The Practice of Elementary Education Right Protection Proposed in International Human Rights Conventions in China
— From the Perspective of the Compulsory Education of Migrant Children
XU Shuang* & ZHAO Chen**
Abstract: The right to education is a basic human right. China has actively implemented the international treaties on the right of migrant children to elementary education and provided institutional support to ensure the implementation of elementary education policy. In practice, however, due to factors such as regional differences and fiscal capacity, the problems of equal treatment and a balanced distribution of educational resources remain to be addressed. In this regard, this paper suggests solving the problems from the perspectives of enhancing the implementation of international treaties, increasing compulsory education resources, improving the quality of education, and adjusting policies.
Keywords: migrant children ♦ the right to elementary education ♦ compulsory education
The right to education is a basic human right and a necessary mean to realize other human rights. As a way to gain talent and ability, education is a basic tool, only when adults and children who have the low economic and social status receive education, can they get rid of that status and obtain the means to become fully involved in social life.1 As an important part of the right to education, the right to elementary education is confirmed and safeguarded in international treaties such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of Children, as well as the constitutions and laws of most countries. Migrant children are one of the vulnerable groups in Chinese society, so their right to elementary education merits attention.
China has made great efforts to protect the right to elementary education of migrant children which has been recognized by the international community. From 2012 to 2015, the central government invested 34.6 billion yuan in financial support, nearly 90 percent of the total financial support rural migrant workers received from the government, to ensure migrant children who satisfied the requirements of the local governments were enrolled in public schools, and exempt from tuition fees and temporary schooling charges. In 2015, there were 13.671 million children of migrant workers nationwide receiving compulsory education, 80 percent of whom were enrolled in public schools. Local governments also tried to actively arrange for the children of migrant workers to receive education in generalized preferential private schools in the form of government purchasing services.2
Ⅰ. China Actively Implements International Treaties on the Right of Migrant Children to Elementary Education
A. The right to elementary education in international treaties
At present, the international treaties that China has joined and which are effective and relevant to safeguarding the right to elementary education include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. As a state party to the treaties, China has actively implemented its treaty obligations, ensured that citizens enjoy all rights including the right to elementary education, and actively provided institutional guarantees for the realization of these rights.
Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly stipulates that "everyone has the right to education" and "education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms". This provision has become the common standard for all people and countries. Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and is therefore not legally binding, its provisions have become customary law in the field of human rights, its moral force and influence cannot be ignored.
Paragraph 1 of Article 28 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child defines the obligations of the state parties to establish an education system and ensure access to education, clearly stipulating that the state parties shall "make primary education compulsory and available free to all". Although due to differences in national obligations, the Convention allows state parties to gradually achieve various education obligations under Article 28, providing free compulsory primary education and equal education opportunity is the minimum treaty obligations of state parties.3 China submitted performance reports to the United Nations in 1996 and 2003.
Article 13 and Article 14 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provide obligations to ensure free and compulsory primary education and measures to strive for free secondary and higher education.4 The Economic, Social and Cultural Committee has made specific provisions on the right to elementary education stating elementary education is the most important part of fundamental education with the characteristics of being compulsory and free of charge;5 meanwhile it has also fully explained "compulsory" and "free of charge". "Compulsory" requires that neither parents, guardians nor the state have the right to regard the decision on whether children should receive the elementary education as optional, sexual discrimination in education should be prohibited, and the education provided by the state should be of good quality, suitable for children and can promote the realization of children's other rights.6 "Free of charge" requires providing elementary education without charging any fees, either directly or indirectly, of children, parents or guardians.7 China submitted performance reports to the United Nations in 2004 and 2012.
