Launch Event

On Thursday August 16th China Rural Education Initiative had its offical Launch! To kick off the night, our President, Irene, gave a passionate speech about our cause. Each of our functional teams then talked about their roles within the group and shared their goals for the semester with our new members. To end the presentations, we played a heart warming video telling the stories of five children from Yunnan. Following on from that, we had a networking session, and it was fantastic to see so many people that share our passion.
Thank you to all those who took their time to attend our event, we look forward to seeing you at our next event, The MUOSS Festival of Nations on August 29th-30th at 11am-3pm at The University of Melbourne Parkville campus, Northcourt. We will be selling Taiwanese sausages and hot milk tea!

Once again thank you everyone for your support!

Here is the link to the video if anyone is interested:
http://vimeo.com/m/5629146

Background on Yunnan

There is currently 9 years of free compulsory education in China until the age of 14. In 2009, the education chief of Yunnan announced plans to extend this period to 13 years by 2020. There are already schools in Yunnan which offer this pilot program (there are also schools in some other provinces such as Guangdong and Shandong). At present, 6 million students are enrolled in Yunnan’s 22, 000 primary and middle schools (Yunnan has a population of 46 million).

Yunnan is very multi-ethnic, with 51 ethnicities in its population. This presents as a barrier to the education system, particularly elementary education. Children are taught in Mandarin Chinese and language (and cultural) differences are quick to emerge. Enrolment for the early primary years are high amongst ethnic communities are initially high, but a high number dropout due to poor learning of Chinese (the medium of education). Another factor contributing to the dropout numbers would be Yunnan’s poverty (the average annual income for farmers is 2000 RMB/year); children are often viewed as more ‘useful’ when helping out with the family than at school.

However, in the past decade, international groups have introduced changes of a small to moderate magnitude to primary education in Yunnan. One such group is the East Asia Group (EAG) which implemented its ‘Zero Barrier Multilingual Education’ concept amongst select schools.

The concept aims to increase the educational achievement attained by ethnic minorities. Children from ethnic minorities are taught for two years in their mother tongue in pre-school before transitioning to being instructed in Chinese in Grade 1 (reading and writing; there is some speaking at pre-school level). Classes in their mother tongue are also continued; the teaching of the minority groups’ traditions and culture are also fostered. Children must be fluent in their mother tongue before being to proceed to instruction in Mandarin Chinese. These model education centres have been met with success so far, although it must be noted there is significant investment required; the style of teaching, teaching materials, educational environment, etc. are different to the typical Chinese classroom.

Larger scaled improvements to education have been in place at the adult education level for several decades. There have been numerous part-time schools established offering intensive courses, encouraging adults and those who live in more remote areas to receive a basic level of education. These enable those who work (~52% of the population) gain literacy without leaving their jobs. Despite these efforts, the illiteracy rate in Yunnan is still between an estimated 10-15%.

Angel’s teaching experience in China

Target
I visited a primary school in Luoding Shi which is in Guangdong for 1 week in 2010, teaching a class of 30 Grade 6 students English. My team mates and I designed a series of teaching plan which includes games, music and competitions. We started off every English lesson with a new simple English song. I would ask all of them to stand up and form a circle with hands holding together to create a warm and friendly atmosphere. Sometimes we would also add actions to the songs to further strengthen their memory.

Impressive Moments
Many of the students turned out to be pretty good at English. When designing the teaching plan, our team planned to give them a revision on the first lesson and for the following lessons we would teach them simple English vocabularies. However we found out at the revision class that most of them were good enough to speak simple English words. Therefore we quickly made changes in the teaching plan to fit the scenario at that time. The plan turned out to be very successful as all the students enjoyed having English lessons with us. Most importantly, they really learnt some useful English from all these activities.

Benefits of Students
I think the students understood that learning can be fun at the end of our program. Under the rural area education system, students have no choice but to sit in the classroom passively. Due to their living environment, most of them are not able to get access to the internet to listen to English songs and cannot afford buying CDs. Hence it is a whole new experience for them to have a chance to study English in this playful way so I think the program had definitely raised their interest in English. This trip also stimulated them to think of things that can make learning more interesting regardless of their living condition. For example, doing role play with classmates in English is one of the fun ways to enjoy themselves after class without spending money.

Benefits of Myself
I have learnt to appreciate everyone’s talent after seeing all the students are so gifted. Despite of their poor living condition, I can still see many of them strike hard and hope one day they could get out of the rural areas and follow their dreams. I believe that everyone deserves to have equal rights, that is why I keep encouraging them not to give up easily and should always keep up this spirit. I also try to give them positive energy by praising their good English. It motivates me to participate in more volunteer teaching every time I saw their cheerful faces as I feel like I have influenced them to think positive and optimistically.

Methods And Approaches
Before playing games or starting an activity in each lesson, our team would usually gave a briefing to the students to let them know the instructions. Our strategy is wish to create a comfortable atmosphere hence we would ask the students to sit in pairs to make them feel they are not having a formal lesson. However, this might lead to a problem that they kept chit-chatting and ignored the class. We then came up with an idea of setting up a scoring system. Marks will be deducted for those who are not paying attention while students who are participating well in class will be rewarded.
The other approach that I used to make them feel relax is to invite them to write on the whiteboard or blackboard. They usually got very excited about that because only teachers are allowed to write on the board during normal school days.
Drawing is another essential method to get the children enjoy the lesson. I would then suggest colour pencils as a perfect prize for those who win a class competition.

Background on our cause

China is the second largest economy in the world, a country whose urban areas are witnessing an expanding middle class, with many beginning to enjoy lifestyles of luxury and excess. There is, however another side of the story- the country is also facing an ever-widening rural-urban income gap. Amidst its glorious growth, many of China’s rural citizens are being left behind, with some unable to afford even running water.

The children living in rural parts of China are the ones who must bear the brunt of the country’s increasing inequality. As many parents, in hope of providing a better life for their families, leave poverty stricken agricultural towns and villages to find work in the city, their sons and daughters are often left behind. Those who follow their parents to city areas are treated like second-class citizens and are prohibited by government policy from entering urban schools. They are forced to attend shabby, poorly funded migrant-worker schools on the city fringe. Facing limited wages and rising inflation, many families cannot even afford to send their children to school. In rural areas, teachers are paid little and quality instruction is hard to come by. In some areas, there are no schools at all, and in many more, there are no books to read apart from tatty hand-me-down books.

This educational disadvantage translates into another obstacle in finding employment for these children in a country where many graduates are unemployed. Without the resources, rural children will become adults who lack knowledge and inspiration to seek ways to improve their lives and those of their offspring. Lacking any hope of being able to change their lives for the better, these people are trapped in a vicious poverty cycle.

The extent of hardship faced by children in rural China is difficult for us to understand in Australia where we have solid welfare nets and a world-class education system. If we realise the many privileges that we have and look to the compassion in our hearts, we will find a desire to work for this cause for our actions could amount to joys and excitement for children who yearn for access to better education as well as giving them hope for a better future.

We could share some of the privileges that we have by creating projects and raising funds to sponsor children through their school years, offering the choice of having an education while building cross-country connections and friendships that will open minds and bridge hearts.