Resources

Education and Poverty Reduction in China

Project on Financial Assistance to Primary-School Children in Yunnan

This is a pilot project to provide financial assistance to children from poor households in Yunnan to enable them to go to primary school.  Directed by Professor Mun Tsang, the project is a collaborative effort between the Center on Chinese Education, Teachers College Columbia and the Education Society of Yunnan.

The project runs from September 2002 to July 2005.  The five poorest towns in Xundian County, Yunnan (He Kou, Dian Sha, Jin Yuan, Liu Xiao, and Lian He) have been identified for participation in this project.  Up to 5,100 student assistantships will be provided to eligible children in these towns during the project period.  Each student assistantship covers the private costs of miscellaneous school fees, textbooks and workbooks, and stationery.  The primary criterion is the income level of the concerned households (roughly below 400 yuan or US$50 per-capita per year in household net income) and children will be identified by principals and teachers of the project primary schools.

This project is made possible by a generous grant from the Schulz Charitable Foundation.  The entire grant will be distributed as student assistantships to children in Xundian County.  Both the Center on Chinese Education and the Education Society of Yunnan serve as volunteers and charge no fee for implementing the project.  Project fund goes from Teachers College to a special account of the Education Society of Yunnan and then to the project primary schools.  The fund will not be mixed with the education budget of the different levels of government in Yunnan.  The principals in project primary schools will use the fund to help selected children pay the private costs of schooling. The children and their families will not receive the fund directly so that they will not be able to use the fund for non-intended purposes.

For each selected child, a form will be filled out to provide basic information about the child and his/her family.  After receiving the assistantship, both the school principal and the child will sign the form.  Two copies of the signed form will be kept, one at the school and the other in the headquarters of the Education Society of Yunnan.  The Education Society of Yunnan will conduct periodic and random monitoring of the distribution of project fund; it will submit an annual report to the Center on Chinese Education.  The Center on Chinese Education can also conduct occasional project monitoring on its own.

This site will be updated periodically to provide additional information on the project.  For further inquires, interested parties are welcome to contact the Project Assistant,  Mr. Yanqing Ding ( yd2004@columbia.edu), 212-678-3814.