Education authorities have shut down about 30 private primary schools for migrant workers' children in Daxing, Chaoyang and Haidian districts of Beijing for safety reasons since June, forcing about 30,000 pupils to miss out on compulsory education. The safety of children in schools depends on officials' efficiency, and guaranteeing migrant workers' proper education depends on their conscience, says an article on southcn.com. Excerpts:

Officials in charge of the three districts have said the schools were shut down because they didn't have permits and their buildings didn't meet the safety standards.

But since 2006, the education authorities have not issued even a single permit to private schools for migrant workers' children, making it impossible for individuals and organizations running private schools to rent new or better quality buildings. So the reasons for shutting down the schools were created by the local government itself.

Perhaps this is officials' way of saying that children not qualified to attend schools in Beijing for lack of hukou (household registration) have to return home to get education. But living away from parents is detrimental to children's physical and mental health, and in the long run, such children can become a serious social problem.

Maybe city authorities' decision to shut down private schools for migrant workers' children is intended to drive away the so-called low-quality migrants to alleviate population pressure in urban areas.

The only way the problem of educating migrant workers' children can be solved is through a thorough reform of the hukou system. The pattern of funding education should be reformed, too, by increasing the central government's allocation for basic education.

If such reform is implemented, local officials can no longer cite excuses to deny equal education opportunity to migrant workers' children.

There can be many reasons for a government to treat the rich, the middle class and the poor differently. But there is no reason for a government to deny children of poor parents the right to education.

(China Daily 08/19/2011 page9)