Migrant school teachers happy despite uncertain futures

BEIJING - After graduating with a law degree from China's top-ranked Peking University, Li Min never imagined she would work not as an elite lawyer, but as a teacher earning a paltry salary in a school for migrant children.

Li, who asked that her real name be withheld, works in Wenhua School, a primary school located in the outskirts of Beijing for children of migrant workers living in the metropolis. Her monthly salary comes to 1,000 yuan ($157.8), with no bonuses, benefits or insurance.

The school is named after the couple Xu Wenbin and Li Fenghua, two teachers from north China's Hebei Province who founded the school in 2001 with the money they made selling their two head of cattle.

There are currently over 300 students in 10 classes from grade one to six, plus two preschool classes.

Each class has only one teacher to give all the lessons in Chinese, mathematics and English. Teaching music and art classes is optional for teachers who may have some knowledge in these fields.

"I volunteered to come here temporarily just to fill in for a grade-three teacher who had just left, but later found it difficult to leave," Li said.

Scores of Li's students have made great progress, and parents have told her they trust her with their children and they want her to stay.

Moreover, the children have made it difficult for her to leave. "One day in the hot weather, my students used their own pocket money to buy me an ice cream, which might be a luxury for the underprivileged kids themselves," Li said.

However, Li can not stop worrying about her own life and future. In the city where residents' average monthly salary in 2011 was over 4,600 yuan and annual household spending was around 20,000 yuan, Li and her colleagues can hardly make ends meet on their limited wages.

"Rent and water and electricity bills cost me over 800 yuan every month, and I can hardly save any money, even with the most frugal lifestyle," said grade two teacher Wang Fang, who has been teaching in the school for one year and also asked that her real name be withheld.

Wang attends night school at Beijing Normal University, hoping she can secure a college degree in education, which may provide an opportunity for her to teach in a public school.

The school's founder and headmaster Xu Wenbin said he appreciates Wang for staying such a long time, as most of the teachers leave after just half a year.

"The kids need teachers, but I know the teachers have to deal with their own livelihoods," he said.

The difficulties of Wenhua School may be common among many migrant schools.

According to the municipal education authority in Beijing, there are 158 similar migrant schools in the city, and only 59 of them have received official approvals.

Xu said obtaining such approvals would require an investment of at least 1.5 million yuan and quality teaching facilities, making it an impossible mission for Wenhua, which relies on students' scanty tuition fees.

Official statistics show that the country has more than 250 million farmers-turned workers currently employed in cities, and more than 20 million children who have moved to cities with their parents.

Last year, the enrollment rate among children of rural migrant workers in public schools reached 79.4 percent. Another 10 percent attended schools in government-supported private schools, and another 3 percent studied in schools like Wenhua, which are run by migrant workers.

For Wang, saying goodbye will be difficult. "I will certainly miss the students here if I leave. I would love to stay with them, because they have the most innocent minds and very studious attitudes. But the salary is a practical problem," she said.

Li is also uncertain about her future, as bread and butter issues undermine her enthusiasm for teaching.

Moreover, she is still hiding her real job situation from her parents, who expect brilliant professional prospects for their daughter.

"If only Wenhua were a public school," she said.