Hong Kong charity, Sowers Action (苗圃行动), established fifteen years ago to support education on China’s mainland and currently mobilising around CNY 19 million (USD 2.4 million) per year for primary schooling, is deliberating a shift towards vocational education, according to Herman To (杜勇声), a founding member and current Deputy Chair of the organisation.

Discussions under way, To told China Development Brief, have been prompted by the mainland government’s pledge to raise government spending on education to 4% of GDP (up from 3.4% in 2002), and to reduce financial barriers to primary schooling by waiving text book and “miscellaneous” fees for poor students under a “two exemptions, one subsidy” (两免一补) policy.

“Something we thought would take fifty years has in fact been achieved within fifteen years and we are delighted to be out of a job,” To said. He added, however, that it could take several years for the policy to be fully implemented at all administrative levels.

Since 1989, when the China Youth League’s Youth Development Foundation launched its flagship Project Hope to provide scholarship assistance to children from poor families, numerous “overseas Chinese” and international organisations have created similar programmes.

Sowers Action has been one of the most successful. Since its founding it has provided around CNY 150 million (USD 19.2 million) in financial support for around 230,000 school students in rural China, refurbished more than 650 dilapidated schools, and supplied equipment and educational materials to many more. Financial support for students goes directly to families rather than through intermediary agencies and this requires frequent identification and monitoring visits to project sites. Most of this work is carried out by volunteers and the organization has only a small, professional staff team of nine people, spread between offices in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Yunnan.

Fundraising has grown steadily, boosted by annual sponsored walks from Hong Kong to Guangzhou and occasional, longer hikes. These have included a walk from Hong Kong to Beijing in 1997 and, in 2005/6, a “Long March for Education” along the route of the Red Army’s historic, tactical retreat. September 2007 will see the start of a walk along the “Tea Horse Road” from Xishuangbanna in southern Yunnan to Lhasa in Tibet.

Now that the central government is bolstering its support for basic education, Sowers Action is “thinking about a new strategy to redefine our mainstream,” according to To. “We are thinking about going upstream to look at zhongzhuan (中转)”—vocational schools that take students who have completed nine years of compulsory education.

China’s current (eleventh) Five Year Plan stresses the need to reform and develop vocational educational provision to equip young people with the skills necessary to thrive in a fast-changing and increasingly competitive jobs market. However, the zhongzhuan schools all charge tuition fees, as do senior high schools (gaozhong 高中), which are the general route to university entrance.

Although its early staple was financial support to enable children to complete primary school, in recent years Sowers Action has devoted a growing proportion of its funding to refurbishing rural school facilities. This accounted for 75% of expenditure in the year ending June 30 2006.

There has also been a trend towards support for secondary education. Eleven secondary schools have been refurbished with Sowers Action’s support, and the organisation has already begun to provide some scholarships for high school students.

In 2006, it sponsored the Guanghua Girls Secondary School (华光女子中学) in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, a “citizen-run” (民办minban) non-profit school devoted to offering free education. The Sowers Action Annual Report for 2005-2006 describes this as “a prototype for Sowers Action in its endeavour to develop secondary education on the mainland in future.”

Sowers Action is also grappling, according to To, with issues of administrative professionalistion.

Reliance on volunteers has allowed the organisation to keep down administrative costs and honour a pledge to use 100% of general donations for project beneficiaries. Overheads are covered by specially designated funds, donated in large part by members of the Council to the Board, and by the return on investments.

But while this system minimises overheads, it also introduces administrative stress. “We only have 21 full-time staff--ten in Hong Kong and eleven on the mainland--for an organization that needs 90,” said To.

Report by Nick Young, December 27, 2009