Education financing
Educational resources and impediments in rural Gansu, China
What are the key problems in educational improvement in Gansu?
Authors:
E. Hannum; P. Kong
Publisher:
World Bank Publications, 2007
This report analyses a survey of rural children and their families, schools, and teachers in the Gansu province of China. It seeks to provide a portrait of schools serving rural communities in northwest China, and to shed light on factors that encourage and discourage school persistence among children in this region.
It is argued that at the time of these surveys, the most pressing problem in rural education continued to be that of finance. The government’s capacity to reduce or eliminate costs as a barrier to educational access for the poorest families is crucial for the basic goal of extending an equal opportunity for education to children in these groups.
Key implications include:
- one barrier to educational improvement in Gansu is simply economic: many problems of infrastructure and economic deprivation in rural schools could, in theory, be quickly addressed, should funding be made available
- a fundamental problem is that, to truly equalise the playing field with wealthier urban schools, rural schools may actually need to work harder to give children real opportunities for success
- there is a problem of disaffection among a substantial minority of students, despite evidence that reforms to create more welcoming, nurturing environments in schools are, to some degree, being implemented.
