Why Did China Implement the Educational Consolidation? What Is the Impact of Village School Consolidation on the Rural Population?

From the 1950s to the 2010s, Chinese rural education went through processes of rapid growth, irrational growth, then consolidation, and neglect. In Chairman Mao’s time, the Chinese government strongly advocated for the masses to run schools, depending on collective strength to build many village-level elementary schools. However, the rapid growth of schools’ amount brought about irrational school development with low quality of teaching and learning. Since the country’s reform and opening-up, the government implemented an educational consolidation policy—an influential shift that sparked a gradual decrease in village elementary schools. From the mid-1990s onward, the state began to carry out large-scale educational layout adjustments. A large number of village elementary schools were thus consolidated and abolished, resulting in a drastic decrease in the number of elementary schools. Why did China implement the educational consolidation policy? What is the impact of village school consolidation on the rural population? My argument is that the rural school amount’s decrease has caused schooling difficulties for the rural population which is subdivided into the schooling issues of left-behind children and the issue of migrant children. This paper’s contribution is by providing model cities and possible solutions to solving rural children’s educational problems