B. The institutional guarantee of migrant children's right to elementary education in China
1. Laws and regulations
After the 1980s, China's education cause entered a period of legislation, systemization and institutionalization. Article 46 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China stipulates that "the citizens of the People's Republic of China have the right and obligation to receive education". Based on the Constitution, the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee have engaged in comprehensive educational legislation by successively promulgating a series of laws and regulations on education, including the Degree Ordinance, the Compulsory Education Law, the Teacher Law, the Education Law, the Vocational Education Law, and the Higher Education Law, preliminarily forming a relatively complete legal framework for education. The laws concerning compulsory education of migrant children mainly include the following ones.
a. The Constitution
Paragraph 1 of Article 46 of the Constitution prescribes that "the citizens of the People's Republic of China have the right and obligation to receive education". In order to guarantee citizens' right to education, the state shall undertake its necessary obligations, including developing the educational cause, establishing various types of schools, universalizing compulsory elementary education, developing secondary education, vocational education and higher education as well as preschool education, establishing various kinds of educational facilities, and providing technological training to workers.8 However, as to how to safeguard the right to elementary education, it's necessary to make concrete legal provisions besides the existing provisions on principle.
b. The Compulsory Education Law
he Compulsory Education Law aims to guarantee the right of the school-age children and adolescents to receive compulsory education, ensure the implementation of compulsory education policy and improve the quality of the whole nation, so it is of great significance to guarantee the right of migrant children to elementary education. Chapter 1 of the Law (General Provisions) makes overall provisions on the compulsory education system in China. Article 2 stipulates that the system of nine-year compulsory education is practiced in China. Compulsory education is defined as a public welfare cause implemented uniformly by the state for all school-age children and adolescents without charging tuition or miscellaneous fees. The principle of equality stipulated in Article 49 is also about "compulsoriness". Article 11 provides for the age of children who receive compulsory education by stating that any children who has attained the age of 6 shall be enrolled in school to finish compulsory education. Article 1210 stipulates that the qualification of children for receiving compulsory education is determined based on their permanent residences and the governments of their permanent residences shall provide children with the conditions for the compulsory education. When the children migrate with their parents or other statutory guardians to the places other than their registered permanent residences, the government of the place in which they dwell shall provide them with the conditions for compulsory education.11 As to the financial support for implementing compulsory education, i.e. the sources of educational funds, Articles 42 and 44 of the Compulsory Education Law12 stipulate that compulsory education funds shall be guaranteed by both the central and local governments, and the State Council is authorized to stipulate the specific proportion.
In addition, the Law on the National Commonly Used Language and Script, the Law on the Promotion of Private Education, the Law on the Protection of the Minors, and the Ordinance on the Education of the Disabled make provisions on safeguarding the equal right of citizens to education, respecting the development of each student's personality and character, respecting human rights and protecting students'legitimate rights and interests. The formulation and implementation of these laws and regulations ensure the realization of the rights of migrant children to elementary education.
To ensure the full realization of the right of migrant children to elementary education, the state has formulated a series of programs, plans and policies for educational development.
The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued the Interim Measures for Education of Migrant Children (hereinafter referred to as the Interim Measures) in 1998, proposing new countermeasures to solve the education problems of migrant children by allowing them to be enrolled public primary and secondary schools for temporary schooling in the place of residence full-time and authorizing the schools in the place of residence to collect temporary schooling fee. However, in the same year, the Notice of the Opinions on Solving a Number of Major Problems in Household Registration Management proposed the task of controlling the population in big cities, so the implementation of the Interim Measures was frustrated.13 The State Council issued the China National Program for Child Development (2001-2010) and the Decision of the State Council on the Reform and Development of Elementary Education in 2001, putting forward the basic strategies of giving priority for the management migrant children to the governments in their places of residence and full-time public elementary and secondary schools14, so as to safeguard the rights of migrant children to compulsory education. Subsequently, the state has issued a series of documents reiterating these strategies, including the Notice on Promoting the Management of and Providing Service to Rural Migrant Workers in Cities, the Decision of the State Council on Further Enhancing Rural Education, the Opinions on Further Promoting the Education of the Children of Rural Migrant Workers in Cities in 2003, and A Number of Opinions of the Ministry of Education on Further Promoting the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education in 2005. 15
In 2010, the State Council passed the National Program for Medium and Longterm Educational Reform and Development (2010-2020), which provides the basic notion and program for the educational development over the ten years, and stresses "adhering to giving priority to the management of the government of the place of residence of migrant children, and full-time education in public elementary and secondary schools, ensuring the equal access of the children of rural migrant workers to compulsory education, and formulating the measures for migrant children taking the entrance exams after receiving compulsory education in the place of residence."16 The Notice on Further Improving the Mechanism for Guaranteeing Urban and Rural Compulsory Education Funds (hereinafter referred to as the Notice) in 2015 establishes the mechanism for guaranteeing compulsory education funds with the unified management of urban and rural areas and focus on rural areas, which has benefited 140 million students, including more than 13 million migrant children.17 The Notice requires "unifying the mechanism for safeguarding urban and rural compulsory education funds, carrying out the policies of two exemptions and one subsidy and transferring of student average public-use operating funds benchmark quota capital with students", with a 600 to 650 yuan subsidy for primary students and 800 to 850 yuan subsidy for junior high school students, which can be said to be a major progress in the development of compulsory education of migrant children.
