and
superior level (gaoji).
247
and very generally, as someone who knows subject matter (what to teach) and
pedagogy (how to teach) (Cochran-Smith 2003: 96).
As I have found in the case study of Ah Qiong (see Chapter 8 in this study), the
teachers qualifications that school administrators refer to as an indicator of teachers
quality often gives inaccurate information about the teachers quality.
First, the
teachers qualification indicator that teachers and school administrators are

concerned with only refers to their most updated qualifications after in-service
training or self-study which is reportedly with many quality problems.
Second, the
quality of teachers with the same level of qualification can vary greatly at different
times especially before and after the expansion of tertiary education, and when it is
attained in a province-level teachers college compared to one attained at a
county-level teachers college.
Therefore, in rural China, especially in the primary
schools, teachers who are unqualified by the official standard can be high-quality
teachers of all trades or low-quality substitute teachers; and those who are qualified
by the official standard can be of low-quality.
From the perspective of students, a
good teacher can be associated with his/her motivation, skills in controlling

classroom discipline, pedagogical skills, and much more other than merely teachers
qualification.
In rural China, one of the clues to understand a teachers quality can
be the teachers entry qualifications combined with information such as where and
when he/she attains the qualifications.
The same problem exists with the use of
indicators (usually teachers salary) to understand teacher attrition and motivation,

which are also factors affecting the quality of teaching.
And, increasing the salary
and incentives are seen as the solution to teacher attrition and motivation.
But, it is
only by listening to the teachers perceptions towards work, their needs and the social
context of their education, that one would begin to understand the variety and
complexity of factors involved.
The factors involved include their perception of

248
urban life, their future aspirations for their children, the general culture of gambling
in the society, their feelings of injustice in the school management and in the society.
There is no one-size-fits-all indicator that can be used to understand the same problem
in different contexts.
Many practitioners and researchers in educational development have discussed
the choice and design of macro- or micro-level performance indicators or proxies,
which can be descriptive and normative in nature.
But most of the discussion is
made from the perspective of the policy planners and administrators, who are mostly
concerned with the prescriptive rather than the descriptive purpose of indicators.
For
example, in addressing the normative function of quality indicators, Lewin (2005;

2006; 2008a) simply calls them development goals, targets, standards and
performance criteria, which he points out should be useful tool in planning at the
national, regional and local levels that could be more widely understood and used to
guide action (2005: 151).
He argues that the development targets should be
generated with a consensus among key stakeholders and owned by implementers, set
and defined by those with experience in implementation, feasible to achieve over the
defined time periods, reflect historical realities and resource constraints, recognize
redistributive targets, linked to other targets and tested for consistency, understood by
key stakeholders and integrated with budget allocations.
In the design of indicators
for rural education in China, Yuan et al. (2009: 30) point out the need to consider the
interests of four types of stakeholders, namely the Central Government and the
Ministry of Education, the school, the local government and local education bureaux
and departments, students parents or guardians with the students interests missing.
Others call for shifting the focus from educational access (as measured by e.g.
enrolment rates, the number of years students spent at school) to educational
outcomes (as measured by e.g. completion rates, retention rates, promotion rates, test
249
scores) (World Bank 2006).
But, the choice and design of particular indicators are
seldom motivated with a purpose related to educational development.

Critics are increasingly aware of the arbitrariness of performance indicators
which are chosen and designed with a preoccupation with prescription over
description.
As Motala (2001) points out, the search for indicators which is often
associated with a binary distinction between effective and ineffective schools

ignores a more nuanced understanding of the overall purpose of schools and of the
values they are promoting (p. 74, my italics).
Alexander (2008) goes further to
argue that the prescribed standards of quality are arbitrary because they are prescribed
without an adequate consideration of what quality is and without understanding the
complex and often unpredictable dynamics of the pedagogic process.
To design
indicators that are driven by the purpose of educational development, Alexander

(2008) suggests asking the question: Who, at each level of the system, needs to know
what in order that quality can be assured? (p.16) Cheng (1997) also argues against
an over-reliance on statistical indicators as the sole basis of understanding educational
development which will be meaningful to the local socio-economic, cultural contexts.
To understand a teachers workload which will be meaningful to the local context in
China, for example, Cheng points out that statistical indicators (e.g. student/teacher
ratios and the number of teaching periods) need to be combined with a variety of
qualitative insights about the local context (e.g. the teachers expected duties, the role
of the teachers and the concept of classroom teaching).
Apart from the arbitrariness in the choice and design of indicators, it is equally
problematic that the students are not counted as being stakeholders of the education
system and their interests, concerns and well-being are often unaddressed in the
design and choice of indicators.
To what extent are the indicators of education
quality (e.g. the indicator of teachers qualification to understand teachers quality)

250
meaningful to the locals and the students?
How can these indicators be used to
understand teachers quality which will be meaningful to the locals and their local
context?
To avoid arbitrariness and make indicators meaningful to the locals, they
have to be combined with local, qualitative contextual information.
10.4
Distribution of resources as a factor
This section reviews the various approaches used by the government and researchers
in the management and understanding of education quality and equity.
Particular
attention is given to the use of indicators in the management and understanding of

rural teachers quality and supply in China.
10.4.1
The one-teacher schoolroom and one-student classroom phenomena:
the consequences of utilitarian approaches to equity
In the early stage of development after the Reform and Opening in the 80s and
90s in China, the government discourse is full of utilitarian slogans such as xiaolv
youxian, jiangu gongping (), which give priority to efficiency
with due consideration to justice or sometimes arguably even at the expense of justice.
The School Merger policy, which is introduced in 2001, is one of the utilitarian
approaches to equity which focuses on efficiency, or optimization (youhua, ) in
the official jargon, in the allocation and management of resources so that more
students can gain access to more resources with a lower cost in management.
It
involves closing down small primary schools in the villages, redistributing

educational resources (such as students, teachers, teaching and learning facilities)
from the remote, less accessible, rural areas, and merging them with larger Centre
251
Schools (zhongxin xiao, ) in more easily accessible, urban areas.
As a
utilitarian policy, it justifies itself by maximizing happiness, or broadly conceived as

the number of rural students in their access to schools with more and better resources,
especially better teachers and facilities.
Proponents of the policy suggest measures
such as the provision of school buses and boarding schools to address the issue of
walking long distance for students in remote places (Fan 2009), or the allocation of
remote children to study elsewhere at a young age to address their problem of
adjusting to a new study environment (Liu et al. 2010).
However, the meaning of happiness differs from person to person, from rural
students to urban students and the utilitarian policy ignores what the resources mean
to the local students, especially the least advantaged due to their socio-economic,
geographical and historical contexts.
As shown in the case of Ah Qiong (Chapter 8),
students like her living in the remote, mountainous or geographically disadvantaged

places did not benefit from this policy and were even doubly worse off as resources in
remote schools are allocated elsewhere and become even more under-resourced as
characterized by the one-teacher schoolrooms and one-student classrooms.
While access to modern school resources is valued amongst rural parents, their
primary concern of sending their children to school is their childrens safety, which is
especially important for young children from the lower levels (P.1 and P.2) who have
to walk two to four hours, sometimes in dangerous mountain trails, to the Centre
Schools.
There is also the concern for the young children to live in the boarding
school during the school week, being away from their parents and having to take care
of themselves at such a young age.
The redistribution policy also triggered a school
transfer fever amongst those who were financially capable of transferring their
children to better-resourced schools in the town or county town.
The resistance from
parents in the remote villages can be exemplified by an increase, instead of a decrease,

252
of under-resourced rural teaching sites from 26.5% (in year 2001) to 30.6% (in year
2008) in the school system.
Those who are financially not capable are left behind in the rural areas.
As
pointed out in Chapter 9, in Township Y1, 27.8% (398 of 1432) of the student
population still study in the teaching sites and 38.5% still study in multi-grade
classrooms.
In County X, there are still 225 teaching sites (of which 179 are
one-teacher schoolrooms, the others two-teacher schoolroom), together with 14

incomplete primary schools and 78 complete primary schools.
In 2008, according to
the Ministry of Education statistics, 1,163,388 (6.86% of all entrants in China)

students continued to enter multi-grade classrooms and teaching sites while 4,311,746
(4.17% of all enrolled in China) remained enrolled in them.
Taking a utilitarian approach to the distribution of school resources, the local
government officials actually have little understanding of the problems in the village
schools as they do not have direct contact with the village schools, let alone pay
school visits.
Under the School Merger Policy, the Centre Schools in the
townships/towns56 become the only and lowest administrative unit in the rural school
system directly managed by the local County Education Bureau.
All the complete
schools (wanquan xiaoxue, ) in the administrative villages and the teaching

sites57 (jiaoxue dian, ) in the natural villages are managed by the Centre
School principal, who has limited power other than coordinating the delivery of
school resources, transaction of school budget and the management of ordinary
teaching and learning.
Another problem with the utilitarian policy to school resources is that
happiness, as a subjective psychological status, should not be the basis for
56
In remote mountainous regions, such as Township Y1, Centralized Schools are also established in
the major administrative villages.
57
Teaching sites are the same as incomplete schools (buwanquan xiaoxue,
).
253
educational development.
As Ah Qiong points out, her time at the rural primary
school was one of the happiest because the teachers there were very loose about
students discipline during the lessons.
10.4.2
A balanced development:
narrow conceptualizations of equity
In China, the 11th Year Plan (2006-2010), officially announced in 2005, is one of
the major drivers in pushing for the adoption of a new approach to equity by the
Chinese government as well as by mainland Chinese researchers in their analyses of
equity.
The Plan is marked for no longer adopting the utilitarian principle of xiaolv
youxian, jiangu gongping (), or giving priority to efficiency

with due consideration to justice (Beijing Daily 2005 Nov 14).
The government
discourses on the distribution of resources began to focus on the slogan of junheng

fazhan (, balanced development), achieving the same qipao xian (,
starting line), or simply gongping (, equity), all of which amounts to what is
essentially a resource-based approach to equity where ones holding of resources is
seen as a major measure for equity.
In the Chinese literature, the resource-based
approach to equity is often seen as an improvement to the utilitarian approach to

development embraced in the early stage of the countrys development (e.g. Hao 2007;
Wu 2010; Hua 2010).
Calling for a balanced development or achieving the same starting point, the
Chinese government and researchers are increasingly understanding equity in
development by comparing the quantity of resources distributed between different
socio-economic groups, for example between the rural and the urban or between
ethnicities and gender, in terms of e.g. the availability of learning equipment like
computers or a multi-media classroom and teachers with a certain level of
254
qualification, across-the-board in rural and urban areas.
And the quality of rural
education is often examined against a checklist of an array of resources, usually in

terms of the school infrastructure (e.g. the size, structure, safety of building),
availability of school facilities (e.g. enough desks, chairs, library, laboratory, a proper
sports ground, computer room, physics laboratory, science laboratory, student
dormitory, teaching and learning facilities for music and arts lessons), teaching and
learning materials (e.g. supplementary learning materials, leisure books, television,
internet, telephone), availability of extra-curricular lessons (such as basketball,
Chinese calligraphy, Chinese musical instruments) (Ren et al. 2005: 115-122; Shang
2007; Fan 2009: 134-149).
The resource-based approach is also popular amongst
international development agencies and researchers (see Lee 2002; Yang Dong-ping
2006; Li 2008; Shi 2008; UNESCO 2008), with some using complicated
mathematical calculations such as the education Gini coefficient (Thomas and Yan
2008) and the education Theil index (Thomas, Wang and Fan 2008) in comparing
their access to certain quantity of resources or opportunities.
The resource-based
approach is also adopted by many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) active in

