Topic：The education of migrant children in China: learning vs. institutional barriers

Speaker: Shuaizhang Feng

Affiliation: Shanghai University of Economics and Finance

Time：2:00-3:30pm, November 20

Location：Room 217
， Guanghua New Building

Abstract: Due to HuKou and other related institutional arrangements, migrant children are partially excluded from the public education system. We seek to understand the consequences of such a discriminatory policy using data collected in Shanghai in 2010 and 2012. We find a declining test score gap between migrant students in migrant schools and public schools, possibly due to increased public funding assistance to migrant schools. Nevertheless, significant disparities remain in terms of parental satisfaction and parental evaluation of schools. Students graduated from migrant schools are also much less likely to have the opportunity to continue their middle school education in Shanghai, irrespective of their academic performance. Our results suggest that in additional to efforts to improve learning within migrant schools, it is more important to remove institutional barriers that give migrant students unequal opportunities in the current educational system.

Speaker’s homepage: http://se.shufe.edu.cn/structure/zh/shizhidw/ldjj_con_42262_1.htm