A migrant worker's child sits in a classroom on August 18, 2011, in Beijing, China. Many migrant schools have been closed recently, leaving thousands of children without an education.
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The government has promised to reassign all the children to officially registered schools — some state-run, some privately run but subsidized by the state — with better facilities. "Not one student will miss out on school because of this," a spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Education Commission told the state media. But Hursh says the process of enrolling at the officially registered schools highlights the Kafka-esque nature of the migrant workers' existence by requiring them to produce legal documents that they could never possibly attain. "For instance, one document might be the rental agreement for your house, but these are informal houses that don't even have an address," he says. "These are not even legal houses, so how can you have a formal rental agreement? It's the same with employment. When often these are informal jobs, how can you get a formal employment contract to show?"
In response to parents' desperate pleas, a small number of schools resisted the order to close. "We got a notice to ask us to close down the school, but the students in this area have nowhere to go," says Wan Tian, the headmaster of Dongba Elementary School, where some 500 migrant children are enrolled. "All our students have volunteered to come in, so we opened up regardless." Wan says his students have no way of gathering the documents required to register at official schools. For now, at least, it seems city officials have tacitly accepted his decision to remain open.
Most migrant families, however, have had little option but to place their faith in the government's promise of a better education for their children at the officially registered schools. But concerns remain that the new schools are no better than the ones that were closed. In Dongba, most students have been reassigned to Boya Elementary School, a privately run, government-subsidized institution on the outskirts of the village, 20 minutes by bike from the main residential area. The school lies on wasteland, surrounded by piles of rubble and half-constructed apartment blocks. The dirt track leading to the gate runs past a garbage dump and an open toilet.
Song Meiying has lived in Dongba for 11 years and operates a small shop selling construction materials from the front of her windowless home. When she has time, she roots through the garbage to find recyclable materials she can sell for extra cash. Her two young daughters were among the hundreds of children reassigned to Boya early this month. While she has been told that her daughters will have a better learning environment in the new school, Song frets that Boya is not equipped to meet the huge influx of new students.
"Boya used to have 700 students, but from this year it has nearly 1,400 students," she says. "I really don't know whether that's much safer than their old school. But we can only listen to the government, listen to the teachers."
"They say it's safer — we have to hope so."