Chinas rural educational development such as the Hong Kong-based NGO Sowers
Action ()58 and Living Knowledge Communities (LiKeCom) (
), which focus on allocating resources such as building school infrastructure, living
subsidies, school bags, clothing, computers, library books and setting up the internet
and satellite for long-distance learning in the rural areas59.
Although the supply of resources is a necessary factor for education quality, it
58
According to the 2009/2010 annual report of Sowers Action, its HK$56.8 million expenditure for
education development is comprised of about 86% (or HK$48,717,090.63) on the construction of
school buildings and facilities in Southwest and Northwest China, about 12% (or HK$6,582,763.36) on
subsidies for students living cost and senior secondary school tuition, and about 3% (or HK$1,478,240)
on teacher training (Sowers Action 2010: 19).
59
Other NGOs, such as the Beijing-based Western Sunshine Rural Development (WESAC) (
), are also involved in supplying volunteer teachers and the training of teachers and school
principals.
255
alone is not sufficient.
The problem with such an approach in distribution is its
focus on resources as embodiment of advantage, without understanding what the

resources mean to the individuals, whether they can respond to the recipients needs in
their local context, whether the resources can be used at all.
As I have found in the
case study of Ah Qiong (Chapter 9 in this study), there is a blind call for the rural
schools to acquire the same type and quantity of resources as the urban schools, and in
cases where resources are supplied many of them are not meaningful to the local
context.
I have found school buildings abandoned after they were built with donors
money because they do not respond to the local context of reduction in rural student
population; the computers, television sets, DVD players given to each village school
are seldom or even never used in teaching and learning because the teachers are not
provided with the technical support of how to use them and the skills or habit of
integrating technology into teaching and learning.
The teachers problem with work
motivation is reduced to merely a low level of salary and the lack of provision of
resources and incentives, overlooking what the resources and incentives mean to the
teachers who may be dissatisfied with the unfair distribution of resources rather than
the lack thereof, and whose desires may not be satisfied by the resources distributed.
In allocating teaching resources, the percentage of teachers having reached the
government-required qualifications are seen as the sole indicator of the problem with
the teachers quality; the low salary is seen as the sole obstacle in attracting teachers
into rural areas; In-service training, continuing education and lessons on ideology are
believed to raise the teachers quality and their ethical standards; and raising the
teachers salary is believed to be the necessary solution to the problem of the supply
of rural teachers.
With a focus on the access to resources, the resource-based approach only adopts
the notion of equality which is a narrow conception of equity.
256
According to Jacob
and Holsinger (2008), the notion of equality, referred to as the state of being equal in
terms of quantity, rank, status, value, or degree, differs from the notion of equity,
which considers the social justice ramifications of education in relation to the
fairness, justness, and impartiality of its distribution at all levels of educational
subsectors (p. 4, my italics).
Although the notion of equity is increasingly incorporated in the discussion of
education quality, much of the literature focuses merely on the notion of equality
(sameness in quantity) rather than equity (justice).
For example, research studies
regarding the quality-equity trade-off exemplified such a narrow application of the

concept of equity (e.g. OECD 2005; Ross 2007).
In comparing 14 African school
systems, the UNESCOs International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) looks
at whether education quality, as measured by the students test scores, is inversely
related to social equity, as measured by the students socio-economic backgrounds
(Ross 2007).
The study concludes:
When resources are scarce, can greater improvements in the performance of a

population of students be made by focusing these resources on a limited section
of the population? Or would it be better to spread these resources thinly across
the whole student population? These two questions suggest that there might be
an inherent trade-off situation that operates in education systems between the
average level of student learning outcomes and their equitable distribution. That
is, a country can either have quality or equity in education but not both.
(p.9)
257
Chapter 11
Conclusion
11.1
The alienating school:
The nature of schooling in contemporary China
Based on the analyses of the four commonly used explanations for school
dropout (Chapter 6-9), this study has unearthed the complex reality behind the
insignificantly low official dropout rate and the frequenatly rather too simple
explanations about school access and education quality prevailing in the literature.
The study also reveals that Chinese rural parents and students aspiration for formal
education goes beyond cost-benefit calculations and that formal schooling has been
largely taken for granted as a matter of culture, unlike the common assumptions
frequently made about school attendance in China.
But, on a more significant level, the study reveals a development discourse that
has governed education policies and rather overwhelmed the literature since the 1970s
when education became a national concern in modern China60.
The discourse is informed by human capital theorists who focus on schooling as
an investment decision involving a balance of cost and benefit in monetary terms.
It
is largely incapable of responding to the needs of students living in poverty, a

multi-dimensional concept which is often more complex than the monetary
dimensions, such as a loss of future security, the associated low self-esteem, etc..
It
is also largely incapable of explaining the poors decision of school dropout which
often depends on their social connections, a major non-monetary asset of the poor.
60
I am indebted to Professor Cheng Kai-ming for highlighting this point about my study.
258
Being utilitarian in assuming the childs schooling as for family welfare, the human
capital theorists also do not really distinguish between the parents and the child in
their enrolment decision and effectively ignores the child as an individual who has
his/her own purposes, concerns and perceptions different from the parents.
The problem of education quality is also often simplified into a rather simple
application of Critical theory, by only focusing on the structural causes in the school
system.
Illiterate parents, in particular, are blamed for their lack of school
knowledge, their so-called Education is Useless belief and other backward beliefs,
amounting to a form of deficit thinking or blaming the victim.
An adequate
explanation would amount to a more sophisticated usage of Critical theory to

understand that illiterate parents, as opposed to their educated counterparts, choose to
play a different game with different hidden rules in sending their children to
school.
The discourse is also informed by the systems approach which focuses on the
means of implementation and evaluation of education quality (particularly with the
use of teacher qualifications as an indicator of teacher quality) and often confuses the
means with the ends of education.
In this way, Quality Education measures become
another policy of control where certain students are defined as bad and many
teachers who see themselves more as petty bureaucrats focused on achieving
administration targets rather than educators in teaching and learning.
The discourse also largely disregards the individuals socio-economic status.
With a focus on maximizing the number of students in the access to resources, the
utilitarian reallocates resources from the rural to the urban areas, without addressing
to any significant extent the concerns of the geographically disadvantaged and
effectively leaving them with fewer resources as exemplified by the phenomena of the
one-teacher schoolrooms and one-student classrooms.
259
Similarly, the resource-based
approach, with a focus on resources as the embodiment of advantage, distributes the

same to all without much regard of what the resources do to the disadvantaged with
different needs.
Moreover, the revelation about the discourse on educational development also
reveals the alienating nature of the educational system in contemporary China, a
society in rapid transition from a rural-based economy to an increasingly
market-oriented economy.
The alienating school tends not to respect the students
individual interests, habits, socio-economic background, aspirations, etc. and is more

concerned with their success and failure (or dropout) insofar as they affect the
evaluation of quality or the effectiveness of the bureaucratic system.
Students who
are marginalized and cannot easily adjust, perhaps due to their disadvantaged
socio-economic, cultural and geographic location, therefore tend to be pushed out of
school.
As I have argued elsewhere (Chung and Mason 2012), there are significant
disjunctions in values: between those of the school system and those of the rural
parents with regard to the aims and purposes of education; between those of the
curriculum and those of teachers with regard to their role in the classroom vis--vis
knowledge as represented in textbooks; between those of government education
policy and the concerns of the remote rural poor with regard to resource distribution;
and between those of a newly market-oriented society and educational ideals about
teachers and students abilities.
11.2
Suggestions for future studies
The findings in this study can branch onto the study of other topics.
One of the
possibilities for future studies is to the impact of pujiu on the Chinese society and
culture in pushing towards modernization.
260
Another possibility for future studies is to advocate a solution for the problem of
school dropout in the alienating school.
The capability approach may be a possible
solution which, unlike the utilitarian who tends to focus on the satisfaction of desires
and the Rawlsian who tends to focus on the ownership of an index of goods, is
sensitive to the strength of desires without ignoring other influences on the indexing
and what one can do using the goods (Sen 1984: 319).
It may require paying respect
to the child, just as some child-centred educators advocate seeing the child as a
whole person and childhood a time in itself instead of seeing childhood as a time
of preparation for adulthood (Doddington and Hilton 2007: 55).
But the solution is
not simply equivalent to a child-centred pedagogical approach or a mere change of the

attitudes of the teachers or the school in the education process.
It would also require
a fundamental change in the attitude of education policy makers and development

workers, such as prioritizing the student as a major stakeholder in educational
development by accommodating and responding to their individual interests,
socio-economic status, expectations, habits and duties specific to their local
geographical and socio-cultural environment.
And the evaluation of education
quality would require a combination of theoretical insights and empirical insights

using the ethnographic method to capture in-depth, intricate details of the local
perspectives and be more nuanced in understanding local problems and concerns.
Such an approach would take into consideration both contextual needs and the notion
of justice in the distribution of educational goods and opportunities.
One of the
major methodological commitments, as Mason points out, is to identify the axes

along which educational goods are differentially distributed such as gender, social
class, ethnicity, disability, age, rural location, etc. (Mason 2007: 182; Mason 2008:
xxv).
The problem of alienating school does not lend itself to easy solutions.
261
One of
the solutions may be a fundamental change of attitude in educational development and

educational policy making.
The meaning of school failure or school dropout, for
example, should be seen in a new light as a consequence not so much of the childs
unwillingness to study, but of his inability to perform well in relation to their
disadvantaged socio-economic, cultural and geographic location.
As a school
dropout explained his decision to drop out:

