Yang Yinli, like millions of migrant workers in China, sent her first son to live with his grandparents in the countryside. It was a choice she would bitterly regret.
No one was watching the lively six-year-old when he was struck and killed by a truck roaring through the steep village roads. Heartbroken, Ms Yang bore a second son and vowed to raise him in Beijing, stuffing a crib into her tiny shop and keeping a close eye as the toddler played on the pavements.
But new regulations announced this year may force her to send her son, now five, away to be educated. The regulations, which in effect prevent migrant children from entering the first year at Beijing schools, triggered weeks of protests this spring by crowds of anguished parents.
The battle faced by migrants for a basic education in Beijing and other major urban centres shows how China is struggling to accommodate the millions flowing to its cities despite a national policy of stimulating urbanisation. “His father could move with him but then what about me? I would still be far from the child,” Ms Yang says, her voice cracking.
About 40 per cent of the primary schoolchildren in Beijing lack a city hukou , the official household residency permit that grants access to social services, including education, healthcare and the right to buy homes. Nonetheless, in recent years they have been permitted to attend primary school in the city, a concession that has allowed many migrant couples to keep young children by their side. This school year alone, 470,800 non-Beijing hukou — or migrant — students attended primary and middle school in Beijing.
A relic of the famines during early Communist rule, the hukou system was introduced in the 1950s to keep the peasantry out of cities where food was more plentiful. It has gradually been relaxed as a flood of workers moved out of rural villages to the factories in cities along the prosperous coast but migrants still remain second-class citizens in many of the cities where they have settled.
Official statistics show that 55 per cent of Chinese, or 749m people, now live in cities, up from 19 per cent in 1980 at the dawn of market reforms, although the real number is probably higher — and still rising. A government think-tank has estimated it would cost about $100bn per year to integrate another 400m people into the cities over the coming decade.
Reforms that allow migrants to establish residency in provincial cities have been accompanied by tighter restrictions for some, mostly hitting those who have moved to the biggest cities, or those who often change jobs and residences.
“If we were a market economy, the problem of population would sort itself out and resources would flow more evenly. But China is not a fully market economy and a lot of resources are still concentrated in the hands of certain cities,” says Hu Xingdou, an economist who studies migrant issues at the Beijing Institute of Technology. “Under these circumstances we can never have the free movement of people.”
Recent policies — such as the rules on education — seek to push migrants out of the most attractive and high-wage places into provincial cities where there is a glut of new housing. Those policies, a reversal of several decades of population flow into the biggest cities, force migrant parents to once again to face the choice of confiding young children to the care of elderly and uneducated grandparents or to enrol them in distant boarding schools.
In May hundreds of migrant parents staged daily protests at education offices in Chaoyang district in Beijing. Videos of one protest show burly policemen dragging off weeping mothers while the crowd chants “It’s not right!”
Anger is particularly strong because many migrant parents paid into Beijing’s social security system following tightened regulations issued last year, only to be stymied by additional requirements announced in late April. Those include rental documentation that migrants crowded into temporary housing cannot provide.
The Beijing Municipal Education Bureau referred questions on specific policies to the district. The district bureau said it was too busy preparing for college entrance exams to answer the FT’s faxed questions.
At pickup time at one Chaoyang district pre-school, parents exchanged notes. “I think it is unfair,” said Ms Zheng from Fujian Province, the mother of seven-year old twins who were born in Beijing. “Why should migrant children be separated out?” She declined to give her full name for fear of damaging the boys’ chances of somehow entering school.
Ms Zheng had hoped regulations would evolve to allow her twins to someday attend high school in the city. Currently, children can only take the university entrance exam where their hukou is registered, exiling city kids to provincial towns hundreds of miles away just as they hit their teenage years. Grades plummet and it is common for children who were decent students in the cities to drop out once they are far from their parents. Sexual abuse and delinquency are growing concerns.
Some desperate teens have made national headlines. In May a 12-year-old girl who had attended at least two years of school in Beijing before being sent back to a desolate village in Sichuan province killed herself and poisoned her grandmother with pesticide.
“It has a great impact on the children but our nation doesn’t think about this much,” says Prof Hu. “We say if the nation is unwilling to build an extra school in the cities today someday it will end up building an extra jail.”