C. The achievements in the rights of migrant children to education in China
In recent years, faced with the challenges brought about by the modernization and urbanization, the central and local governments as well as educational departments at all levels have taken many measures to realize the educational rights of migrant children, and achieved positive results, which may be illustrated by the experiences of the following cities.
In the face of ever-increasing number of children of migrant workers, the Beijing municipal government formulated relevant documents including the Opinions on Implementing the Work Documents of the State Council on Exempting Tuition and Miscellaneous Fees of the Students at Compulsory Education Stage, the Notice on Promoting the Enrollment Registration and Propaganda of Migrant Children in Beijing, the Guide for Key Investment of District and County Educational Subsidies in 2010, and the Beijing Program for Medium and Long-term Educational Reform and Development (2010-2020), so as to actively solve the problem of migrant children receiving compulsory education in Beijing and shift the approach from "differentiated treatment" to "equal treatment in the same city". 18
The Shanghai and Chongqing municipal governments have taken different measures according to their own conditions and constraints in solving the problem of the education of migrant children. In 2008, the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Education launched a three-year action plan (2008-2010) for the education of the children of migrant workers in the city and achieved remarkable results. By the autumn of 2010, more than 420,000 children of rural migrant workers in the city had been enrolled in public schools or the private primary schools entrusted by the government to receive compulsory education for free, of whom more than 300,000 students were enrolled in public schools, accounting for 70 percent of the total number.19 Since implementing the Ordinance of Compulsory Education in Chongqing in 2011, the Chongqing municipal government has set up special educational funds for migrant children in accordance with the requirements of giving priority to the management of the government of the place of residence of migrant children and education at full-time public elementary and secondary schools. There were 657 public schools enrolling 278,000 migrant children in 2012, and 1,967 public schools enrolling 340,000 migrant children in 2014.20 The policy of a "zero threshold" for the enrolment of migrant children was implemented in the city in 2015, which further protected the educational rights of migrant children.
The migrant children in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in central China, are mainly from the province, so Wuhan the government mainly solves the education problem of migrant children through developing and expanding the capacity of public schools. Since 2000, the Wuhan government has adopted the policy of enrollment according to permanent residences based on the principle of "relative closeness" and admitted migrant children into public schools. In 2010, the Wuhan government canceled its temporary schooling fee for compulsory education. The proportion of children of migrant workers admitted to public schools in Wuhan increased from 30 percent in 2000 to 95.1 percent in 2011, making it the first city to effectively solve the problem of the compulsory education of the children of migrant workers.21
The migrant population in the Pearl River Delta region is mainly composed of migrant workers, and the migrant population is far more than the household registration population. Therefore, the main approaches to solve the education problems of migrant children adopted by the cities in the Pearl River Delta region are a pointsbased enrollment policy and the development of private schools. In 2009, Zhongshan municipal government initiated a points-based system for the migrant population in Guangdong province, and by 2013, more than 25,500 migrant children had enough points to be eligible for enrollment in public primary schools and junior high schools. In 2016, after the adjustment of the points-based system in Zhongshan, the number of points admission indexes in the city increased by 18.12 percent on the number in 2015.22 From 2008 to 2014, the Guangzhou municipal and district governments invested 1.19 billion yuan into private schools. The Dongguan government spent more than 3 billion yuan in 2015 supporting private schools improving their teaching quality and providing tuition subsidies.23
Ⅱ. The Practice of Protecting the Right of Migrant Children to Elementary Education in China
A. The definition of migrant children
"Population migration" and "migration population" are the concepts recognized by the international community24, while "migrating population" and "migrant population" are the unique phenomena based on the household registration system in China. The migrant population refers to the population whose residence and household registration place are inconsistent and who have left the place where their household registration is held for more than half a year, excluding the population whose residence and household registration place are inconsistent within a city.25
Based on the existing household registration system, a change in the place of residence within China (across different provinces, cities or counties, or across different townships within the same county) may lead to two situations: population migration and a migration population with corresponding changes to their household registration, and population migrating and migrant population without corresponding changes of household registration.