[
Photo 11.1 Dropout Xiao Liang wrote the reason why he didnt want to continue
his studies
Text in photo, in English:
262
Postscript
In December, 2011,
Poor dropout Xiao Yuan, 18, had quit her job in Dali City and was settled back home
with her grandmother in the village. It was arranged for her to marry a man who will
be married into her family and live with her grandmother.
The son of an illiterate mother Ah Xing Fa, 18, was still living at home in his
village, with no proper job except working as a temporary helper in construction
works around his village earning 20 yuan/day. He had been unemployed at home
since age 11. He regretted leaving school, but he also said he had hated school so
much that he had once said: I swear I wont write again.
Bad student Xiao Liang, 18, was thinking of buying a two-bedroom apartment
(60-70 square meter, worth 200,000-250,000 yuan) in his home town. After leaving
school, with the connection of a relative, he found a job at a small mechanics factory
in Taizhou, Zhejiang. At first, he was an unskilled labour and his salary was 700
(food and accommodation not included, which takes at least 600 yuan). His salary
slowly raised to 1000, 1500 and 2000; and after 1.5 years, he became a skilled worker,
earning 3500. The more he does the more he can earn and the most he can earn was
4600. For over the past 2 years of work, he has been saving about 90% of his 3,000
yuan monthly salary. Since he started working at age 16, he had saved about 50,000
yuan. His key to success was that, unlike his peers, he never changed his job.
You cant make money if you keep changing jobs, he said. Even though working
at the factory was more tiring than being a student at school, he said he did not regret
leaving school.
Ah Qiong from a small remote village, 18, was planning to quit working in the
factory and venture to become an entrepreneur in opening her own business. She
wanted to be financially independent first before thinking about marriage, not before
her late 20s.
263
Appendix I: List of School dropouts/Child workers interviewed

Appear in
Chapter
Name of
school
dropout
Gender,
location
Ah Yun
Male, B1
4, 5
Ah Ming
Male, B1
Ah Xiang
Female,
C1
Level of
education, year
at the time of
dropping out
Secondary 3
second semester,
2009
Age, year, nature of

work at the time of first
employment
Brief reason for leaving

school and entering
work
Other informants
in the case
15 years old,
Over summer holiday
2008,
Working at a factory in
Heyuan city
He became unwilling to
study
--
Secondary 3
second semester,
16 years old,
2009,
He became unwilling to
study
--
2009
Bell boy at a hotel in

Guangzhou
Primary 5,
~1987
15 years old,
1993,
factory work in
She felt humiliated by a

teacher who scolded at
her in front of the class
for having no money to
pay tuition fees;
Entered work to help
family finance
The only breadwinner at
home died;
Entered work to help
family income
---
Guangzhou
5
Xiao Yuan
Female,
Secondary 3
16 years old,
Z3
second semester,
May 2009
May 2009,
Working in the restaurant
in Dali city
264
Her grandmother,
her primary school
teachers
Ah Ye
Male, C1
Primary 6
second semester,
1993
14 years old,
1993,
followed an uncle to work
Ah Xing Fa
Male,
Z1
Primary 5
second semester,
April 2006
13/4 years old,

2007/8,
two months helping out at
a garage in County X,
temporary jobs in Village
Felt guilty for using

parents tight budget to
support himself to go to
school;
Entered work to make a
living
His familys house was
burnt and he was laughed
at by his classmates, and
he could not do well at
school;
Entered work because he
was bored in the village
---
He owed his classmate

money which he could
not return, he could not
do well at school;
Entered work because he
wanted to leave home
and make some money
His mother, his

buddies, his village
neighbour, his
primary school
principal, his
secondary school
class teacher
His mother, his

former classmate,
his former teacher,
his former school
principal or
neighbour
Z1
7
Xiao Liang
Ah Qiong
Male,
Z2
Female,
C1
Secondary 3 first
semester,
15 years old,
Sept 2009,
On and off
between Sept
Dec 2009
two weeks helping out

with construction work in
Dali city
Secondary 1
(hidden
17 years old
2007
dropout),
2005
Factory work in Shenzhen
265
She became unwilling to --study
Appendix II
List of the 112 informants
(interviewed between June 2009 January 2011)
Pseudonym
Identit(ies)
Guangdong (55 informants)
1. Yu
Education bureau deputy chief
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Huang
Chi
Xiang
Xiu
Juan
Han
Bi
Xu
Shuang
Guo
Qiang
Luo
Zhou
Fu
16. Lin
Bureau Chief
Principal (secondary school)
School administrator (secondary)
Teacher (secondary)
Teacher (secondary)
Farmer
Teacher (secondary)
Minban teacher (primary, retired)
English teacher (secondary)
Class teacher (secondary)
Class teacher (secondary)
English teacher (secondary)
Teacher (secondary)
School administrator (secondary,
retired)
Principal (primary)
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
Teacher (primary)
Principal (primary)
Principal (primary)
Principal (primary)
Teacher (primary), villager
Teacher (primary)
Teacher (secondary, former)
Hui
Guang
Qing
Chao
Zeng
Hong
Zhuo
24. Ah Fu
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
Ah Qiong
Ah Mui
Ling
Yu
Ah Cai
30. Ah Bao
31. Ye
32. Nai
33. Cheng
34. Ah Wei
Dropout (S2), Child worker (male,

15)
Ah Weis Sister, Silent Dropout (S1)
Ah Weis Sister, Silent Dropout (S1)
Ah Weis Mother, Farmer
Ah Weis Father, Carpenter
Dropout (S2), Child worker (male,
15)
Dropout (S3), Underage worker
(male, 16?)
Ah Cais Grandfather, Farmer
Ah Cais Grandmother, Farmer
Ah Cais Father, Dropout (P5), Child
worker (13)
Child worker (15), dropout (S1)
266
Location interviewed
County seat A, June,
2009; Feb 2010
County seat A
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town seat B1, Village C3
Town seat B1, Village
C1, Village C2
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town seat B2
Village C1
Village C1
Village C2
County seat A, Village
C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
35. Ah Dong
36. Lan
Dropout (17)
Mother of dropouts Ah Wei and Ah
Dong
37. Wang
Father of dropouts Ah Wei and Ah
Dong
38. Ye
Grandfather of dropouts Ah Wei and
Ah Dong, Farmer
39. Ah Xiang
Child worker (15), dropout
40. Ah Xu
Dropout (P6)
41. Ah Nian
Dropout (P2)
42. Ah Ye
Child worker (14), Dropout (P6)
43. Ah Ji
Silent dropout, Friend/classmate of
Ah Fu
44. Ah Gen
Silent dropout, Friend/classmate of
Ah Fu
45. Ah Wu
Silent Dropout, Friend/classmate of
Ah Fu
46. Ah Tian
Silent Dropout, Friend/classmate of
Ah Fu
47. Ah Long
Silent Dropout
48. Mi
Good student, classmate of Ah Fu
49. Chan
Classmate of Ah Fu
50. Ah Mei
Silent Dropout
51. Ah Yun
Dropout (S3), Child worker (15)
during summer holidays
52. Ah Ming
Dropout (S3)
53. Keng
Father of a S3 dropout
54. Liang
Shop owner, employer of a child
worker
55. Ah Tong
Dropout (P5)
Yunnan (57 informants)
56. Xiong
Former Education Bureau Official
57. Rui
Wife of former Education Bureau
Official Xiong
58. Xu
Principal (secondary)
59. Zhi
60. Li
English Teacher (secondary)
61. Gao
Vice-principal (primary)
62. Zi
English Teacher (primary)
63. Long
Principal(primary)
64. Cha
Teacher(primary)
65. Ren
Principal(primary)
66. Hui
Teacher(primary)
67. Zi
Principal(vocational)
68. Deng
Principal(vocational)
69. Shi
Principal(Senior Secondary)
70. Duan
Principal (vocational), Education
Bureau Official
71. Cai
Labour Bureau Official
72. Yang
Labour Bureau Official
267
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Village C1
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town seat B1
Town B1
Town B1
Town B1
Town B1
Town seat B
Town seat B1
Village C3
County X
County X
County X
County X
County X
County X
County X
Township Y2
Township Y2
Village Z5
Village Z5
County X
County X
County X
County X
County X
County X
73.
74.
75.
76.
77.
78.
79.
80.
81.
82.
83.
84.
85.
86.
87.
Zhu
Zi
Zheng
Cha
Zhou
Luo
Liu
Peng
Zhu
Zi
Zhang
Li
Yang
Cha
Zhang
88.
89.
90.
91.
92.
Zhang
Ling
Biao
Luo
Chen
93. Xiao Yuan

94. Cha
95. Chen
96. Xiao Hui
97. Hui
98. Hui
99. Xiao Liang
100. Liang
101. Zhao
102. Ah Xing Fa
103. Zhang
104. Zhang
105. Xiao Jie
106. Jie
107. Jie
108. Jie
109. He
110. Zi
111. Cha
112. Chen
Education administrator
Official (retired)
Administrator (secondary)
Teacher (secondary)
Class Teacher of dropout Xiao Liang
English Teacher of Xiao Liang
English Teacher (secondary)
Principal (primary)
Teacher (primary)
Teacher (primary)
Teacher (primary)
Principal (primary), neighbour of
dropout Ah Xing Fa
Neighbour of dropout Xiao Liang
Substitute teacher (primary)
Substitute teacher (primary)
Teacher (primary)
Village official responsible for the
collection of tobacco leaves
Grandmother of dropout Xiao Yuan
Village Z3 Government Official
Principal (primary)
Dropout (S1) and child worker
Brother of dropout Hui
Grandmother of dropout Hui
Dropout (S3) and child worker
Mother of dropout Xiao Liang
Buddy of dropout Xiao Liang
Dropout (P5) and child worker
Mother of dropout Ah Xing Fa
Uncle of dropout Ah Xing Fa
Good student, former classmate of
dropout Ah Xing Fa
Mother of good student Xiao Jie
Father of good student Xiao Jie
Grandmother of good student Xiao
Jie
Farmer and neighbour of dropout Ah
Xing Fa
Class teacher of dropout Ah Xing Fa
Daughter of teacher Cha
Village Z1 committee chief
268
Township Y1
Township Y1
Township Y1
Township Y1
Township Y1
Township Y1
Township Y1
Township Y1
Township Y1
Township Y1
Township Y1
Township Y1
Township Y1
Village Z2
Village Z1
Village Z2
Village Z1
Village Z1
Village Z1
Village Z1
Village Z3
Village Z3
Village Z3
Village Z4
Village Z4
Village Z4
Village Z2
Village Z2
Village Z2
Village Z1
Village Z1
Village Z1
Village Z1
Village Z1
Village Z1
Village Z1
Village Z1
Village Z1
Village Z2
Village Z1
Appendix III
Interview Guideline
Date ________________
Time _______________
Location ____________
Interview atmosphere ____________
1) The informants personal details
-
Name:
Age:
Gender:
Occupation:
Relationship with the school dropout/child worker:
2)
Family background of the school dropout/child worker
The childs name/nickname:
Household location:
People living with the child:
Occupation of parents/person-in-charge:
Educational level of parents/person-in-charge:
Annual income per capita:
3) Reasons of dropping out/entering work

-
When and why did the child drop out? Whose decision was it?
When and why did the child enter work? Whose decision was it?
4) About the childs education

-
Has the child experienced any problem at school, regarding the:

1. ability to pay school fees
2. textbook content
3. type and number of classes, school timetable
4.
5.
6.
teachers quality
teaching and learning facilities
homework
7.
8.
tests/examination
relationship with teachers or classmates
Did the child want to go to school?

