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V. Education

In 1980 the tuition fee for primary school was 18 Yuan (1 USD = 8.3 Yuan). Children did not have difficulty in attending the school. But since the beginning of 1990’s, the education for children became a burden on farmers. The government pushes a 9-year compulsory education, which means that the family has the obligation to send children to school, but dose not mean that the government has the obligation to provide education free of charge. According to the regulation of the government tuition fees for primary and junior schools are 360 and 720Yuan respectively. But the actual tuition for primary school has reached 440 to 460 plus extra 24-30 Yuan for exam and 5 Yuan each for 4 copies of study data as well as 5 Yuan each for homework notebooks on summer and winter vocations. The tuition for junior school is actually 920-940 Yuan plus extra 130 Yuan for exam and 60 Yuan for drinking. The Grade 3 of junior school need pay 200 Yuan more for making up missed lessons and 100 Yuan for learning computer. The high school tuition even reaches as high as 1,800 Yuan yearly. Usually junior and high schools are in different areas which are all very far from the village. Hence, students have to become boarders. A junior student said the life in school was very hard. He had to bring rice to the school. There were people cooking rice for them, but students have to prepare meal themselves. Each time going back home, he would bring some cool meal and then take it for several days at the school.

Farming is only enough for bread, hence elder child has to go out for working (usually girls) to pay for the tuition fees. Under the condition that both daughter and son should attend the school, but family can only afford one, it is usually the daughter abandons study, out for working and looking after younger sisters and brothers.

It is a general phenomena that male has a higher education than female in the rural area. Among the 25 families, householders of 22 families had received more education than his wives. The couples of two families did not receive any education. The other one still had not got married. Among the 41 people who were not in study, 16 were males while 25 females. There was only one male who had not studied in junior school while the other 15 had attended junior or high school. Most of them had finished the third grade of junior school. There were 18 females who had only attended primary school while other 7 had attended junior school or above.

In rural area, people keep a strong mind of “favoritism of men over women”. Women usually have a lower education. It is hard for them to find jobs with higher salary when going out for a work. Women’s low economical status makes them difficult to break through that vicious circle based on inequality between men and women.

If schools were free of charge (or at least a 9-year education free of charge like Hong Kong), there would be no big educational gap between men and women.

Only 10 per cent of junior school students will attend the high school. Besides the high tuition fees beyond farmers’ affordability, the big size of the class also contribute to a reason. There are usually 60 to 70 students in one class. It is hard for teachers to look after each one. Some students sitting in the back row even can not hear teacher’s voice. Some children then loose their interest in study. During the busy seasons, children usually will help family with farming, which also affects their study. (Please see the attached article: A Day in Busy Faming Seasons)

IV. Medical Service

Besides educational expenses, medical service is also a heavy burden on farmers. In the village a 40-year-old woman suffering from heart disease died after two years delay on treatment due to lack of money. The medical expenses have been continuously increased since 1991. Medical service becomes profit oriented.

No hospital stands in the village. If being attacked by serious disease, villagers have to travel by bus for one hour to visit the county hospital. The former barefoot doctor had been turned into a country doctor. There were two of them in the village. Besides, there was also a private clinic. The expense including medicine for curing light illness differs from 2 to 3 Yuan while for more serious, the charges reach to 10 to 20 Yuan. It is cheaper compared with that in big cities like Shenzhen, in which medical charges arrived 70 to 80 Yuan at least. But 20 Yuan is not a small amount for poor farmers. Hence, they will not go to see the doctor unless the situation is very serious. It was said that a middle aged person suffering from liver cancer had to pay tens of thousands Yuan for treatment, which is nearly equivalent to the income of a farm family for more than ten years.

The expense for childbearing is also a heavy burden. A woman who already had a daughter said in a tease tone: “how can I get the money for a second child?” Since it is a risk to have a birth at home, fewer women are doing that way. But for poor people, they have no way but to spend 200 Yuan inviting midwife for delivering a child. Going to hospital usually will cost them 500 to 1,000 Yuan.

VII. Going Out and Going Back

Since the middle of 1980’s young people had begun to went out for working as it was hard for them to main basic lives and education expense for children only by farming.

Among the 41 young people who were not studying (the children of the householder), only 4 did not have the experience of working outside, of whom two were only 15 to 16 years old. May be they were too young to be allowed for going out by their parents.

Both males and females went out for working. But their professions were different. Females often went to the factory or worked as part time dumper or seller of vegetables. Males often worked as bricklayer and electrician. There was also one person becoming a boss.

The longest time for out working had lasted for 15 years. Among those 23 females experienced out working, 6 would not go out any more. Of them 5 had got married and lived in their husbands’ home in the village or county. Some others planed to go out again. Among these 23 people, 7 married were still working outside. Among those 14 males, 3 had got married, but all were still working outside.

Out working could gradually improve the economic situation of a family. Building a new house was just the result of it. But many migrant workers said it had become more difficult to find a job. They were not optimistic about the prospects. There were also people who were cheated out of tens of thousands Yuan when looking for a job outside.

Middle aged women would also go to Wuhan (the capital of Hubei province) for clearing shoes for people or pick up junk in the off season if there were no people out for working in her family, or the money returned could not sustain the expenses. The work they did was regarded as very humble. But it was hard for them to find other jobs in the city. If they were lucky enough, they could earn eight or ten Yuan per day. They were feared of meeting policeman since they did not have any temporary staying card.