With economic development and urbanization in China, a large number of migrant children have emerged along with rural migrant workers. According to the Statistics Communique of the National Education Cause issued by the Ministry of Education in 2015, migrant children refer to the school-age children and adolescents whose household registration is in the rural areas of other provinces (districts or cities), other counties (districts) within the same province, and who live with their parents in the urban areas where their parents are working at and receive compulsory education there. These children are the so-called migrant children discussed in this paper.
B. The status quo of the education of migrant children in China
It is mentioned in the second round of periodical reports submitted by the Chinese government to the United Nations in 2013 that there were at that time 13,938,700 migrant children receiving compulsory education in urban areas, accounting for about 9.7 percent of the total number of students of compulsory education, 80.2 percent of them being enrolled in public schools; the Chinese government has taken measures such as allowing them to take local entrance exams to gradually address the problem of migrant children proceeding with their education after receiving compulsory education in urban areas.26 In fact, judged from the perspectives of the four basic characteristics of education right, there are still some problems in the realization of the right of migrant children to elementary education in China.
In terms of availability, states parties should set up enough educational institutions and programs within their jurisdiction. From 2000 to 2010, the number of primary schools in urban areas in China fell from 32,154 to 16,400, and the number of secondary schools fell from 12,723 to 7,283. Judged from the quantity of schools, the efforts to increase the supply of compulsory education resources are relatively limited in urban areas, and the supply capacity of compulsory education resources is continuously shrinking.27
In terms of accessibility, within the jurisdiction of state parties, everyone should have access to educational institutions and programs without any discrimination. However, there are many problems in the access of migrant children to compulsory education in China. In April 2016, the Beijing Municipal Education Commission issued the enrollment policy of compulsory education, including requiring the parents of non-native school-age children to provide five certificates for enrollment in a Beijing school — a residential certificate, certificate of family planning, employment certificate, certificate of having no condition for guardianship in the household registration place and certificate of successive payment of social security. However, under the combined pressure of strict control of the soaring population of large cities and the nontransferable education funds, the educational committees of various districts even require more certificates to be presented in reality. In February 2017, the Ministry of Education announced the work priorities for the year, including formulating the enrollment policy of migrant children mainly on the basis of their families’ residential certificates, providing guidance to various local governments to arrange for compulsory education students to be enrolled in the neighborhood schools without taking entrance exams, implementing and improving the policy of migrant children taking entrance exams in local places, and urging governments of relevant provinces and cities, especially large cities to improve the policy whereby migrant children can sit the National College Entrance Exam in local places based on household registration system reform and local conditions. If these tasks can be completed, it will undoubtedly improve the accessibility of compulsory education for migrant children.
