Professional Reading

16. Read the following article very carefully. You must achieve complete understanding of the text, so use a dictionary by all means. While reading pay particular attention to the meaning of the following words given in bold type.

1. ‘… a private entrepreneur reportedly contracted with …’

2. ‘In other parts of the country faculty have been known to …’

3. ‘The enterprises are not entirely frowned upon by authorities.’

4. ‘… and insurance company enlisted local schools … to act as insurance agents, forcing policies on …’

5. ‘It is rare for entire classes to be dragooned into moonlighting.’

Dereliction of Duty

A deadly explosion casts a harsh light on the state of

China’s desperately poor rural school.

After a massive explosion blew apart a primary school in Jiangzi province last Tuesday, killing 38 children and four teachers, parents reported seeing the tiny hands of corpses still clutching fuses. The kids, they say, had been forced to assemble fireworks illegally to make enough money to fund their school. “We have been protesting to the local authorities for the past two years, but the complaints were ignored at higher levels,” says villager Ding Mingxung, who lost his 9-year-old son in the blast. Beijing has a different explanation. The Prime Minister insisted the destruction had been caused by a deranged local nicknamed “Psycho”, who had walked into a classroom with two sacks full of explosives and detonated them.

Parents have hotly disputed that theory. “The government is covering up,” says one father who lost his 11-year-old son. The tragedy has destroyed any illusions citizens might have had about the state of schools in China’s countryside, where three quarters of the population lives. Although the national government promises every child free education for nine years, the burden of funding primary schools is left to local governments. “So if the local government is poor, then there is no money for education,” says Sophia Woodman, Asia director for Human Rights in China. That has led to fly-by-night operations like the one in Fanglin village – where a private entrepreneur reportedly contracted with school authorities to have kids assemble firecrackers, with profits going toward school expenses and local authorities.

Despite high-flown rhetoric about the value of education, Beijing devotes only 2.4 percent of China’s GNP to its public schools – less than India and one of the lowest levels in the world, according to the World Bank. By comparison, Taiwan spends nearly 7 percent of its GNP on education. “It’s very common for rural teachers to take money out of their pockets to pay for individual students’ fees or classroom supplies,” says Woodman. They don’t have much to give: teachers in Fanglin are paid $12 a month, when they are paid at all. In other parts of the country faculty have been known to organize students as day laborers, helping farmers harvest crops in return for a little grain or vegetables.

The enterprises are not entirely frowned upon by the authorities. In the 1980s, when Beijing urged all work units to launch side-line business in accord with Deng Xiaoping’s maxim “To get rich is glorious”, schools took the cue as well. As a result, schoolhouses have been known to rent space to factories, restaurants, mom-and-pop shops and even karaoke parlors. In a case uncovered last June near Wuhan, an insurance company enlisted local schools and the education commission to act as insurance agents, forcing policies on hapless parents and students. One 12-year-old girl tried to kill herself swallowing poison after exorbitant “insurance fee” bankrupted her family.

It’s rare for entire classes to be dragooned into moonlighting, as apparently happened in Fanglin. But child labor remains common in China, especially in the countryside. Underage workers are rife in the rural retail sector. They work in restaurants, beauty salons, metal works, karaoke bars and saunas (some become sex workers). Last year a factory near Shenzhen was caught using kids to manufacture toys for McDonald’s Happy Meals. “The students were working there because their school fees are too high,” says Parry Leung, a researcher with the Hong Kong-based Christian Industrial Committee. (Production of McDonald’s toys was halted due to “violations” of its code of conduct, though its auditors could not confirm the child-labor reports.) Around the same time, 35 people – half of them children – died when a fireworks workshop exploded in a village 30 miles from Fanglin.

(From ‘Newsweek’, abridged)

Problem Solving

Suppose the events described in the article have just taken place. The parents whose children were killed tried to sue the local authorities but they failed and the matter was hushed up. However, mass media reports initiated a campaign in the country against violation of children’s rights. The parents decided to appeal to the UN Commission for Human Rights.

Imagine that you are an assistant attorney who must help collect evidence for the case. Being just an assistant, you needn’t know any particular laws, but you cannot misinterpret facts thus presenting false data. Give short and conclusive answers to the following questions.

1. What facts given in the article can be considered fool-proof evidence?

2. What facts can be used as evidence on condition of their further investigation?

3. What information is dubious?

4. Who can be held responsible for the violation of children’s rights?

Schools? Local authorities? Both?

Read the article again, find the following words and word combinations in the text and learn their meaning. Make it a particular point to use these words in the further discussion of the problem.

To report (seeing smth), to be forced to do smth, to fund smth, to ignore a complaint, to dispute smth, to cover up, faculty, in return for smth, to urge smb to do smth, an insurance agent, exorbitant (fees), to be halted due to smth, a code of conduct, an auditor, to confirm smth