Besides, some women who had finished their own seedling transplanting (the most difficult procedure that assumes time but only in limited seasons) went to Henan province by taking a one-day train to do transplanting for other farmers last year. They could earn 25 Yuan per day. After ten days of working, they earned tow hundred Yuan deducting travel charges. That was barely enough for their sons’ tuition.

VIII. The Way Out for Farmers

Before China’s entry to WTO, farmers had perceived the gradual decrease in grain price. The protection price will not exist any more. Some farmers said that the wheat from Canada was only over 20 Yuan per Jin while that of China was more than 40 Yuan. How could Chinese product adverse Canadian goods after China’s accession to WTO? Some people had a proposal: big family contract all fields of the village and hire local farmers as cottiers, 20-30 Yuan a day. Thus the land is concentrated and easy for mechanization. But if the plan were really carried out, then there would be large number of farmers without land. The more the surplus labor is, the lower the salary will be. Many farmers will have no way out or even become destitute and homeless. This is not the way for resolving the poverty of farmers.

Poverty of farmers, on the one hand, is because that production is mainly relayed on manpower, which is of low efficiency; farmers do not have enough savings to buy machines so as to expand production; the contracted field is small, which is difficult for mechanized farming. On the other hand, since taxes and charges are very high, farmers even have difficulty in gaining food and cloth. Although the central government has issued the policy that retained and overall planning fees should not be more than 5% of the farmers’ net income, the actual fees reach over 50%. Before liberation, the land rent that farmers paid to the landlord was only half of the earnings. Thus it is no wonder that people said “work hard for years; once return to the old time”.

Some people said that mechanization can improve profit, but will make more surplus labor. This is true. The way, however, should not only depend on hard work of farmers only and thus exclude mechanization. Water conservancy, infrastructure, education and environmental problems should be input more manpower and improved, not to worry about the way for surplus labor. Then where will the fund come from? Just as mentioned above, the central government had allocated 8 million to improve water conservancy, but the real fund used was only tens of thousand. If there were no exorbitant taxes and levies by all levels of government and if the taxes and charges were not covered by 60 percent, even the present production system were undergoing, the farmers would not as poor as now and the society would not as unequal as now. It is no wonder that farmers said ironically that insatiability in graft means corrupt while moderation in graft means incorrupt.

Farmers also made comments on the open and reform policy initiated by Deng Xiaoping: don’t drag those who want to commit river suicide, don’t snatch the bottle from those who want to take pesticide and don’t untie the rope for those who want to hang themselves. Governments do not care about farmers’ life or death. If can’t stand the exploitation, farmers will rise to resist. In 1998, some farmers in a town of Huangmei county “rebelled”. More than twenty farmers went to town government and pointed out that village head and committee secretary had grafted so they required the corrupted official to return money and leave their office. Several months later, the secretary was driven out of office finally but he said that thousands of public money had been used up while the village head had run away with boodle. The new secretary also grafted, but did not directly exploited farmers. (He grafted only those used for building a temple in the village.) Farmers said that if the village committee corrupted and exploited them, they would “rebel” again.

Although most farmers usually bear all kinds of exploitation and compression, the “rebelling” cases is not a few however. Does that mean that farmers have no way but to “rebel”?

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Annex:

A Day in Busy Farming Seasons

Xiao Lan (a student of grade 6)

June 9th, on the Chinese lunar calendar was Friday. It was the busiest day for farmers as well as for our family.

Very early in the morning, Daddy and Mom got up and went out farming, leaving my brother and me at home. It was 5 o’clock in the morning when we got up. The busy day just began. First I washed my face and brushed my teeth. Then I grazed ox on the ridge of field. Nearly every family had someone grazing the oxen. Each ox was on different ridge. After one hour’s grazing, I then went home; it was almost half past six. Then I began to cook. First I fried a bowl of cucumber, then a bowl of radish. After dishes, I cooked rice. Since straw and haulm were used, it was very slow for cooking. Only a few families can use gas (liquefied petroleum gas). I did not finish cooking until ten past seven. And then I let my brother call Daddy and Mom back for breakfast. Before they got back, I swept the floor. When they came back, I put all the dishes on the table; then we began to eat. Daddy and Mom finished breakfast very quickly, then took their farm tools and went to the field again, hoeing field, fertilizing soil, irrigating farm and transplanting rice seedlings. After the breakfast my brother went to school, but I had to wash bowls; then I could go to school; it was nearly 8 o’clock. When I arrived, it was five past eight. Many classmates had already arrived and were reading. I then went to my own seat. Reading for a while, I saw teacher coming in; it was eight forty. We had 4 classes in the morning, which would not finish until 12 o’clock. When I went back home, it was ten past twelve. Some classmates, whose home was very far away, had to cook rice at school.

I had to cook lunch for my parents when I came back. After frying tow bowls of dishes I once again let my brother call my parents back. Daddy and Mom rested for a while and then went out farming around half past one in the afternoon.

We had two classes in the afternoon. Still, I had to finish housework before went to school. It was fifteen past two when I got back school. And it was ten past four when I came back home. I then hurried to the field and helped Daddy and Mom to transplant rice seedling. We worked until 8 o’clock in the evening. Mom cooked for us while we were bathing. About 9 o’clock they all went to sleep, but I still need to finish my homework. I could not sleep until 10 o’clock. That was really the busiest day in the busy seasons.