In addition to practical accessibility, economic accessibility is also an assessment factor. Elementary education should be free for all students. In 2010, the Ministry of Education issued the Decision of the Ministry of Education on Revising and Repealing Some Regulations, deleting a provision of Article 12 of the Primary School Administration Regulations — which stated primary schools could collect a temporary schooling fee in accordance with relevant provisions. Meanwhile, "founding schools by raising funds" was also removed from the Interim Measures for the Evaluation and Acceptance of Universal Compulsory Education. In addition, the following regulations were successively repealed due to obvious inconsistencies with the requirements for educational reform and development, or were replaced by new regulations: the Interim Measures for the Management of Institutions of Higher Learning and Science and Technology Research Directly under State Education Commission, the Interim Provisions on the Establishment of Private Schools of Higher Learning, the Interim Provisions on the Management of Compulsory Education Operating Funds and the Operational Procedures for the Management of National Student Loan (trial).28
In terms of acceptability and adjustability, the form and substance of education must be acceptable to students, and flexible enough to meet the needs of the students from various social and cultural backgrounds, and shall not violate the national educational goals and the minimum standard of education. The Report on the Development of the Education of Migrant Children in China issued in 2017 states that, by the end of 2014, 79.5 percent of migrant children eligible for compulsory education were enrolled in urban public schools, and more than 2 million migrant children failed to be enrolled in urban public schools and had to be enrolled in private schools or schools for children of migrant workers with primitive conditions."29 Private schools and schools for children of migrant workers have poor software and hardware, and unsatisfied teaching quality compared with public schools, so it is difficult for them to achieve education quality standards required by the "compulsory" provisions of elementary education.
Ⅲ. Improvement Suggestions for the Realization of the Rights of Migrant Children to Elementary Education in China
Unfortunately, migrant children cannot obtain basic public services such as public education and health care equally with their peers. They may be excluded from equal access to education rights by the existing household registration system and the urban administration departments. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights pointed out in its 11th General Opinion that the children losing education opportunities are have other rights infringed upon, for example, the children may live in poverty with unhealthy way of life, so they are more prone to being used as child labour or explicated in other ways.30 Children who have lost the opportunity of education are more likely to have deviant behaviors than those who have received education. A national sample survey of juvenile delinquents conducted by the Chinese Society for the Study of Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency found that, 75.9 percent of juvenile delinquents had not finished the nine-year compulsory education, and up to 64.7 percent of the urban juvenile delinquents had the shared characteristics of "attaining statutory school age, not attending school, and having no jobs". 31 Thus protecting children's right to education not only affects the future of every child, but also affects social stability and development. How to strengthen the protection of the rights of migrant children to elementary education? We hold that the following approaches can be considered:
(1) The implementation of international conventions in China can be further enhanced. The implementation of the international conventions on human rights in China can be divided into two categories: direct implementation and indirect implementation. Direct implementation of the conventions means there are no special provisions determining the relationship between international conventions and domestic laws, and the international conventions accord with Constitution of the People's Republic of China and the Legislation Law. The direct implementation of international conventions is stipulated in the General Principles of Civil Law concerning "foreign-related civil legal relationship". Indirect application refers to the implementation of the principle of international conventions and international standards through domestic legislation, judicial and administrative measures. China has established a relatively complete legal system for the right of migrant children to elementary education through the Compulsory Education Law, but its concrete implementation still needs to be refined. For example, it is necessary to explicitly provide for the specific appropriation proportion of compulsory education funds for central and local governments in the form of law, so as to ensure the realization of the right to education. Moreover, it is necessary to integrate into law the policy of enrolment of migrant children of compulsory education primarily on the basis of residential certificates.
(2) Increase the supply of compulsory educational resources and improve the educational quality of migrant children's schools. In view of the continuous decline of school enrollment capacity (school numbers) currently in China, it is vital to increase the supply of compulsory educational resources, and increase the number of public schools, so as to improve the availability of compulsory education to migrant children. At the same time, there are still about 2.05 million migrant children enrolled in migrant children's schools nationwide. Therefore, it is also necessary to effectively improve the teaching quality of such schools and improve corresponding teaching facilities. Governments can be more active to coordinate various departments and carry out comprehensive control and management to satisfy the needs of migrant children with various social and cultural backgrounds based on the specific reality of different regions and communities.
(3) Adjust policies to meet the requirements of the Education Law, lower the threshold of the rights of migrant children to elementary education and reduce discrimination. Take Beijing as an example. The Beijing Municipal Government Work Report in 2014 proposed to strengthen control of the city's population size, reduce the growth rate of the permanent population and control the size of the migrant population. This undoubtedly has a corresponding impact on the enrollment of migrant children. In this regard, the government should actively adjust its policy orientation, lower the enrollment threshold of compulsory education for migrant children, and eliminate unreasonable eligibility restrictions for the enrollment of school-age migrant children; clarify the public welfare nature of compulsory education, and ban the collection of illegal and unreasonable fees; adjust policies in order to reduce the discrimination against migrant children, ensure migrant children enjoy educational fairness, and enhance their sense of belonging and local social identity.
