With China's surplus farmers flowing to the cities in search ora better life, their children back at home face a growing need for attention.
　　Dazhou is a good example.
　　At the eastern end of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, Dazhou is an agricultural city, whose farmers account for 83 per cent of the total population.
　　With the increasing number of male births, the city's surplus labourers stand at a constant 1.3 million.
　　Last year,11.1 million surplus labourers left Dazhou to work in neighbouring cities and they earned a total of 3.7 billion yuan (US$447 million).
　　This kind of labour export has increased farmers' income and spurred local economy, but it has also led to a serious social problem: Children are left at home and uncared for.
　　According to research by the office of the Dazhou Working Committee on Children and Women, a majority of farmers moving to other cities are in their 20s or 30s, meaning their children are mostly under 18 About 45 per cent of migrant families see both parents leave while 80 per cent have one parent stay.
　　The absence of one or both parents leads to an unhealthy situation for children left at home.
　　In one-parent-stay families, the parent has to carry the double load of housework and farm work and has little time left to care for the children.
　　When both parents are absent, the children are usually under the care of their grandparents, who are 40 to 70 years older and can hardly communicate with the children.
　　The children also may be entrusted to relatives or friends, which is worse, as the latter has to parent not only their own but children from different families.
　　In other cases, the children have to care for each other, with the elder taking care of the younger.
　　The result of this poor education is that many children are slack, unruly, sentimental and hot-tempered.
　　They rarely perform well in academic work, and some suffer from autism and resort to surfing on the Internet and playing net games to kill time.
　　Worse than that, some children go astray to commit crimes.
　　Statistics from the Xuanhan County Court show that between 2002 and 2003, 50 under-age children committed offenses and 22 of them were from migrant parents.
　　To tackle these problems, the Dazhou government, has taken an array of effective measure.
　　It shares with parents and schools the responsibility of ensuring the children nine years of compulsory education.
　　The government founds schools, parents send children to the schools when they are of school-age and the schools ensure education quality.
　　The government also regulates that no illegal charges be imposed on these children.
　　To work out pertinent solutions, the Dazhou education authorities are now organizing a month-long survey on the education conditions of children left at home.
　　In Taiping Town, the Second Elementary School attaches great importance to these children.
　　Since 1998, the school has been conducting a study on the education solutions for the group.
　　Every semester, teachers in charge of classes keep a close track of these children and put forward effective measures.
　　With this practice, 95 per cent of the children are able to enter high school.
　　The children have also attracted attention from other segments of society.
　　Every Children's Day, the committee office on children and women at all levels visit these children, giving them school aid money and stationery.
　　To reduce the high crime rate, the city's judicial authorities often organize the children to take part in seminars or lectures on legal education.
（By Da Fu'er）

CHINA DAILY 2004.9.23