A student of the Dandelion school in her first class of the afternoon. Photo Credit: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Thousands of youth in China are left without schooling due to vast populations of migrants moving to the city. Legally these children are not allowed to go to school because they are not urban residents. Zheng Hong, a former university professor of micropaleontology, could no longer sit back and observe this increasingly devastating situation. In 2005 she founded the Dandelion School, the only school for middle school-aged migrant youth in Beijing. Without intervention, children of migrant families will become the next generation of migrant workers, and will remain at the bottom rung of the Chinese economy and society. By partnering with organizations like Mercy Corps, a humanitarian aid organization working in over 35 countries, the Dandelion School is working on a project to provide vocational training, life skills training and apprenticeships so these students have access and opportunities in the job market and can help alleviate the cycle of poverty.

Q: Why did you start the Dandelion School?

Zheng Hong: In my generation growing up in China there were a lot of political movements, many of which wasted a lot of time. As things have changed and moved on I made the decision to do something useful. I wanted to provide education for kids who don't have the opportunity to go to school.

Can you give details about the migrant situation in China?

I wanted to provide education for kids who don't have the opportunity to go to school.

The migrant population has been growing over the past 20 years. The last I heard it was at 150 million. Five million of these migrants are in Beijing and 500,000 of these migrants are school age kids. Most migrants are peasant workers and [come to Beijing] for a variety of reasons. In some cases they can no longer live off the land so they have come to the city to look for opportunities. They end up taking the lowest paying jobs such as construction, or growing vegetables and fruits and selling them on the street. It is difficult for these migrants to live by the low salary they make. And since they have moved into the city and the kids are not residents they are not allowed to go to public school. The government is trying to solve this problem, but it takes time. I could no longer watch these kids growing up without an education so I started the Dandelion School. Until the government fixes this problem we will work with the kids so they have an opportunity to learn.

Will you explain how you started the school?

In 2005 three of us got together with the idea to start a middle school for migrant kids in Beijing. The south of Beijing is one of the most concentrated areas with migrants, so that's where we started looking for a school. We found an abandoned factory and through fundraising, borrowing money and an American gentleman who matched the funds we raised, we were able to start construction in May of 2005.

What was the next step?

In July we were halfway done with the school and decided to run a summer camp for migrant kids to see how the school would run. With 60 kids and 15 teachers we were able to run a successful two week long camp. This gave us confidence that the school would run well so we recruited more teachers and kids and in August it was officially opened with 120 students. After the doors opened students kept coming and we ended up with 180 kids. After the school was up and running we applied to be a legal identity and in January of 2006 the government granted permission. After one year our school had doubled in size with 360 students.

What is the age range?

After one year our school had doubled in size with 360 students.

We have kids from 11-17 in grades 7th, 8th, and 9th. There are 10 percent more boys than girls. Currently we have 350 students living in the dorms we provide. Providing dorms is a necessary step for many students because most living conditions in migrant homes are awful with not enough space or light to study. Often times these kids won't have enough time to study because they need to help their parents around the house and with cooking.

What kinds of classes are taught at the school?

The basic subjects: writing, math, computer, science, etc. We also provide a vocational skills class once a week. Many students don't know what is available in the working world and have no idea what kind of career they want. So we have started bringing in people from different careers as well as bringing the students to different work sites so they can get an idea of what they want.

What are some challenges you have faced at the school?

The first is how to keep the teachers. We have started providing teachers with professional development training, so that even though they could make more money at another school we give them a personal reason to stay. The second challenge is financial stability. Since kids are from low income families we cannot charge them to go to school. And government support is limited since we are not a public school. We rely heavily on donations.

How is the school funded?

We have started providing teachers with professional development training, so that even though they could make more money at another school we give them a personal reason to stay.

15 percent of our funding is donated from the families, although we'd like this number to be less. We fundraise for the rest. We get a lot of money from the Dandelion Project - a group of about 50 women who wanted to do something to give back to society. We refer to them as the big dandelions, and the students at our school are the little dandelions. These women took the Dandelion School as their first project. They help in different ways such as sponsoring a child or donating clothes. They have also used their resources to build us a library, computer lab, chemistry lab, physics lab and biology lab. I don't know what we would do without the big dandelions. The local government has also become more and more supportive. They have given us ping pong tables, basketball hoops and some funding to help fix the school.

How do students find out about the school?

We have teachers go out to different locations such as wholesale markets to hand out materials and talk about the school. When the students come to the school we give them a test to see what grade to start in. The test is not difficult and teachers work with the students to make up for lost time.

How is the transition from village to school life?

There are a lot of basic things these children have never been taught and have never seen. For instance how to make a bed and how to take a shower. A lot of these children were never taught basic sanitation and health needs so we provide a school doctor to help with this transition. There's also a big effort from teachers to stop kids from spitting, drinking alcohol, smoking and fighting. But kids change fast and enjoy their new environment. One big challenge is getting kids to study, and then from simply studying, to studying well. A lot of our teachers are from a migrant background, so this helps with the transition.

How is the school doing right now?

A lot of these children were never taught basic sanitation and health needs so we provide a school doctor to help with this transition.

We now have 530 students, 36 full time teachers and 4 administrative staff. Going into our third year we have developed an attachment to the kids. It's wonderful to see how hard they work to make up for the schooling they have missed in the past. In June we had our first group of graduates who were allowed to take the standard exams in Beijing. This is one step forward towards equal opportunity for these migrant youth. The kids have really come a long way. In the beginning only five students passed their exams and this year 37 did. These 37 students are now able to go to a vocational high school, through scholarships from Mercy Corps. For the kids who did not pass their exams we will continue working with them at the Dandelion School until they are ready to move on. We need to find a model to help better prepare our students after graduation and this is what we are doing with the School to Work Project.

Can you explain this project?

Through a partnership with Mercy Corps we are working with the 37 students at the vocational high school as well as students here at the Dandelion School providing ten months of vocational and life skills training which will result in employment, apprenticeships or further vocational training opportunities. In this way we are able to give these youth employable skills and connections to the job market so they do not end up in the same situation as their parents.

What kind of life skills training?

Students are taught how to handle conflict, communication, work ethics, time-management, basic writing skills, applied mathematics, healthy lifestyle-including nutrition and sex education and community service.






Contributed by Cami Martin, a writer for Global Envision. Cami has a BA in English from the University of Oregon and works for Mercy Corps.

To read another Global Envision article about access to education in developing countries, see Building the Village Education Project.



Return to top

Bookmark/Search this post with:

• Delicious
• Digg
• StumbleUpon
• Reddit
• Facebook
• Google
• Yahoo