Beijing (AsiaNews/SCMP) – The Chinese authorities may allow national non-governmental organisations to enter the public education sector, to share new costs sure to arise from proposed amendments to the Mandatory Education Law. According to experts from Hong Kong, this is what the authorities should do. The enormous changes aim for greater national education coverage, lower school fees for children of migrant workers and a new status for "rural teachers", who would become public officials.

The amendments have already been approved by the State Council and are now awaiting the third and final go-ahead from the National People's Congress Standing Committee [NPC – the Chinese Parliament]. Wu Bangguo, committee chairman, led discussions on the issue that will last two days until Friday 5 May. In his report to the meeting, Education Minister Zhou Ji said the exorbitant fees imposed on all students – even those from rural areas – had been one of the main reasons for their disappearance from school desks.

The minister said: "In 2004, more than 6.4 million school-aged children of migrant workers moved to cities, while another 22 million stayed at home because their parents couldn't afford the high urban education costs. This is one of the new problems: children live apart from their parents or do not get adequate supervision." In rural areas, "up to 10% of children were not attending school".

Hong Kong experts welcomed the proposal and invited Beijing to "follow their example and ask for help from NGOs". Lai Kwok-chan, head of planning and academic implementation at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, said: "Local governments need to share their education costs with NGOs".

"In rich provinces and cities, it's not only local governments that have a responsibility to pay these costs. I think businesses, rich people and other citizens also have a duty to contribute to migrant children's education because migrant workers have made a great contribution to the prosperity of these areas," he explained.

"A successful education system does not only rely on government support, but the whole society. People must realise that too many poor, uneducated children on the street could cause a lot of crime. Only education can help poor people escape from poverty and from the streets."

However, Beijing remains diffident about the idea of ceding management of schools to organisations with religious background or to those run by foreigners.

If adopted, the amendments would also improve the salaries and work conditions of rural teachers, without allowing schools to ask for higher school fees. Ma Lik, Hong Kong representative on the NPC, said: "This decision means rural teachers will be treated as civil servants. Before, they were supposed to devote everything to their teaching career, including accepting low or even no wages."