Press Interpreter

02/16/06 -- There are many things, which if we only look at the things around us, don't seem at all strange. For example, when we look at the several 14 or 15 year old children by our side who have left school and are unemployed, hanging around in the streets with nothing to do, it doesn't seem like anything at all. But if we widen our view and look at the country's future, the problem doesn't seem so small.

It wouldn't hurt to look at a few numbers: According to statistics, every year students graduating without reaching high school who are entering into the labour market are primarily concentrated in rural areas. Every year there are about 10 million students who graduate at below high school level. From 2004 to 2007 there will be more than 11 million every year. Rural graduates currently account for approximately 45% and graduates from towns and villages approximately 35% coming to a total of about 80% for both types of graduate, graduates from cities only make up about 20%. In the period from 2000 - 2010 the number of students graduating without reaching high school and entering into the ranks of the unemployed has basically been maintained at about 2 million. The rural unemployed still amount to the most, counting for approximately 45%,those from villages for about 35%,with a total of around 80% for the two, those from urban areas are around 20%. From this we can see that the main issues of unemployment in rural and urban areas are somewhat different.

If we look at the division of levels of education, students graduating from high school or higher entering into unemployment are primarily concentrated in the cities, or more specifically, the unemployment issue in urban areas is a university graduate unemployment issue. Moreover, the unemployment issue for graduates of less than high school level is primarily concentrated in rural and village areas, amongst which, the issue in the villages and towns appears gradually to be becoming a more serious trend. If we consider graduates below high school level, it is likely that the majority will be unable to enter into real work; as a result the number of people at this level of unemployment is expected to reach 8 million.

At the same time, statistical data from a research board on teenage offenders in China shows that in recent years teenage offenders already account for more than 70% of all convicted criminals in the country, amongst those, cases involving young offenders aged 15 or 16 account for more than 70% of the total of cases involving young offenders. It could be said that the existence of this army of unemployed graduates who have failed to reach high school level, already directly threatens our social stability and has become a 'submerged reef' - a hidden problem threatening our country's construction of an affluent society. Facing this kind of situation we have good reason to raise the question: What must our society use to start to fill in the empty lives of this huge class of young people who can't get into high school education?

We could establish many more factories and businesses to provide jobs for young people. The problem is that, first of all, from an objective point of view, the national employment situation is very severe and it simply isn't possible to create so many new positions. Secondly, from a subjective point of view, is the importance that this new group of unemployed are primarily primary and middle school graduates and have no way of easily gaining employment. Finally, amongst these many are younger than 16 years old, and according to our country's laws are unable to work (to do so would count as 'child labour'). Therefore, we can assert that relying on establishing factories and businesses to fill the void in these young people's lives is an overly hopeful and essentially academic argument. Thus the only remaining channel is to send them back to the classrooms, delay the entrance of primary and middle school graduates into the labour market until a suitable age and increase their capacity for employment.

This has benefits both for national security and social stability. Even the worst schools are still far better than the best prisons and at a time in young people's lives which is crucial to their future development, only through education will we be able to establish a cultural and ideological foundation upon which young people can smoothly enter into society, and become talented individuals who are of use to it. Moreover, if the opportune time to do 'half the work with twice the result' is missed and afterwards we must again reclaim young people from bad ideological habits, then we will only get 'half the result whilst expounding twice the effort'! It is probably because of this reason that the famous French author Victor Hugo said "He who opens a school door, closes a prison".

For this reason, we can consider extending compulsory education in cities to high school, and at the same time expand the scale of enrolment in urban middle occupational and technological schools and encourage these schools to recruit primary and middle-school graduates from rural areas.

To reach this goal, we must change the way we think about running schools and take the 'popular route': We must collect funds extensively from all levels of society and encourage an enthusiasm for running schools at the grass-roots. At the same time we must reduce the requirements needed to run a school, implement entrance requirements with the widest possible applicability and let many different types of schools flourish on the Chinese mainland. Some people may worry that lowering the requirements for running schools and liberalising entrance requirements could lead to a fall in the quality of education which would not be beneficial to cultivating individual talent. In reality there is no need to have such a concern. Academically speaking, quantitative change is the basis of qualitative change, and qualitative change is the end result of quantitative change. We must first make quantitative change, and let the 'Eight Immortals cross the sea, each to display his special prowess' - we must let each prove their own worth; on the one hand this will enable teenagers of a suitable age to receive necessary education and improve the national standards, and on the other hand, only then will they be in a form to compete, to have 'survival of the fittest', and gradually produce a lot of truly high-quality, high-level schools.

If we look at the history of Western education, lowering the requirement for running schools and educating the whole of the population is the one and only way to create a flourishing country. After the American civil war, the first government orders announced by President Lincoln were to educate the entire population, requiring farmers to be educated in agriculture and farming. The result was that within ten years, the US was rapidly reformed from a traditional society where 10 farmers worked to support one grown man, to a modern society where one farmer can support 10 grown men! After the Second World War, for Britain the road to deactivating large numbers of soldiers lay in employing them as dock workers, at the same time, in the US deactivate soldiers unceasingly entered into universities, and as a result the national strengths of both countries were enlarged, to such an extent that they cannot be placed on a par. The most recent example is Clinton's policy of using education to 'save' the country: In his State of the Union address, Clinton stressed that the country was in the middle of a crisis, especially an educational crisis. To know one's shame is to get closer to bravery - American society entered into another stage of educating the entire population, with the emphasis on IT and computing. As a result, computers became universally popular among the whole population, and economic giants of the new age such as Bill Gates were born.

"A thousand ships sail ahead of a sunken boat, tens of thousands of trees flourish around a withered trunk." - Only by learning from the successful experience of advanced countries, involving the whole populace in education, and discarding our backward old-fashioned concepts, will we be able to reconcile the current crisis, and enable education to truly become the impulse behind the development of our society and a safety valve for social stability.

[Full article]

By Xin Lijian

--Translated by Ian Woollard, University of Leeds, UK

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