Rural Children Suffer from Slow Cognitive Development in China

According to REAP's research, IQ test results show children in rural areas of China suffer from slow cognitive development. Stanford University study shows 50 percent of the children between 6 and 30 months scored below the average in IQ tests. 

The direct causes look like pretty clear: poor parenting and lack of nutrition. Children's parents are all normally working in big China cities which have more labour requirements and higher salary. But the disadvantage is that they have to leave their home far away and leave their children behind with elderly people. Although most of those elderly people are children's grandparents, but they do not have much knowledge about how to raise the kids in a educational way. The main purpose is to feed the kids and make sure children do not feel hungry, which means enough calory but nutrition. As to intelligence development, what we can expect if the children have no books to read, no songs to hear, no games to play, and even no stranger to see.

Whom should we blame? Parents? Why they do not take their children with them to the big cities? Grandparents? Why they do not give a better way to raise children? From my perspective, They are all victims.

First of all, the local government of modern cities do not supply any education services for these children who have no birth certificates from these cities. There is such social benefits for them at all because they are foreign population. Although those parents contribute a lot to build the cities.

Secondly, there is no much basic facilities and services supplied by the rural area governors. How to make rural people a better life is the last thing they will think about. And how to extract money from the land has the highest priority.

Thirdly, the grandparents believe to feed the kids and keep them alive is the most important thing to do. And that is what they got before. One of the grandparent speak to a researcher: I have raised five kids. Do I need your advice to bring up child?

China government recently got rid of One Child Policy for rising the number of next generation. Unfortunately, without related public services to fix these problems, what kind of future ahead this country and those rural areas.


References:
http://reap.fsi.stanford.edu/news/caixin-poor-parenting-hinders-development-chinas-rural-children-study-shows