Compulsory education in rural areas should be guaranteed

The central government should strictly investigate local authorities that are blindly closing and merging rural middle and primary schools in order to guarantee rural students' compulsory education rights, says an article in Beijing Youth Daily. Excerpts:

According to the National Audit Office's recent statistics about rural middle and primary schools, many rural students suffer from the closing and merging of remote rural schools. Drop out rates for students in 2011 was 2.1 times that of 2006 because of increasing transportation and accommodation expenditures for parents.

In September, the State Council required local authorities to stop blindly closing or merging rural middle and primary schools, but the central government hasn't investigated the role that local authorities have had in increasing students' burdens and the drop out rate.

According to Compulsory Educational Law, some local authorities failed to perform their duty of guaranteeing rural students' compulsory education, which should be investigated according to the law. Without an accountability mechanism, rural students' rights of compulsory education can hardly be guaranteed and local authorities may do such things again.