East Asia
As with poverty, education in China is also more accessible for children in urban centers than it is for children in rural areas. UNICEF’s country profile of China says all of the areas where illiteracy among youth has not been eliminated are in the rural west. One of these western provinces is Gansu, among the poorest of the poor.
Statistics show that girls and boys in China are equally enrolled in primary school, but this is not always the case in poor rural provinces. When parents only have enough money to send one child to school, they are sometimes forced to choose between a daughter or a son. Since traditional Chinese culture values boys over girls, all too often girls lose out.
Often kids have to stand all day in freezing weather because their schools don’t have desks or heating.
Even when children can go to school, a lot of schools in rural parts of the country are in bad shape. Some don’t have furniture and some are dangerous for the students because they’re falling apart. Winters are as cold there as winters in the United States and Canada, but often kids have to stand all day in freezing weather because their schools don’t have desks or heating. This makes learning difficult and often impossible.
Good News
From a regional perspective, East Asia is doing well in the area of keeping children in school once they are enrolled—the United Nations says that 100 percent of children who enroll in primary school in the region will actually complete their primary education. This is a tremendous success, since in many developing countries even those children who do attend school have a high chance of dropping out before completion.
Although there is little reliable statistical information about child labor in China, it is nonetheless a known reality. Millions of children spend their lives toiling in factories, fields and marketplaces across the country.
Out of East Asia and Into the Classroom
Have students search newspapers, magazines and Internet news sources for articles about child labor in East Asia. Have them make collages of pictures and stories with what they find. Be sure to talk to them about news bias, reliable sources and about the importance of getting different perspectives.