Education problems are very complex, and the protection of the right to education is a systematic project that relates to all aspects of society. These suggestions are aimed at enhancing the fairness and operability of the protection of migrant children’s elementary education rights. The central government has integrated the implementation of the protection of the right of migrant children to elementary education in a number of documents including the Assessment Report on the Implementation of National Human Rights Action Plan (2012-2015), The Right to Development: China’s Notion, Practice and Contribution (the white paper), and China National Program for Implementing the Sustainable Development Agenda in 2030. What is clear is that China has continued to attach importance to the right of migrant children to elementary education and continued to improve the system of elementary education and its support measures, and taken all kinds of feasible measures to continually promote the elementary education rights of migrant children to be implemented universally, comprehensively and fully.
(Translated by ZHAO Hongfang)
* XU Shuang ( 徐爽 ), associate professor of Institute for Human Rights at China University of Political Science and Law.
** ZHAO Chen ( 赵晨 ), postgraduate student of Institute for Human Rights at China University of Political Science and Law.
1. See the 13th General Opinion of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: The Right to Education (Article 13 of the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), para. 1.
2. The State Council Information Office of P.R.C., Assessment Report on the Implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan (2012-2015).
3. Wang Hui, "The Implementation of the Protection of the Equal Right to Education Proposed in International Human Rights Conventions in China: From the Perspective of Compulsory Education of Rural Migrant Children", Anti-discrimination Review, no. 1 (2014): 138.
4. See Xu Shuang, ed., Guide for Human Rights (Beijing: Law Publishing House, 2011), 10.
5. See the 13th General Opinion of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: The Right to Education (Article 13 of the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), para. 9 and 10.
6. See the 11th General Opinion of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Action Plan for Elementary Education (Article 14 of the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), para. 6.
7. Ibid., para. 7.
8. See Article 19 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China (revised in 2004).
9. Article 4 of the Compulsory Education Law: "All children and adolescents who have the nationality of the People's Republic of China and have reached the school age shall have equal right and have the obligation to receive compulsory education, regardless of gender, nationality, race, status of family property or religious belief, etc."
10. Article 12 of the Compulsory Education Law: "The School-age children and adolescents shall go to school without taking any examination. The local people's governments at all levels shall ensure that school-age children and adolescents are enrolled in the schools near the permanent residences of the school-age children
and adolescents.
For a school-age child or adolescent whose parents are working or dwelling at a place other than their permanent residence, if he/she receives compulsory education at the place where his/her parents or other statutory guardians are working or dwelling, the local people’s government shall provide him/her with equal conditions for receiving compulsory education. The concrete measures shall be formulated by the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government. "
11. See Wang Hui, "The Implementation of the Protection of the Equal Right to Education Proposed in International Human Rights Conventions in China: From the Perspective of Compulsory Education of Rural Migrant Children", Anti-discrimination Review, no. 1 (2014): 143.
12. Article 42 of the Compulsory Education Law: "The state shall integrate the entire compulsory education into the scope of financial guarantee. The operating funds for compulsory education shall be guaranteed by the State Council and the local people's governments at all levels in pursuance of the law.
The State Council and the people's governments at all levels shall integrate the operating funds for compulsory education into the financial budget. They shall appropriate the operating funds in full amounts according to the authorized number of school staff, the salary standards, the school construction standards and the average public-use operating funds for students so as to ensure the normal operation of the schools; and the safety of school buildings and timely payment of the salaries of the school staff according to relevant provisions. The increase rate of the treasury funds appropriated by the State Council and the local people's governments at all levels for the implementation of the compulsory education policy shall be higher than that of the current income of treasury so as to ensure the gradual increase of the average compulsory education funds based on the number of attending students as well as the gradual increase of the salaries of the school staff and the average public-use operating fund for students."
