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OUR PROGRAMS

 

More migrant youth are committing crimes in Beijing. According to the white paper on Beijing's juvenile delinquency in 2013, "out of 1,097 cases, and 65.3 percent of offenders were migrant people" and 92.5 percent of the offenders' ages are between 16 and 18 years old.[1] The situation is even worse on the national level. According to the 2010 national survey, "two-thirds of juvenile offenders came from rural areas, up from just over half a decade earlier; and in many of China’s bigger cities, where rural migrants account for a substantial portion of the young population, they can account for as much as 90% of juvenile offenders."[2]

 

One of the key causes of the above problem is that children of migrant workers in Beijing have no equal access to education. Beijing had a population of 8 million migrant people by the end of 2013, accounting for 38% of its total 21.15 million population.[3] While migrant workers make great contribution to the economic growth of Beijing, Hukou system, China's residence permit system, denied most migrants equal access to education, housing or health insurance as registered residents. Although recent policy allows migrant children to attend public urban primary and secondary schools in Beijing, there are more preconditions for the admission.[4]  Therefore, most of the children of migrants have to attend private unregulated migrant schools with fewer resources. Most of migrant schools only offer primary education and junior high school education. After graduating from junior high school, a low proportion of migrant students with high grades are promoted to public academic high school. Other migrant children either choose to attend expensive vocational technical high schools or drop out from schools if they can not afford educational expenses. In addition, student graduating from academic high school enjoy more chances of admission to colleges. Lack of equal access to professional and higher education, many migrant teenagers in Beijing become unemployed and they are liable to offend crimes.

 

With the partnership of vocational/technical institutions in Beijing, the project will focus on employment promotion for migrant youth through free capacity-building programs, such as skill-oriented professional development workshops on computer, English, business and hospitality. The proposed project aim to improve the ability and employability of migrant youth, lower the rate of migrant youth juvenile delinquency and enhance better social inclusion for migrant youth in Beijing.

 

 

 

[1] White paper on Beijing's juvenile delinquency in 2013, published by the Beijing Higher People's Court

 

[2] Hard time: how young criminals are treated says much about the urban-rural gap, The Economist, Oct 26th, 2013, print edition

 

[3] Data from website of The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics

 

[4] In 2014 Children without Beijing hukou - or household registration permits - have been eligible to attend primary schools if their parents present five kinds of documents. But district education authorities added more preconditions for admission. Migrant children face tighter admission rules, China Daily, June 3rd, 2014, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-06/03/content_17558095.htm