269
Did the child like school? Example please.

What about the school did the child like the most, and the least?
What did the child think about going to school (e.g. easy, interesting, useful)?
Example please.
Has the child learnt anything at school?
Is schooling useful for the child now and/or for the future?
What does the child want to do in the future?
5) About the childs work

-
What kind of work is the child involved in? What are the working hours, salary
and working conditions?
Has the child faced any problems in:
1. finding work
2. getting paid
3. being cheated
4.
5.
6.
7.
work environment
living conditions
being away from home and family
adapting to a new living environment
8. getting caught by the police

9. relationship with others at work
-
6)
-
Does the child like his/her work? Example please.

What do you think about your childs work (difficult, boring, useless, etc.)?
Example please.
Has the child learnt anything at work?
the future?
Is it useful for the child now and/or for
Has the child changed after entering work? How?

What do you expect yourself/the child get from work?
Perceptions towards child labour or child labourer
Do you regard yourself/your child a child labourer?
Who counts as a child labourer: doing domestic chores, helping parents in the
fields, working in a restaurant/small shops, selling flowers on the street, factories,
working in the countryside, working in a city, etc.?
Whats the difference between helping parents out in a shop and working in a
factory? Whats the difference between working in the countryside or in a city?
What kind of work does not count as child labour? Should it be allowed in the
country?
270
Interview Guideline (Chinese)
_______________
_______________
_______________
___________
)
-
-
- /
- /
-
-
/
/
) /
/
-
-
)
-
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
-
271
)
-
-
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
-
-
272
Appendix IV
Observation Guideline
Observation date/location:
The informants awareness of my presence:
When observing informants:
Personality: speaking habits, special bodily gestures
Education level: ability to speak standard Chinese
Social/economic/cultural background: home environment, the clothes they wear
Values and beliefs to work and education
Likes/dislikes
When observing the school:

School: school infrastructure, school mottos, school meetings, speeches made by
school officials, classroom settings, implementation of government policies
Management: school rules, school time table
Curriculum: number and type of classes, staff room, textbooks, learning materials,
students extra-curricular activities
Teachers: teachers qualification, number of teachers
Students: students background
When observing the township:

economic: number and type of businesses;
social: street atmosphere, neighbours;
cultural: signs/advertisement on the wall, entertainment activities
political:
slogans on walls
273
Adams, Don. (1993). Defining Educational Quality.
Improving Educational Quality
Project Publication No. 1: Biennial Report.

International Research.
Arlington, VA: Institute for
Ako, Tomoko. (2003). Strategic ambiguity of Chinese public space and private space:
ethnographic study of three Shanghai's middle schools under the socialist market
economy. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Akyeampong, Kwame. (2009). Revisiting Free Compulsory Universal Basic
Education (FCUBE) in Ghana. Comparative Education, 45(2), 175-195.
Alexander, Robin. (2008). Education For All: the Quality Imperative and the Problem
of Pedagogy. In CREATE Pathways to Access Research Monograph, No. 20. London:
Institute of Education.
Aloni, Nimrod. (2002). Enhancing Humanity: The philosophical foundations of
humanistic education. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer.
Ananga, Eric (2011). Dropping out of School in Southern Ghana: The Push-out and
Pull-out Factors. In CREATE Pathways to Access Research Monograph No. 55.
Aronowitz, Stanley, & Giroux, Henry A. (1991). Postmodern Education: Politics,
Culture, and Social Criticism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Atkinson, Anthony B. (1983). Social Justice and Public Policy.
Brighton:
Wheatsheaf.
Atkinson, Paul. (1992). Understanding Ethnographic Texts.
Method Series 25. London: Sage.
Qualitative Research
Atkinson, Paul, Coffey, Amanda, Delamont, Sara, Lofland, John, & Lofland, Lyn
(Eds.). (2001). Handbook of Ethnography. London: Sage.
Bakken, Brge. (2000). The Exemplary Society: Human Improvement, Social Control
274
and the Dangers of Modernity in China.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barrett, Angeline M., Chawla-Duggan, Rita, Lowe, John, Nikel, Jutta, & Ukpo,
Eugenia. (2006). The Concept of Quality in Education: a review of 'international'
literature on the concept of quality in education. EdQual Working Paper Number 3.
Bristol: EdQual.
Barrett, Angeline M., & Tikly, Leon. (2009). Education Quality: Research Priorities
and Approaches in the Global Era. In D. Mattheou (Ed.), Changing Educational
Landscapes (pp. 185-206). Dordrecht: Springer.
Barrow, Robin, & Woods, Ronald. (1988). An Introduction to Philosophy of
Education. (4th ed.)
London and New York: Routledge.
Becker, Gary S. (1964). Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with
special reference to education.
New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Beeby, Clarence E. (1966). The Quality of Education in Developing Countries.

Cambridge, M.A.: Havard University Press.
Bennell, Paul, & Mukyanuzi, Faustin. (2005). Is There a Teacher Motivation Crisis in
Tanzania?
London: Development for International Development.
Bourdieu, Pierre. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice.
University Press.
New York: Cambridge
Bourdieu, Pierre. (1997). The Forms of Capital. In A. H. Hasley, H. Lauder, P. Brown

& A. S. Wells (Eds.), Education: Culture, economic, and society (pp. 46-58). Oxford,
England: Oxford University Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre, & Passeron, Jean-Claude. (1990 [1970]). Reproduction in Education,
Society and Culture. (2nd ed.)
London, Newbury Park, New Delhi: Sage.
Bowers, C.A. (2005). The False Promises of Constructivist Theories of Learning: a

Global and Ecological Critique. New York: P. Lang.
Bowles, Samuel, & Gintis, Herbert. (1976). Schooling in Capitalist America:
Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life. New York: Basic
275
Books.
Boyle, Siobhan, Brock, Andy, Mace, John, & Sibbons, Mo. (2002). Reaching the
Poor: The 'costs' of sending children to school. A six country comparative study.
Department for International Development: Educational Papers.
Bray, Mark. (1996). Counting the Full Cost: Parental and Community Financing of
Education in East Asia. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank in collaboration with
UNICEF.
Bray, Mark, & Bunly, Seng. (2005). Balancing the Books: Household Financing of
Basic Education in Cambodia. CERC Monograph Series No.4. Hong Kong:
Comparative Education Research Centre, the University of Hong Kong.
Bray, Mark, Ding, Xiaohao, & Huang, Ping. (2004). Reducing the Burden on the Poor:
Household Costs of Basic Education in Gansu, China. CERC Monography Series
No.2. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, the University of Hong
Kong.
Brighouse, Harry. (2006). On Education.
London; New York: Routledge.
Brighouse, Harry, & Unterhalter, Elaine. (2010). Education for Primary Goods or for
Capabilities? In H. Brighouse & I. Robeyns (Eds.), Measuring Justice: Primary
Goods and Capabilities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, Philip, & Park, Albert. (2002). Education and poverty in rural China.
Economics of Education Review, 21, 523-541.
Bu, Wei. (2006). Looking for the insiders perspective: Human Trafficking in
Sichuan. In M. Heimer & S. Thorgersen (Eds.), Doing Fieldwork in China (pp.
209-224). Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies.
Burchfield, Shirley, Hua, Haiyan, Baral, Dyuti & Rocha, Valeria (2002b). A
Longitudinal Study of the Effect of Integrated Literacy and Basic Education Programs
on the Participation of Women in Social and Economic Development in Nepal.
Boston, MA: The United States Agency for International Development Office of
Women in Development.
276
Burchfield, Shirley, Hua Hai-yan, Iturry, Tania Suxo & Rocha, Valeria. (2002a). A
Longitudinal Study of the Effect of Integrated Literacy and Basic Education Programs
on the Participation of Women in Social and Economic Development in Bolivia, from
http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNACR860.pdf
Carnoy, Martin. (1974). Education as Cultural Imperialism.
McKay.
New York: David
Carr, Wilfred. (2005). The Routledge Falmer Reader in the Philosophy of Education.
London; New York: Routledge Falmer.
Cawthera, Andy. (2003). Nijera Shikhi and Adult Literacy: Impact on Learners after
Five Years, from http://www.eldis.org/fulltext/nijerashikhi.pdf
Cheng, Kai-ming. (2000a). Education and Development: The Neglected Mission of
Cross-cultural Studies. In R. Alexander, M. Osborn & D. Phillip (Eds.), Learning
from Comparing: New Directions in Comparative Educational Research, Vol. 2
Policy, Professionals and Development (pp. 81-92). Oxford: Symposium Books.
Cheng, Kai-ming. (2000b). Understanding Basic Education Policies in China: An
Ethnographic Approach. In J. Liu, H. A. Ross & D. P. Kelly (Eds.), The Ethnographic
Eye: Interpretive Studies of Education in China (pp. 29-50). New York: Falmer Press.
Cheng, Kai Ming. (1996). The Quality of Primary Education: A Case Study of
Zhejiang Province, China. Paris: UNESCO International Institute for Educational
Planning.
Cheng, Kai Ming. (1997). Qualitative Research and Educational Policy-making:
Approaching the Reality in Developing Countries. In M. Crossley & G. Vulliamy
(Eds.), Qualitative Educational Research in Developing Countries: Current
Perspectives (pp. 65-85). New York: Garland.
Cheng, Shing. (2009). Waging a two-front war: Inmates during Incarceration and
social workers working on ex-convict rehabilitation in China. Unpublished MPil
Thesis, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
China Labour Bulletin. (2007a, August 20). Students exploited by both schools and
employers in summer work programmes
277
China Labour Bulletin. (2007b). Small Hands: A Survey Report on Child Labour in
China.
Chitty, Clyde. (2002). Understanding Schools and Schooling.
London; New York:
Routledge/Falmer.
Chung, Carol, & Mason, Mark. (2012). Why do primary school students drop out
in poor, rural China? A portrait sketched in a remote mountain village.
International Journal of Educational Development, 32, 537-545.
Clean Clothes Campaign, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), &
International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF). (2008).
Playfair 2008. No Medal for the Olympics on Labour Rights.
Clifford, James, & Marcus, George E. (1986). Writing Culture: The Poetics and
Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Cochran-Smith, Marilyn. (2003). Teaching Quality Matters. Journal of Teacher
Education, 54(2), 95-98.
Colclough, Christopher, Al-Samarrai, Samer, Rose, Pauline, & Tembon, Mercy.
(2003). Achieving Schooling for All in Africa: Costs, Commitment and Gender.
Hants: Ashgate.
Colclough, Christopher, Rose, Pauline, & Tembon, Mercy. (2000). Gender
inequalities in primary schooling: The roles of poverty and adverse cultural practice.
International Journal of Educational Development, 20, 5-27.
Connelly, Rachel, & Zheng Zhen-zhen. (2007). Enrollment and Graduation Patterns
as China's Reforms Deepen, 1990-2000. In E. Hannum & A. Park (Eds.), Education
and Reform in China (pp. 81-92). New York: Routledge.
Darling, John. (1994). Child-Centred Education and its critics.
Chapman.
London: Paul
de Brauw, Alan, & Rozelle, Scott. (2007). Returns to Education in Rural China. In A.
Park & E. Hannum (Eds.), Education and Reform in China (pp. 230-247). London:
278
Routledge.
de Laine, Marlene. (2000). Fieldwork, Participation and Practice: Ethics and
Dilemmas in Qualitative Research.
London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Dello-Iacovo, Belinda. (2009). Curriculum Reform and 'Quality Education' in China:
An overview. International Journal of Educational Development, 29, 241-249.
Delors, Jacques, Al Mufti, In'am, Amagi, Isao, Carneiro, Roberto, Chung, Fay,
Geremek, Bronislaw, et al. (1996). Learning: The Treasure Within: Report to
UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century.
Paris: UNESCO.
Dewey, John. (1915 [1900]). The School and Society. (Revised ed.)
University Press.
Chicago, IL:
Doddington, Christine, & Hilton, Mary. (2007). Child-Centred Education: Reviving