Article 44 of the Compulsory Education Law: "The compulsory education operating funds shall be jointly paid by the State Council and the local people's governments at all levels according to their respective functions. The people's governments of the provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government shall be responsible for formulating plans and implementing the plans. The operating funds essential for rural compulsory education shall, according to the items an proportions as specified by the State Council, be paid by the people's governments at all levels.
For school-age children and adolescents whose families have financial difficulties, the people's governments at all levels shall provide them with gratuitous textbooks and give living cost subsidies to boarding students.
The concrete measures for guaranteeing the operating funds for compulsory education shall be formulated by the State Council.”
13. Li Nan, "What's Wrong with the Difficulties in Enrolment of Migrant Children?"
14. See the Decision of the State Council on Fundamental Education Reform and Development issued by the Ministry of Education of P.R.C.
15. Yan Guangfen and Xu Yanchen,"Policy Guarantee of the Equal Right of Migrant Children to Compulsory Education", in The Report on the Development of Human Rights Cause in China (2012), ed. Li Junru (Beijing: Social Sciences Literature Publishing House, 2012), 178.
16. See the Ministry of Education of P.R.C., National Program for the Medium and Long-term Reform and Development of Education (2010-2020).
17. See "Part VI. Comprehensively Improve Social Development", in The Right to Development: China's Notion, Practice and Contributions, issued by the State Council Information Office of P.R.C..
18. Yan Guangfen and Xu Yanchen, "Policy Guarantee of the Equal Right of Migrant Children to Compulsory Education", in The Report on the Development of Human Rights Cause in China (2012), ed. Li Junru (Beijing: Social Sciences Literature Publishing House, 2012), 178.
19. "Five Major Changes Brought about by the Implementation of the Three-year Action Plan for the Compulsory Education of the Migrant Children in Shanghai".
20. "The Report of Law Enforcement Inspection Group of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Chongqing on Inspecting the Implementation of Chongqing Ordinance on Compulsory Education", Communique of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Chongqing, no. 6 (2015).
21. "Wuhan: the Realization of Children of Rural Migrant Workers Getting Enrolled in Public Schools in Four Years".
22. See Wu Kaijun, "The Status Quo, Problems and Policy Suggestions of the Compulsory Education of Migrant Children in the Pearl River Delta Region", in The Report on the Development of Education of Migrant Children in China (2016), ed. Yang Dongping (Beijing: Social Sciences Literature Publishing House, 2017), 158-160.
23. See "The Report of Law Enforcement Inspection Group of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Chongqing on Inspecting the Implementation of Chongqing Ordinance on Compulsory Education", Communique of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Chongqing, no. 6 (2015).
24. According to the Handbook of Population compiled by the US Population Reference Bureau, "population migration" refers to "the migration of population aiming at changing permanent residences and crossing the border".
25. See the definition in The Communique on Major Figures of the Sixth National Population Census in 2010 (No. 1) issued by the National Statistics Bureau of China on April 28, 2011.
26. See the national report submitted in accordance with paragraph 5 of attached file of Resolution no.16/21 of the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2013, A/HRC/WG.6/17/CHN/1, on August 5, 2013, para. 38.
27. See New Citizen Plan, Report on the Statistics of Migrant Children in China (2014), September 2014, 13.
28. See Order no. 30 of the Ministry of Education of P.R.C., The Decision of the Ministry of Education on Revising and Repealing Some Regulations.
29. See Yang Dongping, "The Development and Policy Change of the Education of Migrant Children in China", in The Report on the Development of the Education of Migrant Children in China (2016), ed. Yang Dongping(Beijing: Social Sciences Literature Publishing House, 2017), 4.
30. See the 11th General Opinion of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Action Plan for Elementary Education (Article 14 of the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), para. 4.
31. For concrete analysis, see Guan Ying and Liu Na, "Cross-year Comparison of the Features of Juvenile Delinquents: Based on the Statistics of Two Surveys of Juvenile Delinquents Nationwide", Research on the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, no. 6 (2012), quoted from Wang Hui, "The Implementation of the Protection of the Equal Right to Education Proposed in International Human Rights Conventions in China: From the Perspective of Compulsory Education of Rural Migrant Children", Anti-discrimination Review, no. 1(2014): 149.
