They’re migrants, they’re children, and they’re disabled — a combination that means they are almost entirely overlooked in society.
But there are about half a million people fitting that description in China, and they want an education like anyone else, according to 20 civil society groups that have appealed to the Ministry of Education to provide these children with greater access to schools. A copy of their letter, addressed to Yuan Guiren, the education minister, and dated Monday, was provided by Justice for All, an advocacy group based in Nanjing.
Sept. 1 was the opening of the new school year across China, but most of these half-million children were denied entry in the communities where they live, even though Chinese law gives all children the right to attend
school, the groups wrote. In China, compulsory, state-financed education lasts for nine years, starting at age 6.
“Even though they are of school age, they can only look at the schools and sigh,” wrote the groups, which are located in provinces or cities as far apart as Guangxi, Shaanxi, Guangdong and Beijing.
A fundamental problem is that all children of migrants — about 200 million adults are now considered migrants, living and working outside their places of official registration — may find it hard to enter school, especially in the higher grades, because schools often reject children who are not locally registered.
This is the result of China’s “hukou,” or household registration system, set up in the 1950s to control the population and still a determiner of access to housing, education, health care and other social goods. The government has said it is revising the system to increase social equality, but change has been slow.
Another problem is a lack of education for all disabled children, not just migrants. About two million disabled children, about 81 percent, are illiterate, according to figures from 2006, the groups wrote in their letter.
The state is increasingly making education available to disabled children, both by granting them access to regular schools and building new schools for those with special needs. But there, too, change has been slow. Prejudice among the parents of able-bodied children may influence a school to reject the children, education specialists say.
The groups, which included the Guangxi Nanning Anqi Family Rehabilitation Education Center, the Lanzhou Chenguang Special Needs Children Rehabilitation Center and the Beijing-based Ercihui Angels Family, made three proposals in their letter: Disability legislation should be amended to make clear that all disabled children, wherever they live, have the right to attend school; regulations should be strengthened so schools will find it harder to reject them; and fines should be increased for schools that do so.
As of Thursday, there were no reports of a response.