China defends shutting unregistered schools

BEIJING, Sep 26 (Reuters) China said on Tuesday that shutting dozens of privately run schools for children of migrant workers in Beijing was meant for their protection, not to deny them education as stated by a U S human rights group.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said today that Beijing municipal authorities had shut down more than 50 such schools during the past two weeks and linked the closures to preparations for the 2008 Olympics.

The group said the closures were part of a campaign which appeared designed to discourage migrants from staying in the capital.

''The Chinese government attaches great importance to education for the children of migrant workers,'' Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters. ''It has made a lot of efforts in that regard in recent years.

''And to ban the schools that don't meet national standards is just to better guarantee their right to education.'' An estimated 120 million farmers from China's vast rural areas have swarmed into cities since market reforms started in 1980s, contributing to the country's economic boom by staffing construction sites, factories and restaurants.

But they have met barriers in getting social benefits such as health care and education for their children.

Official figures show 63 per cent of the 370,000 migrant children in Beijing were studying in state-run schools, but the rest had to go to about 240 unregistered private schools, many of which lack qualified teachers and proper facilities.

State-run primary and secondary schools were now required to absorb the bulk of the migrant children in the cities, Qin said.

Chinese media have criticised the government of haphazardly closing some of the schools without arranging new ones beforehand and said many requirements for a private school's registration were unreasonable.

REUTERS AB BS1634