Books donations help migrant children in Hohhot

Hundreds of migrant children in Hohhot received books donated from Inner Mongolia Library on June 27. The event organizers hope to improve education standards for the children of migrant workers.

Over the past years, millions of Chinese migrant workers have left their rural hometowns and flocked to the big cities, where they can usually find better-paying jobs in manufacturing rather than through working as farmers back home.

Many of the children of these workers have had tough lives. They are sometimes labeled a “lost generation”.

Because of the high costs of urban life, many migrant workers leave their children back home –– the so-called “left-behind” children. Nevertheless, millions of migrant workers have brought their children with them to their jobs, and live with them in the cities where they work.

Sometimes these children and their families lack a local community support network, and often they don’t qualify for government schools because of China’s hukou system, a household-registration system that determines the kind of welfare benefits residents can get in a specific place. Migrant children who inherit the so-called rural residence hukou from their parents don’t get the same rights as their new urban peers.

These children are forced to go to makeshift private schools, which often lack adequate teaching and basic facilities. Disconnected from their original communities in rural areas, but without regular attention from a nearby parent, many of these children are only slowly developing the skills needed to function as adults in society.

In some cases, they’re getting a worse education than their parents did a generation ago in rural China.

The number of migrant children is increasing. In 2010, one out of every four children in China’s urban areas was a migrant child, according to a survey by the United Nations Children’s Fund. In 2013, that proportion rose to one out of three –– a total of 35.8 million children.

Some organizations have noticed the issue and conducted a series of campaigns to help the disadvantaged children of migrant workers through various forms of voluntary work, sponsorship, vocational activities and events.

Children read books donated from Inner Mongolia Library at a primary school where most students’ parents are migrant workers in Hohhot on June 27. [Photo/chinanews.com]