the Creative Tradition. London: Sage.
Farrell, Joseph P. (2003). Equality of Education: A Half-Century of Comparative
Evidence seen from a New Millennium. In R. F. Arnove & C. A. Torres (Eds.),
Comparative education: the dialectic of the global and the local. Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefield.
Feinberg, Walter, & Soltis, Jonas F. (1998). School and Society. (3rd ed.)
York: Teachers College Press.
New
Fetterman, David M. (1998). Ethnography: Step by Step. (2nd ed.) Applied Social
Research Methods Series Vol. 17. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Fine, Michelle. (1991). Framing Dropouts: Notes on the Politics of an Urban Public
High School.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Foley, Douglas E. (1997). Deficit Thinking Models Based on Culture: The

Anthropological Protest. In R. R. Valencia (Ed.), The Evolution of Deficit Thinking
(pp. 113-131). London; Washington, D.C.: Falmer Press.
Foucault, Michel. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings
279
(1972-77).C. Gordon.
New York: Pantheon Press.
Foucault, Michel. (1991 [1975]). The Means of Correct Training (from Discipline and
Punish). In P. Rainbow (Ed.), The Foucault Reader (pp. 188-205). London: Penguin.
Fyfe, Alec. (1989). Child Labour.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Geertz, Clifford. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures.
New York: Basic Books.
Gewirtz, Sharon, & Cribb, Alan. (2006). What to do about values in social research:
the case for ethical reflexivity in sociology of education. British Journal of Sociology
of Education, 27(2), 141-155.
Gibson, Rex. (1984). Structuralism and Education.
London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Gibson, Rex. (1986). Critical Theory and Education.

Stoughton.
London: Hodder and
Gillies, John. (2009). Aid Effectiveness and Education System Reform: A Systems
Approach. Educational Quality Improvement Program (EQUIP) 2 Working Paper.
Washington, D.C.: EQUIP2, AED and USAID.
Giroux, Henry A., & McLaren, Peter L. (1989). Critical Pedagogy, the State, and
Cultural Struggle.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Glaser, Barney G., & Strauss, Anselm L. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory:
Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
Glasser, William. (1990). The Quality School: Managing Students without coercion.
New York, N.Y.: Perennial Library.
Goodwin, A. Lin, & Oyler, Celia. (2008). Teacher educators as gatekeepers: deciding
who is ready to teach. In M. Cochran-Smith, S. Feiman-Nemser & D. J. McIntyre
(Eds.), Handbook of Research on Teacher Education: education questions in
changing context (Third ed., pp. 468-489). New York and London: Routledge.
Guthrie, Gerard. (1980). Stages of Educational Development? Beeby Revisited.
International Review of Education, 26(4), 441-449.
280
Gutmann, Amy. (1980). What's the use of going to school? the problem of education
in utilitarianism and rights theories. In A. Sen & B. Williams (Eds.), Utilitarianism
and Beyond (pp. 261-277).
Hamilton, Gary G., & Wang, Zheng. (1992). From the soil, the foundations of
Chinese society: a translation of Fei Xiaotongs Xiangtu Zhongguo, with an
introduction and epilogue.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hammersley, Martyn. (1990). Reading Ethnographic Research: A critical guide.
New York: Longman.
Hammersley, Martyn. (1991). What's wrong with ethnography? methodological
explorations.
London: Routledge.
Hammersley, Martyn, & Atkinson, Paul. (2007). Ethnography: Principles in Practice.
(3rd ed.)
Hannum, Emily. (2003). Poverty and Basic Education in Rural China: Villages,
Households, and Girls' and Boys' Enrollment. Comparative Education Review, 47(2),
141-159.
Hansen, Mette H. (2006). In the Footsteps of the Communist Party: Dilemmas and
Strategies. In M. Heimer & S. Thorgersen (Eds.), Doing Fieldwork in China (pp.
81-95). Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies.
Hanushek, Eric A., & Wmann, Ludger. (2008). Education Quality and Economic
Growth.
Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.
Hawes, H, & Stephens, D. (1990). Questions of Quality: Primary Education and
Development.
Harlow: Longman.
Heimer, Maria. (2006). Field Sites, Research Design and Type of Findings. In M.
Heimer & S. Thorgersen (Eds.), Doing Fieldwork in China (pp. 58-77). Copenhagen:
Nordic Institute of Asian Studies.
Heimer, Maria, & Thorgersen, Stig. (2006). Doing Fieldwork in China.
Nordic Institute of Asian Studies.
281
Copenhagen:
Held, David. (1980). Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas.

Berkeley: University of California Press.
Heyneman, Stephen P., & Loxley, William A. (1983). The distribution of primary
school quality within high and low-income countries. Comparative Education Review,
27, 108-118.
Holt, John C. (1976). Instead of Education.
New York: Dutton.
Human Rights Watch. (2007, December 2). China: End Child Labour in State Schools.
In Work and Study programs put hundreds of thousands of children at risk.
Hunt, Frances. (2008). Dropping out from School: A Cross Country Review of
Literature. CREATE Pathways to Access Research Monograph No. 20. Brighton:
University of Sussex.
Hwang, Kwang-guo. (1987). Face and favour: The Chinese power game. The
American Journal of Sociology, 92(4), 944-974.
Illich, Ivan. (1971). Deschooling Society.
Harper and Row.
New York, San Francisco and London:
ILO, International Labour Organization. (2012). International Programme on the

Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC): The Programme. Retrieved Feb 11, 2012, from
http://www.ilo.org/ipec/programme/lang--en/index.htm
Jencks, Christopher. (1975). Inequality: a reassessment of the effect of family and
schooling in America. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Jiang, Zhongyi, & He, Feng. (2004). An Analysis of Dropout in Rural Compulsory
Education and Basic Conditions of Rurla Households. China and World Economy,
12(4), 33-45.
Kabeer, N., Nambissan, G.B., & Subrahmanian, R. (2002). Child Labour and the
Right to Education in South Asia: Needs versus Rights? New Delhi: Thousand
Oaks.
Katz, Michael S., Noddings, Nel, & Strike, Kenneth. (1999). Justice and Caring: The
282
Search for Common Ground in Education.
New York; London: Teachers College
Press.
Kelly, Deirdre M. (1993). Last Chance High: How Girls and Boys Drop in and Out of
Alternative Schools. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Kelly, Deirdre M. (1995). School Dropouts. In M. Carnoy (Ed.), International
Encyclopedia of Economics of Education (2nd ed., pp. 308-313). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Kipnis, Andrew B. (1997). Producing Guanxi: sentiment, self and subculture in a
northern Chinese village. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Kipnis, Andrew B. (2001). The Disturbing Educational Discipline of 'Peasants'. The
China Journal, 46, 1-24.
Kipnis, Andrew B. (2006). Suzhi: A Keyword Approach. The China Quarterly,
295-313.
Knight, John, Li, Shi, & Deng, Quheng. (2008). Education and the Poverty Trap in
Rural China.
Lee, Wing-on. (2002). Equity and Access to Education: Themes, Tensions, and
Policies. Education in Developing Asia, Vol. 4. Hong Kong: Asian Development
Bank and Comparative Education Research Centre, The University of Hong Kong.
Levin, Henry. (1983). Cost-effectiveness: a primer.
Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Lewin, Keith M. (2005). Planning Post-primary Education: Taking Targets to Task.

