School unlicensed

Though the cause remains unknown, the kindergarten has come under fire for operating without a license for more than a year, defying a shutdown order from the city's education bureau.

"We ordered it to be shut down as early as March 14, 2011, but we cannot enforce the order unless we go to court," said Zhang Guangming, head of the education bureau of Hetang district, which supervises the kindergarten.

"All we could do was to notify the public that the school was unlicensed," Zhang said.

The government notice, however, was ignored.

There are an estimated 10,000 preschool-aged children of migrant workers concentrated in Hetang district, but the district's sole public kindergarten can only enroll 200 children.

About 120 children attend Jinbeier Kindergarten.

Many migrant workers recently said they would not know where to send their children if unlicensed private kindergartens like Jinbeier were forced to close.

Kang, the head of Jinbeier Kindergarten, said she refused to close because she started the kindergarten after being laid off and she had not yet seen a return on her investment.

"For another thing, the 120 children would have nowhere to go once the kindergarten was shut down, and their parents had expressed hope that the school could keep running," Kang added.

Only one of the eight teachers at Jinbeier is certified, officials said, forcing them to consider how a license could be issued to such a substandard school.

Children suffer

The tragedy is a microcosm of the plight of the children of China's 240 million rural migrant workers in cities and factory towns. Migrant children are usually left at home with their aging grandparents. Those who follow their working parents may get a taste of city life, but often struggle to enroll at good schools.

Migrant workers face difficulties educating their children as they do not hold a household registration, commonly known as hukou, in the area they've moved to. The lack of hukou also prevents them from enjoying other social benefits when they relocate, including access to medical services.

Migrant workers also generally lack funds to buy their children's way into the best schools, and do not often have time to attend to their children's legitimate needs, including schooling.

Facilities in many of the kindergartens for migrant children are basic, the education resources limited, and most teachers unqualified, as the schools usually operate on very tight budgets.

Abruptly shutting down schools for migrant children can also cause other problems.

Last year, about 2,300 children, mostly from migrant families, were forced to return home as the government closed 31 illegal kindergartens in Xihongmen, a suburb of Beijing.

Most of the shuttered kindergartens were built without permission from local land authorities and others had become dilapidated. The closure was part of Beijing's intense crackdown on illegal and unsafe buildings after a fire at a garment workshop dorm killed 18 people in April 2011.

Education experts say the emergence of schools for migrant children is a result of scarce public education resources, and they suggest the government help these schools improve their facilities and the quality of education.

Education Minister Yuan Guiren pledged last month that China would make further efforts to improve compulsory education for the children of migrant workers in 2012.

He said that children who follow their parents to study and live in cities will be included in the financial security system and considered in the regional education development plan.

In affluent towns like Shao-xing in coastal Zhejiang province, where private enterprises are struggling through a severe labor shortage, wealthy employers are offering to transfer migrant workers' children to better schools.