China’s Nine-Year Compulsory Education Policy and Rural Women’s Education

Globally, education is often regarded as a basic human right. In order to guarantee this right, many countries have adopted various measures to ensure universal access to an inclusive and fair quality education, without leaving anyone behind. The UNICEF (2017) Convention on the Rights of the Child provides tenets of the child’s right to education, education should focus on the all-round development of children’s personalities and promote mutual understanding, tolerance, friendship, and peace by respecting their personal cultural backgrounds. The draft UNESCO Education 2030 Framework for Action (UNESCO 2015) involves ensuring an inclusive and fair basic education and providing lifelong learning opportunities for all (Webb et al., 2017). The implementation of compulsory education and the comprehensive development of a modern education system thus are importance to countries such as China. In fact, the implementation of the compulsory education policy in contemporary China is regarded as the main task of the government, which means that the “right to education” is a top priority (Chang, 2010). However, although various levels of governments are making significant efforts to promote the development of compulsory education in rural areas, there is still a major gap in terms of the quality and attainment within China education, especially along urban-rural divides. Children from impoverished backgrounds, typically rural areas, have a much higher risk of dropping out than their urban peers after completing elementary school. Therefore, this dissertation seeks to present the difficult situation rural women find themselves in concerning education. It proposes two research questions that 1) Does China’s nine-year compulsory education policy include initiatives to address gender inequalities, such as the higher rates of illiteracy amongst rural women and girls, and what evidence is available on the extent of the policy’s effectiveness in this regard? 2) How are issues of gender inequality experienced by rural women and girls in China in the context of the enactment of the nine-year compulsory education policy? Analysing the implementation of China’s nine-year compulsory education policy in rural area, whilst investigating the inequality that rural women suffer.