International Journal of Educational Development, 25(4), 408-422.
Lewin, Keith M. (2006). Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals.
In D. A. Clark (Ed.), The Elgar Companion to Development Studies (pp. 145-152).
Cheltenham and Northampton, M.A.: Edward Elgar.
Lewin, Keith M. (2007). Improving Access, Equity and Transitions in Education:
Creating a Research Agenda. CREATE Pathways to Access Research Monograph
No.1. Birghton: University of Sussex.
283
Lewin, Keith M. (2008a). Why Some Education for All and Millennium Development
Goals will not be met: Difficulties with goals and targets. In L. Chisholm, G. Bloch &
B. Fleisch (Eds.), Education, Growth, Aid and Development: Towards Education for
All (pp. 49-73). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, The University
of Hong Kong.
Lewin, Keith M., & Wang, Yingjie. (1994). Implementing Basic Education in China:
progress and prospects in rich, poor and national minority areas. (Vol. No. 101
Research Report)
Paris: UNESCO, International Institute for Educational
Planning.
Lewis, Oscar. (1969). Culture of Poverty. In D. P. Moynihan (Ed.), On Understanding
Poverty: Perspectives from the Social Sciences (pp. 187-220). New York: Basic
Books.
Li, Peilin. (2002). The End of Chinese Villages: A Study of Villages Located in
Southern Urban China. Chinese Social Sciences.
Lin, Delia. (2010). The Cultural Dilemma of a Knowledge Society in China: The Case
of 'Education for Quality' (Suzhi jiaoyu). Regional Outlook Paper(24).
Little, Angela. (2006). Education For All and Multigrade Teaching: Challenges and
Opportunities.
Dordrecht: Springer.
Liu, Judith, Ross, Heidi A. & Kelly, Donald. P. (2000). The Ethnographic Eye:
Interpretive Studies of Education in China. New York: Falmer Press.
Lockheed, Marlaine E., & Verspoor, Adriaan M. (with Deborah Bloch, Pierre
Englebert, Bruce Fuller, Elizabeth King, John Middleton, Vicente Paqueo, Alastair
Rodd, Ralph Romain, and Michel Welmond). (1990). Improving Primary Education
in Developing Countries: A Review of Policy Options.
World Bank.
Washington, D.C.: The
Malinowski, Bronislaw. (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific.

Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Marples, Roger. (1999). The Aims of Education.
284
London:
Masemann, Vandra Lea. (1976). Anthropological Approaches to Comparative

Education. Comparative Education Review, 20(3), 368-380.
Masemann, Vandra Lea. (1982). Critical Ethnography in the Study of Comparative
Education. Comparative Education Review, 16(1), 1-15.
Masemann, Vandra Lea. (1986). Critical Ethnography in the Study of Comparative
Education. In P. G. Altbach & G. P. Kelly (Eds.), New Approaches to Comparative
Education (pp. 11-25). Chicago and London: the University of Chicago.
Masemann, Vandra Lea. (2003). Culture and Education.
In R. F. Arnove & C. A.
Torres (Eds.), Comparative Education: The Dialectic of the Global and the Local
(2nd ed., pp. 115-132). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Mason, Andrew D., & Khandker, Shahidur R. (1996). Measuring the Opportunity
Costs of Children's Time in a Developing Country: Implications for Education Sector
Analysis and Interventions. Human Capital Development Working Papers.
Mason, Mark. (2001). The Ethics of Integrity: Educational Values Beyond
Postmodern Ethics. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 35(1), 47-70.
Mason, Mark. (2007). Comparing Cultures. In M. Bray, B. Adamson & M. Mason
(Eds.), Comparative Education Research: Approaches and Methods. Hong Kong and
Dordrecht: CERC and Springer.
Mason, Mark. (2008). Series Editor's Forward. In W. J. Jacob & D. B. Holsinger
(Eds.), Inequality in Education: Comparative and International Perspectives (pp.
xxiii-xxvi). Hong Kong: Springer and Comparative Education Research Centre, The
University of Hong Kong.
Mason, Mark. (2010). Critical Theory and Pedagogy. In P. Peterson, E. Baker & B.
McGaw (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Education (3rd ed., pp. 133-140).
Oxford: Elsevier.
Mason, Mark, & Clarke, Matthew. (2010). Post-structuralism and Education. In P.
Peterson, E. Baker & B. McGaw (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Education (3rd
ed., pp. 175-182). Oxford: Elsevier.
285
Moore, Audrey-marie, & DeStefano, Joseph. (2009). Using Opportunity to Learn and
Early Grade Reading Fluency to Measure School Effectiveness in Ethiopia,
Guatemala, Honduras, and Nepal. Educational Quality Improvement Program
(EQUIP) 2 Working Paper. Washington, D.C.: EQUIP2, AED, and USAID.
Morley, Louise, & Rasool, Naz. (1999). School Effectiveness: Fracturing the
discourse.
London; New York: Falmer Press.
Motala, Shireen. (2001). Quality and Indicators of Quality in South African Education:
A Critical Appraisal. International Journal of Educational Development, 21, 61-78.
Mpokosa, Chikondi, & Ndaruhutse, Susy. (2008). Managing teachers: the centrality
of teacher management to quality education. Lessons from developing countries.
CfBT Education Trust and VSO International.
Nambissan, Geetha B. (2002). Social Exclusion, Children's work and Education: A
view from the margins. In N. Kabeer, G. B. Nambissan & R. Subrahmanian (Eds.),
Child labour and the right to education in South Asia: needs versus rights (pp.
109-142). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Narayan, Deepa, Patel, Raj, Schafft, Kai, Rademacher, Anne, & Koch-Schulte, Sarah.
(2000). Can Anyone Hear Us? Voices from 47 Countries. Washington, DC: The
World Bank.
Nordtveit, Bjorn H. (2010). Schools as Agencies of Protection in Namibia and
Swaziland: Can They Prevent Dropout and Child Labor in the Context of HIV/AIDS
and Poverty? Comparative Education Review 54(2), 223-242.
OECD. (2005). School Factors related to Quality and Equity: Results from PISA 2000.
OECD.
OECD. (2011). Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators. Retrieved December
12, 2011, from www.oecd.org/edu/eag2011
Olsen, Wendy. (2010). Poverty as a Malaise of development: a discourse analysis in
its global context. In A. Boran (Ed.), Poverty: Malaise of Development? (pp. 33-65).
Chester: Chester Academic Press.
286
Papen, Uta. (2001). 'Literacy' - your key to a better future? Literacy, reconciliation
and development in the National Literacy Programme in Namibia. In B. V. Street
(Ed.), Literacy and development: ethnographic perspectives (pp. 40-60). London;
New York: Routledge.
Park, Albert, & Hannum, Emily. (2001). Do Teachers Affect Learning in Developing
Countries?: Evidence from Matched Student-Teacher Data from China, Paper
prepared for the conference Rethinking Social Science Research on the Developing
World in the 21st Century Social Science Research Council, Park City Utah, June
7-11, 2001.
Peters, Richard S. (1969). Perspectives on Plowden.
Paul.
London: Routledge and K.
Pogge, Thomas. (2010). A Critique of the Capability Approach. In H. Brighouse & I.

Robeyns (Eds.), Measuring Justice: Primary Goods and Capabilities (pp. 17-60).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Postiglione, G. A. (2000). National Minority Regions: Studying School
Discontinuation. In J. Liu, H. A. Ross & D. P. Kelly (Eds.), The Ethnographic Eye:
Interpretive Studies of Education in China (pp. 51-71). New York: Falmer Press.
Pring, Richard. (1992). Standards and Quality in Education. British Journal of
Educational Studies, 40(1), 4-22.
Pring, Richard. (2007). John Dewey: a philosopher of education for our time?
London; New York: Continuum International.
Prinsloo, Mastin, & Baynham, Mike. (2008). Literacies, Global and Local.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.
Pritchard, Alan. (2009). Ways of Learning: Learning Theories and Learning Styles in
the Classroom. (2nd ed.)
Psacharopoulos, George. (1995). Building Human Capital for Better Lives.
Washington, DC: The World Bank.
287
Psacharopoulos, George, & Tilak, Jandhyala B. G. (1991). Schooling and Equity. In

G. Psacharopoulos (Ed.), Essays on Poverty, Equity, and Growth (pp. 53-78). Oxford:
The World Bank.
Psacharopoulos, George, & Woodhall, Maureen. (1985). Education for development :
an analysis of investment choices New York: Published for the World Bank by
Oxford University Press.
Rao, Nirmala, Cheng Kai-ming, & Narain, Kirti. (2003). Primary Schooling in China
and India: Understanding how Socio-contextual Factors moderate the Role of the
State. In M. Bray (Ed.), Comparative Education: Continuing Traditions, New
Challenges, and New Paradigms (pp. 153-176). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic
Publishes.
Rao, Nirmala, McHale, James P., & Pearson, Emma. (2003). Links between
Socialization Goals and Child-rearing Practices in Chinese and Indian Mothers. Infant
and Child Development, 12(5), 475-492.
Rawls, John. (1971). A Theory of Justice.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Ross, Ken. (2007). Quality and Equity in Basic Education: can we have both? IIEP
Newsletter, July-September 2007, p. 9, from
http://www.sacmeq.org/downloads/newsletter/NleJul07.pdf
Rousseau, Jean J. (1948 [1762]). Emile. (B. Foxley, Trans.)
London: Dent.
Sayed, Yusuf. (1997). The Concept of Quality in Education: a view from South Africa.
In K. Watson, C. Modgil & S. Modgil (Eds.), Educational Dilemmas: debate and
diversity, Vol.4: Quality in education (pp. 21-29). London: Cassell.
Scheerens, Japp. (2000). Improving School Effectiveness.
International Institute for Education Planning.
Paris: UNESCO
Schubert, Jane G. (1993). Foreward. In D. Adams (Ed.), Defining Educational

Quality.
Schultz, Theodore W. (1961). Investment in Human Capital. American Economic
288
Review, 51, 1-17.