和中國其他浩瀚農人工同樣，楊茵莉(音譯)昔時把第一個兒子送到了鄉間，和祖怙恃住在一路。這個決議無疑讓她懊悔不已。
一輛在峻峭的村莊公路上飛奔的卡車撞上了這個生動的6歲兒童，奪走了他的性命。事發時，沒有大人在看著他。心碎的楊女生厥後又生下一個兒子，起誓要將他帶在身旁撫育。她在小店中塞進了一張兒童床，剛學走路的孩子在人行道上頑耍時，她會當心地看著他。
但是，依據本年頒布的新劃定，為了孩子上學，她大概不能不把本年已5歲的孩子送走。這些劃定現實上阻攔外來兒童進入北京小學的一年級就讀。本年春季，新規宣布後，很多悲哀的怙恃集合在一路，舉辦了為期數周的抗議運動。
外來生齒在北京和其他大都會為爭奪讓後代可以或許接收基本教導所做的奮斗註解，中國固然出了推動都會化的國度政策，但要容納流進都會的宏大人群異常艱苦。楊女生沙啞著嗓子說：“他爸爸可以和他一路走，我怎樣辦?我還得和孩子離開。”
在北京，約莫40%的小門生沒有都會戶口。所謂戶口，是指一種官方的家庭棲身允許證實，用以得到包含教導、醫療及購房權力在內的社會辦事。不外，比年來外來兒童已被許可就讀北京市的小學。政策上的這一妥協，令很多外來務工職員可以將年幼的後代帶在身旁。在本學年，北京中小學非京籍門生(即外來務工職員後代)就有47.08萬人。
作為共產黨在朝初期饑兇年代遺留下的產品，中國的戶籍軌制從上世紀50年月開端實行，將農人斷絕在食物加倍豐碩的都會以外。跟著大批務工職員走出屯子，進入沿海繁華都會的工場，中國的戶籍軌制已慢慢攤開。不外，在很多他們已安家的都會，外來務工職員仍然是二等市民。
中國官方統計數字表現，中國今朝都會生齒為7.49億人，占總生齒的55%，遠高於1980年剛開端市場改造時的19%。不外，現實的數字有大概更高，並且仍然在增加當中。據一家當局智庫估量，要想在往後十年讓別的4億人融入都會，每一年需消費約莫1000億美元。
中國比來對戶籍軌制所做的改造，許可外來生齒落戶一些省城都會，同時一些都會卻收緊了限定，重要受影響的是已遷進一線都會的活動生齒，或常常換事情和棲身所在的人們。
北京理工大學(Beijing Institute of Technology)研討外來務工職員題目的經濟學家胡星辰表現：“假如咱們實施的是市場經濟，生齒題目會主動辦理，資本會更均勻地活動。但是，中國並非完整的市場經濟，大批資本仍會合在一些特定都會。在這類情形下，咱們永久都不會實現人的自由遷移。”
比來的政策(比若有關教導方面的劃定)試圖將外來務工職員從最具吸引力、人為程度最高的地域，引誘向蓋了大批新樓房的省城都會。這些政策與幾十年來生齒流向一線都會的大趨向相背離，迫使活動家庭怙恃再次面對選取：要末將年幼的後代拜托給年紀已高、沒有文化的祖怙恃，要末讓他們就讀偏僻的投止黌舍。
本年5月，數百名來京務工的孩子家長連日在北京市旭日區教導治理機構舉辦抗議運動。個中一場抗議的視頻中，身體魁偉的警員拖著一些正在嗚咽的女人，人群在喊著標語。
客歲當局宣布了一些更嚴厲的劃定後，很多活動兒童怙恃在北京繳了社保，沒想到本年4月尾又出了新劃定，讓人們特別覺得惱怒。這些新劃定包含請求供給各類租房證實，對付擠在暫時性住房中的外來務工職員來講，他們沒法供給這種資料。
北京市教導局將訊問有關詳細政策的題目轉給了旭日區方面，而旭日區教委其時表現忙於歡迎高考，無暇回答英國《金融時報》經由過程傳真提出的題目。
執政陽區一所學前黌舍，家長們在期待接孩子時交換看法。來自福建的鄭女生有一對七歲的雙胞胎，兩個孩子就出身在北京。她說：“我認為不公正。為何外來生齒的後代就應當被差別看待?”因為擔憂會影響到兩個孩子大概有大概的在京上學機遇，這位女生謝絕泄漏全名。
鄭女生願望政策變更會讓她的雙胞胎可以或許在某一天入讀北京的中學。今朝，中國的中門生只能在戶口地點地加入高考。浩瀚都會小孩到了十幾歲時就得回到幾百英裏之外的本省垣市上學。一旦孩子們闊別怙恃，他們的進修成就大概會直線降低，城裏原有的勤學生湧現退學的征象也習以為常。別的，兒童性損害征象和青少年犯法也日趨使人擔心。
時時有一些失望的少男女成為天下消息核心。本年5月，一位12歲的女孩用農藥給奶奶下毒後自盡。這名女孩曾在北京上過最少兩年學，以後被送回四川省偏僻的屯子。
胡星辰傳授表現：“這會讓孩子們遭到異常大的影響，國度對這個題目卻沒有斟酌太多。咱們說，本日國度不肯在都會裏多修一所黌舍，異日就很多修一所牢獄。”
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