How Can We Account for Persisting Educational Inequalities in Rural China

Abstract

The ultimate purpose of the development of this essay is to inform Chinese policymakers on how they can better implement education-related policies to minimise spatial and gender disparities in, and multi-faceted barriers to, educational opportunities. This essay, firstly, highlights policies that address spatial and gender disparities in education and structural barriers to girls’ education with the support of the frameworks of Women in Development (WID) and Gender and Development (GAD) in rural Chinese contexts. Secondly, this essay outlines the problems of rural female underdevelopment in least educationally and financially developed Chinese regions based on critical analyses on relevant statistics and studies. Thirdly, in spite of the Central Government’s and non-governmental organisations’ (NGOs) endeavours to facilitating education development, this essay investigates and analyses how gender inequalities in education persist due to the unaddressed multi-faceted barriers to girls’ education. These multi-faceted barriers include social, cultural, economic and otherwise educational impediments faced by rural poor Chinese girls. Lastly, this essay suggests state and NGOs’ policy and intervention to address such structural barriers to education and enhance rural girls’ decision-making powers and educational opportunities in the long-term.