Schultz, Theodore W. (1963). The Economic Value of Education.
Columbia University Press.
New York:
Seers, Dudley. (1969). The Meaning of Development. International Development

Review, 11(4), 2-6.
Sen, Amartya (1980). Equality of What? In S. McMurrin (Ed.), The Tanner Lectures
on Human Values (Vol. 1, pp. 197-220). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Sen, Amartya (1984). Resources, Values and Development.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell
Publisher.
Sen, Amartya (1988). The Concept of Development. In H. Chenery & T. N.
Srinivasan (Eds.), The Handbook of Development Economics (Vol. 1). Amsterdam:
Elsevier.
Sen, Amartya (1999). Development as Freedom.
New York: Knopf.
Sen, Amartya, & Williams, Bernard (1983). Utilitarianism and Beyond. (2nd ed.)
Stites, Regie. (2011). Household Literacy Environments as Contexts for Development
in Rural China. In B. V. Street (Ed.), Literacy and Development: Ethnographic
Perspective (pp. 171-187). London; New York: Routledge.
Street, Brian V. (1984). Literacy in Theory and Practice.
University Press.
Cambridge: Cambridge
Street, Brian V. (1993). Cross-Cultural Approaches to Literacy.
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Street, Brian V. (2001). Literacy and Development: Ethnographic Perspective.
Sumner, Andrew. (2007). Meaning versus Measurement: Why Do 'Economic'
Indicators of Poverty Still Predominate? Development in Practice, 17(1), 4-13.
289
The PROBE Team. (1999). Public Report on Basic Education in India.

Oxford University Press.
New Delhi:
Thgersen, Stig. (1990). Secondary Education in China after Mao: Reform and Social
Conflict.
Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press.
Tikly, Leon. (2011). Towards a framework for researching the quality of education in
low-income countries (Editorial Article). Comparative Education, 47(1), 1-23.
Tsang, Mun C., & Kidchanapanish, Somsri. (1992). Private Resources and the Quality
of Primary Education in Thailand. International Journal of Educational Research,
17(2), 179-198.
Twaweza. (2010). Broken Promises in Primary Education: When enough money
doesn't reach schools on time.
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Uwazi.
UNESCO. (2000). Education for All 2000 Assessment: Statistical Document.

UNESCO.
UNESCO. (2004). Education for All: The Quality Imperative.
Monitoring Report 2005. Paris: UNESCO.
UNESCO. (2005). Literacy for Life.
UNESCO.
EFA Global
EFA Global Monitoring Report 2006.
UNESCO. (2008). Overcoming Inequality: why governance matters.

Monitoring Report 2009.
Paris:
EFA Global
UNICEF, The United Nations Children's Fund. (2000). Defining Quality in Education,
from http://www.unicef.org/education/files/QualityEducation.PDF
UNICEF, The United Nations Children's Fund. (2001). We the Children: End-decade
review of the follow-up to the World Summit for Children. .
United Nations System in China, & Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (2008). China's
Progress Towards the Millennium Development Goals 2008 Report.
290
Unterhalter, Elaine, & Walker, Melanie. (2007). Amartya Sen's Capability Approach
New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
and Social Justice in Education.
Valencia, Richard R. (1997). Conceptualizing the Notion of Deficit Thinking. In R. R.

Valencia (Ed.), The Evolution of Deficit Thinking: Educational Thought and Practice
(pp. 1-12). London: Falmer Press.
Valerio, Alexandria. (2003). Estimating the Economic Benefits of Adult Literacy
Programs: The case of Ghana.
thesis).
New York: Columbia University (Unpublished Ph.D.
van Mananen, John. (1988). Tales of the Field.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Wang, Dan. (2009). An Ethnography of Teachers in a Rural School in China.
Unpublished PhD thesis, Syracuse University, New York.
Wang, Shanmai. (2001). Cost Sharing Study: Gansu Basic Education Project (GBEP).
Beijing: Center for Education and Economy Research, Beijing Normal University.
Welch, Anthony R. (2000). Quality and Equality in Third World Education. In A.
Welch (Ed.), Third World Education: Quality and Equality (pp. 3-28). New York and
London: Garland Publishing.
Weston, Burns H., & Teerink, Mark B. (2006). Child Labour through a Human
Rights Glass Brightly, from
http://www.du.edu/gsis/hrhw/working/2006/35-weston_teerink-2006.pdf
Willis, Paul E. (1977). Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working
Class Jobs.
Farnborough: Saxon House.
Wolcott, Harry F. (1984). Ethnographers without ethnography. In D. M. Fetterman

(Ed.), Ethnography in educational evaluation (pp. 177-210). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage
Publication.
Wolfe, B. L. (1995). External Benefits of Education. In M. Carnoy (Ed.),
International Encyclopedia of Economics of Education (2nd ed., pp. 159-163).
291
Woodhall, Maureen. (1995). Human Capital Concepts. In M. Carnoy (Ed.),

International Encyclopedia of Economics of Education (2nd ed., pp. 24-28).
Woodhall, Maureen. (2004). Cost-Benefit Analysis in Educational Planning. (4th ed.)
Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning, UNESCO.
World Bank. (1995). Priorities and Strategies for Education: A World Bank Review.
Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.
World Bank. (2006). From Schooling Access to Learning Outcomes: An Unfinished
Agenda - an evaluation of World Bank support to primary education.
D. C.: The World Bank.
Washington,
Wright, Martha Wagar. (2001). More then just chanting: multilingual literacies,
ideology and teaching methodologies in rural Eritrea. In B. V. Street (Ed.), Literacy
and development: ethnographic perspectives (pp. 61-77). London; New York:
Routledge.
Yang, Huan Helen. (1992). Rural development and its impact on rural education in
China Unpublished M.Ed. Thesis, University of Alberta, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Yang, Rui. (2002). The Third Delight: Internationalization of Higher Education in
China.
New York: Routledge.
Zumwalt, Karen, & Craig, Elizabeth. (2005). Teachers' characteristics : research on
the indicators of quality. . In M. C.-S. K. M. Zeichner (Ed.), Studying teacher
education : the report of the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education (pp.
157-260). Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
292
Chinese References
Ai, Yi-ping, Meng, Hong-wei, & Postiglione, Gerard A. (1995). A Study of School
Dropout in some Ethnic Minority Regions in China [
]. Educational Research, 1, 60-66.
Beijing Daily. (2005, Nov 14). , from
http://theory.people.com.cn/GB/49150/49152/3854532.html
Cai, Guo-ying. . (2004). An Economic Analysis of the School Dropout
Phenomenon in China []. Journal of Beijing Normal
University (Social Sciences), 2, 36-41.
Chen, Di, & Xu, Hua Yu. (2008). . Jiaoshu Yuren, 10.
Chen, Ping. ., & Wu, Nai-yu. . (1998). An Analysis of the reason of
school dropout and repetition in poor areas in Guizhou [
]. Journal of Guizhou Normal University (Social Science), 3, 13-20.
Chen, Xiang-ming. . (1996). Why Wang Xiaoggang didnt go to school: the
case of a school dropout [: ].
Educational Research and Experiment [], 1, 35-45.
Chen, Xiang-ming. . (2000). .
, 5, 55-59.
County A Education Bureau. (2008). Statistical Yearbook of County A.
County X Education Bureau. (2008). Statistical Yearbook of County X.
Deng Xiao-ping. (1985). "Geji dangwei he zhengfu yao ba jiaoyu gongzuo renzhen
zhua qilai" [Party committees and government at all levels must place emphasis on
education work], Speech at the National Conference on Education.
Fan, Xianzuo. . (2009). .
Beijing: .
293
Fang, Tao. ., Gu, Ling. ., Xu, Le. ., & Luo, Ping. . (2010). A
Study of Dropout among Girls of Qiang Ethnic minority---based on the Survey in
Chibusu Middle school in Mao county, Aba prefecture [--]. Journal of Ethnology [](2), 146-149.
Fei, Xiaotong. . (1949). .
Shanghai: Shanghai guancha she.
Fei, Xiaotong. . (1992 [1947]). [From the soil, the foundations of

Chinese society]. (G. G. Hamilton & Wang Zheng, Trans.)
California Press.
Berkeley: University of
Gu Ming-yuan. (1996). . In Gu Ming-yuan,

Cao Sheng-li, Lv Min, Liu Fang & Han Xin-nong (Eds.), (pp.
1-7). Beijing: Zhongguo Heping Chubanshe.
Gu Ming-yuan, & Zhang Min-sheng. (2010). . Jiaoyu Yanjiu, 7, 9-14.
Guang, Shao-kui. . (2005). An Analysis of the Reason of Rural School
Dropout and Policy Recommendations [].
, 1, 49-52.
Gui, Jian-sheng. . (2004). A Reflection on the Rural School Dropout Problem
[]. Journal of the Chinese Society of Education(2),
6-8, 40.
Guo, Fang-ling. . (2005). A Study of the Reasons and Preventive Strategies in
dealing with Rural Dropouts in a Middle School in Anshan town of Anqiu city in
Shandong Province [
]. Unpublished Masters Thesis, Southwest China Normal University.
Han Shao-gong, . (2008). . In Qian Li-qun & Liu Tie-fang (Eds.),
(pp. 3-6). Fuzhou: Fujian jiaoyu chubanshe.
Hao Wen-wu. . (2007). . Education
Exploration [], 11.
Hao Wen-wu. . (2009). . Journal of the
294
Chinese Society of Education, 9, 34-36.

He, Xiao-lei. . (2005). Learning Difficulties and Dropout among Girls of
Dongxiang Ethnic Minority : A Cross-school case study [
---]. Forum on Contemporary Education [], 3,
9-11.
Hebei News. (2010, March 23). 15 [15 students with
bad results got "graduated" before SSEEE], from
http://epaper.hebnews.cn/yzdsb/20100323/index.htm
Hua hua. . (2010).
. .
Jin, Lian. . (2009). Beijing: zhongguo caizheng
jingji chubanshe.
Lan, Jing.
., & Zhang, Nian-meng.
. (2008). The Conceptual
Difference between Dropout and Hidden Dropout: The Theory of Hidden Dropout
(1) [
]. Kaoshi Zhoukan, 43, 204-205.
Li, Hai-tao. . (2008). Educational inequality in China: a statistical analysis
[].
Hangzhou: Zhejiang Gongshang University
Press.
Li, Rui-feng.
., Guo, Da. ., & Xing, Xian. . (2009).
: [A review of China's Rural Compulsory Education

and Prospects].
Beijing: zhongguo nongye chubanshe.
Li Rui, ., & Zhao Mao-lin, . (2006).

. .
Li Shu-lei, . (1999). [The
State in the Village: Rural Schools in Cultural Transformation].
Hangzhou,
China: Zhejiang People's Publishing House.

