13. A Retrospective on School Closure and Merging in Rural Areas

Abstract

In the western regions covering 71.4% of China's total area, there are about 90,000 teaching sites with only one teacher in a school accounting for over 80% of all teaching sites in China. Due to a decline in the number of school-age children, many primary schools in villages are faced with diminishing numbers of students, rising costs, and mounting pressures regarding education quality. In a report entitled Eight-year Pain in Chedian Bingxiao Hurts Rural Primary and Middle Schools, the author drew readers' attention to the by-products of the restructuring process for rural primary and middle schools in Guangdong. These included difficult access to education, low re-utilization of closed schools, dropouts, and a widening urban-rural gap in education quality. Guizhou University and Guizhou University of Nationalities investigated the impact of resource concentration on basic education in poverty-stricken areas, and the effect of implementation of the chedian bingxiao policy. Keywords:boarding schools; chedian bingxiao policy; China; Guizhou University; rural areas