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Why volunteer to teach English in a school for migrant children?
Teaching standards in the migrant schools are low. 75% of the teachers are from the countryside themselves, and 40% do not have formal teaching qualifications. The standard of English teaching is particularly low, especially oral English.
In China, a basic command of English is critical to children’s life chances. English is one of the three core elements of the Chinese school curriculum (along with Chinese and maths), and a student’s grade in English is one of the key criteria for entry to higher education. Due to lack of qualified English teachers in migrant schools, English skills are one of the biggest differentiators between migrant students and their Shanghainese peers.
The majority of migrant children do not make it to senior middle school, and only a small handful are able to make the grade to go to university. Improvement of basic education is the key to helping children from rural areas to attend senior high school and university and thereby improve the future prospects of rural families.
Migrant workers and their families face a certain amount of prejudice in Shanghai, and cannot easily integrate into the local community. This programme also provides Shanghai residents and this marginalized population an opportunity to get to know each other better and for Shanghai society to show some compassion to a less privileged community.