Li, Zhong-shuang. . (2004). An Analysis of the Situation and Preventive
Strategies in dealing with Rural School Dropouts [
295
]. Unpublished Masters Thesis, Northeast Normal University.

Liao, Qi-fa. . (2004). A Study of Student Dropout of Compulsory Education
in China []. Journal of National
Academy of Education Administration [], 2, 26-37.
Liao, Qifa. . (2006). . .
Lin, Gui-sheng. . (2004). . Journal of
Chinese Society of Education, 2, 6-8, 40.
Liu, Jie. . (2002). 21 [Professionalization:
Challenging teachers of the 21st century].
Publishing House.
Beijing: Educational Science
Liu, Wei-hua. ., & Zhang, Xin-wu. . (2000). Havard Girl, Liu Yiting:
A True Chronicle of Suzhi Cultivation [ ].
Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe.
Liu, Ying. . (2008). A Study of the Rural School Dropout Problem in Shanxi
Province []. Unpublished Masters Thesis,
Northwest University.
Lu Jia-mei, Chen Huan-zhang, Wang Wei-shen, & Ni Ju-yin. (1994).
. Jiaoyu Yanjiu, 9, 49-63.
Luo, Han-shu. . (2002). A Study of the Dropout Problem of Rural Middle
Schools []. Unpublished Masters Thesis, Northeast
Normal University.
Ma, Wan-hua. ., & Zheng, Zhen-zhen. . (2003). Why do They Quit
School? A Case Study of Girl Dropouts in a County of Hebei Province [
]. Peking University Education Review,
1(3), 70-76.
Ministry of Education. (1998, December). Action Scheme for Invigorating Education
Towards
the
21st
Century.
Retrieved
2011-9-30,
from
http://www.edu.cn/21st_1407/20060323/t20060323_3996.shtml
296
Ministry of Education. (2006). , from

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2006-01-25/17078968490.shtml
National Bureau of Statistics of China. (2001-2010). Year Books 2001-2010, from
http://www.stats.gov.cn
National Center for Education Development Research, .
(1992). .
Beijing: Renmin
Jiaoyu chubanshe.
Pang Shouxing, . (2003). Kunhuo yu chaoyu: xin zhongguo nongcun jiaoyu
yousi lu [Frustrations and going beyond: the
problems of rural education in modern China].. Guangxi shifan daxue
chubanshe.
Qi Mei. . (1999). . Jiaoyu Yanjiu, 5, 43-45.
Ren Yuan-chang, Lin Jian, & Gu Sheng-hua. . (2005).
. .
Renmin News. (2003, July 18).
.
Shang, Lifu. . (2007). .
. .
Shi Ming-lei. . (2000). . Society, 1, 8-9.
Shi, Shao-bin. . (2008). .
Beijing:
Economic Science Press.

Sima, Yi-nan. . (2005). A Study of the Preventive Strategies in dealing with
Rural Dropouts from Compulsory Education [
]. Unpublished Masters Thesis, Shandong Normal University.
Sun Zhi-jun. . (2004).
.. . : .
297
Tang, Can-qing. ., & Dong, Zhi-qiang. . (2004). Rural Education:

Problem and Solutions []. Rural Economy [], 5,
86-88.
The CPC Central Committee and the State Council. (1999). Decision on the
Deepening of Educational Reform and the Full Promotion of Quality Education [
].
The State Council. (2001, May 29). The Decision on the Reform and Development of
Basic Education [].
The State Council. (2010). National Medium- and Long-Term Education Reform and
Development Plan Outline (2010-2020) [
(2010-2020)], from http://www.gov.cn/jrzg/2010-07/29/content_1667143.htm
Wang, Dong-hui. . (2007). A Study of Rural School Dropouts: A Case of 17
Middle Schools in Dawa County in Panjin City [
]. Unpublished Masters Thesis, Liaoning Normal
University.
Wang, Xiu-quan. . (2004). A Study of the situation and solutions for Middle
School Dropouts in the Rural areas in Liaozhong Couty, Shenyang city [
]. Unpublished Masters Thesis, Liaoning
Normal University.
Wang, Yi-tao. . (2006). Why She didnt Study: Qualitative Study of a Case
of Dropout due to Poverty [].
Journal of the Chinese Society of Education(2), 17-20.
Wang, Ying. ., Yang, Run-yong. ., Shao, Chang-lan. ., & Liang,
Jian-hong. . (2005). Preventive Strategies in Dealing with Rural School
Dropouts: Research on Rural School Students in Well-off Rural Areas (3) [
]. Theory
and Practice of Education [], 3, 28-32.
Wu, Xiao-rong. , & Yang, Dong. . (2005). A Study of Dropout of
Mosuo Children in Lugu Lake Town [].
298
Journal of Southwest China Normal University (Humanities and Social Sciences),

31(4), 90-93.
Xiang, Li-ping. . (2005). A Sociological Study of Rural School Dropouts who
are 'unwilling to study' [ ]. China
Agricultural Education [], 6, 15-16.
Xiao, Jin. (2006). . Journal of Legal and
Economic Studies, 3(2), 1-32.
Xiao Zheng-de, . (2010). .
: .
Xinhua News. (2004, August 18). .
Xinhua News. (2005, September 21).
.
Xinhua News. (2006, July 15).
Xinhua News. (2010, September 26). 99.7%,
from http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1026/12819074.html
Yang, Li-li. . (2006). A Study of the Reasons and Preventive Strategies in
dealing with Rural School Dropouts: a Case of a County in Gansu Province [
]. Unpublished Masters
Thesis, Northwest Normal University.
Yang, Run-yong. ., & Wang, Ying. . (2004). Preventive Strategies in
Dealing with Rural School Dropouts: Research on Rural School Students in Well-off
Rural Areas (1) [
]. Theory and Practice of Education [], 24(1).
Yangtse Evening Post. (2009, June 24). 94
, from http://www.yzwb.net/epaper/html/2009-06/24/node_1.htm
Yanzhao City News. (2010, March, 23). 15 [Almost 15
bad students were kicked out of school as the school-leaving examination nears], from
299
www.yzdsb.com.cn
Yu Hui-qiong, & Zhang Li-jun []. (2006).
. China Youth Study, 9, 66-70.
Yu Xiulan, . (2004).
. .
Yuan, Gui-lin , Hong, Jun, Li, Bo-lin, & Qin, Yu-you. (2004). A Study of Dropout in
Middle Schools in Rural areas and Policy Recommendations for its Prevention [
]. Journal of the Chinese Society of
Education, 2, 1-5.
Yuan Gui-lin et. al, . (2009). .
.
Yunnan Education Bureau. (2006). 2005 [An
announcement of 2005 annual review of the two basics]
Yunnan Education Bureau. (2010). [Report form for
the annual review of the two basics in Yunnan province]. Retrieved August 23,
2010,
from
http://www.ynjy.cn/Article/201008/Article_20100823095532_21477.shtml
Zeng Tian-shan, . (1998).
. .
Zhang Ding-zhang. . (1996). . Jiaoyu Yanjiu,
12, 31-38.
Zhang Jinhua, , & Wu Fangwei, . (2008).
.
Shanghai: .
Zhang Li, . (1998). .
.
Zhang, Xiao-feng. ., & Tian, Ai-li. . (2002). A Policy Analysis of
Rural School Dropouts []. , 6, 1-3.
300
Zhao, Hong-bing. . (2005). A Study of the Reasons of Rural School Dropout

and Education Deprivation []. Education Exploration
[], 2.
Zhao, Lan. . (2003). A study of Dropout among Girls in Rural China [
]. Journal of Baicheng Normal College [
], 17(1), 11-14.
Zhou Dai-ming, Mei Fang-quan, & Huang Ping. (2003). Social Assessment Report of
China Proposed Basic Education in Western Areas Project for Preparation of Ethnic
Minority Education Strategy. Report to DFID and the World Bank, Beijing.
Zhu, Xin-gen.
., & Wang, Xiu-ling.
. (2000). A Study of the reason
of Dropout and Education Deprivation in Ethnic Minority Areas in Zhejiang Province

[]. Journal of Zhejiang
Normal University (Social Sciences), 15(2), 80-84.
301

Full Text

Transféré par

Informations du document

Description originale:

Titre original

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Full Text

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Title

The alienating school: an ethnographic study of school dropout

The author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights)

Abstract of thesis entitled

An Ethnographic Study of School Dropout and

Education Quality in Poor, Rural China

Although China is ahead of schedule in achieving the Millennium Development

The Alienating School:

Chung Chi Wa, Carol

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for

Abbreviated Table of Contents

Rationale for the study

2.1 The problem of school access in poor, rural China

Approaches to education quality

3.1 Education quality in the development literature

The ethnographic methodology

The choice of ethnographic methodology

Inaccuracy of the official dropout rate

Patterns of school dropout

Xiao Yuan the poor dropout

Illiterate rural parents

Ah Xing Fa, who failed school from day one

Bad students who are unwilling to study

Low quality and lack of resources

Ah Qiong, from remote, under-resourced schools

PART IV Discussion and Conclusion

Chapter 10 The causes of school failure: A critique of some leading

Family poverty as a factor

11.1 The alienating school: nature of schooling in contemporary China

Postscript: The four school dropouts today

Expanded Table of Contents

Rationale for the study

2.1 The problem of school access in poor, rural China

Approaches to education quality

3.1 Education quality in the development literature

The ethnographic methodology

4.1 The choice of ethnographic methodology

PART II Insights from the field

Patterns of school dropout

5.1 Inaccuracy of the official dropout rate

6.1 Xiao Yuan the poor dropout

Illiterate rural parents

7.1 Ah Xing Fa, who failed school from day one

Bad students who are unwilling to study

Low quality and lack of resources

9.1 Ah Qiong, from remote, under-resourced schools

PART IV Discussion and Conclusion

Chapter 10 The causes of school failure: A critique of some leading

10.1 Family poverty as a factor

10.4 Distribution of resources as a factor

11.1 The alienating school: nature of schooling in contemporary China

Postscript: The four school dropouts today

Field site in Heyuan, Guangdong (inset: Guangdong in China)

Field site in Dali, Yunnan (inset: Yunnan in China)

An official statement written by a 13-year-old boy who requests to

discontinue his study after finishing P.6 in Village Z1

Xiao Yuans grandmother

A mountainous location and mud walls are some of the images of

School dropout Ah Xing Fa

observing his grandmother

A boy showing off his skill of catching a squirrel

A bundle of cured tobacco leaf