No justification for discrimination toward children of migrant workers

Children from Matou town, Tancheng county, play soccer at a Soccer Amusement Park in Linyi, East China's Shandong province, on April 29, 2016. Their parents have left their hometown for work and hardly have time to come back home, making them left-behind children. [Photo/VCG]

Lixia district of ji'nan city, capital of East China's Shandong province, has reportedly passed a new regulation that requires migrant workers to show a college diploma or their children will be prohibited from going to local primary schools. This is open discrimination, says a comment on Beijing News:

The Lixia district education bureau has violated the rights of migrant workers, as well as broken the common practice of cities. Actually, most cities allow children of migrant workers to go to local schools as long as the workers have stable jobs and pay tax. Lixia district is openly discriminating against certain migrant workers and their children.

Worse, it is the government's role to promote social equality, instead of vice versa. The children, whose parents have low educational backgrounds, already belong to an inferior group and they should be helped to improve their future. Lixia has done the opposite, which will only widen the social gaps.

Some have defended the Lixia officials by saying public schools are important resources and they should be reserved for local children.

However, last March, Li Limin, vice minister of education, required local public schools to accept children of migrant workers, and said the central government will compensate the schools with better funding.

Later, the State Council, China's Cabinet, promised to further improve the compulsory education system and allocate educational funds to the schools where children of migrant workers are enrolled, instead of those where they have residence registration. That has solved the problem of local educational bureaus because the more children of migrant workers a school accepts, the more money it gets from the State.

So there is no excuse for the Lixia educational authorities to insist on their discriminatory policies against children of migrant workers.