China is currently pursuing urbanization with remarkable vigor. Her small area of arable land continues to shrink as cities relentlessly encroach upon farmland. Farmers are consequently compelled to leave their homes. With a meager sum of compensation from the government, they have to go to cities to make a living. The huge number of migrants is a major problem thrown up by the process of urbanization.
Generally speaking, migrants have hard, ill-paid and sometimes dangerous jobs, and many work under terrible conditions. They have also to be prepared for deception. It is often reported that a boss who has employed dozens of migrant workers suddenly evaporates shortly before the end of their three-month "probation", during which time they working all but for nothing. The widespread inhuman treatment of migrant workers has aroused much indignation among not only the workers themselves, but also city dwellers with a sense of justice.
Apart from exhausting labor, low pay and maltreatment, migrant people have to put up with some city dwellers' prejudice against them. They are regarded as unwelcome outsiders who make cities dirtier and more crowded, and as uncouth peasants who bring shame to cities with their unseemly behavior. Migrant workers, on their part, may feel bitter because city dwellers look down upon them with such unbearable haughtiness. This gives rise to enmity between these two groups, and may sow the seeds of social unrest.
However, all the suffering mentioned above may be less serious and more too tolerable compared with another headache migrant workers are confronted with: their children's education. Nobody wants their sons or daughters to grow up only to toil and be bullied like them. Yet, with neither money nor connections, they cannot but pin their hopes on their children's education. However to their dismay, they find that their kids are at a serious disadvantage in this regard. They have to go to special schools for migrant workers' children, which are cheap but rather ill equipped with teachers and teaching facilities. If they drop out, they have no choice but to do hard manual jobs like their parents. Even, if they manage to score high marks in the college entrance exam, the tuitions fees for college would prove to be an astronomical figure for their parents.
