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Opinion
Print Edition> Opinion
UPDATED: August 29, 2011 NO. 35 SEPTEMBER 1, 2011
OPINION
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VOLUNTEER DONORS: To solve a critical blood shortage, civil servants and members of the Communist Party of China in Jiangxi Province take the lead in making donations (XINHUA)

Unwise Demolitions

Recently, 24 schools for the children of migrant workers in Beijing have faced demolition. In the past several years, big cities like Shanghai have shut down many schools for the children of migrant workers and tried to place them in state-run schools just like normal city dwellers. It is good for the Beijing Municipal government to have this arrangement for children of migrant workers.

Nonetheless, during the process of these well-intentioned demolitions, many problems have been caused. For instance, some schools were demolished, while students had not been properly relocated. What's more, some migrant workers are not able to afford the extra money it costs to send their children to state-run schools due to the lack of a local hukou, permanent residence certificate.

Alongside rapid development in big cities, there are greater numbers of migrant workers pouring into major urban centers and the problem of education for their children has become severe and urgent. The schools specially built for these children have played an important role in helping the children of migrant workers receive education in big cities. Due to the lack of a local hukou, migrant workers could only send their children to these schools, which are cheaper and more convenient. We can't simply shut down all of them. The government should provide greater financial and policy aid and more supervision to help the good ones improve the quality of education. They can be more helpful if guided properly.

If some of these schools have to be demolished, the government should make suitable arrangements, such as finding jobs for teachers and lowering the threshold for children of migrant workers to be educated in state-run schools.

Guangming Daily

Blood Scarcity

Beijing has recently suffered from the scarcity of blood. The amount of blood donated by volunteers dropped by more than 10 percent in July and August. Because of the shortage of blood supply, some surgical operations have been postponed.

One of the major reasons behind the blood shortage was a confidence crisis over the Red Cross Society of China, following a scandal caused by a woman named Guo Meimei, who claimed to be manager of an institution of the society, and showed off her wealth online.

In order to allay the crisis, government and charity organizations in China should make efforts to win back people's trust by giving the public transparent information about donations and responding to the public's queries sincerely.

Civil servants should be the leading force in voluntary blood donation whenever a crisis happens. There are seasonal blood shortages, which occur in students' summer holidays and when migrant workers go back to their hometowns in the heat of summer. But responsible civil servants' altruism shouldn't be influenced by the season. Regaining people's faith will start with civil servants' blood donations.

The blood donation crisis in itself is not too worrying. Not realizing the reason for it however is worrying. Only when we propel mutual trust in society can we really solve the crisis in charitable undertakings. The process of solving the blood donation crisis provides a valuable opportunity for restoring the public's trust.

The Beijing News

Spokesperson System

Wang Yongping, former spokesman for the Ministry of Railways, has been transferred from his post and to a foreign job vacancy at the ministry. Wang's new appointment might encourage other spokespeople to become more cautious or even remain silent after realizing the risk of saying anything wrong.

The spokesperson system in China has just started and most of the spokespeople are not veterans in their position. Some may not be experienced enough for handling the questions of the media. If we don't allow them a more relaxed atmosphere for speaking up, they will become more cautious in the future and their function of connecting government departments with the people will be reduced.

The function of spokespeople is quite important. Therefore, we should allow for some mistakes. We should be more tolerant to them to ensure their professional enthusiasm in this important job. In this way, this profession will be more likely to meet the need for information from people and media in the future.

We shouldn't underestimate the side-effects of Wang's transfer. The government should further improve the quality of spokespeople and avoid changing them often.

China Youth Daily

Inferior Food

It was reported by the media poor quality food, such as fake famous-brand chocolate, expired jelly and mildewed spicies, have appeared in rural markets. Although these items are less common in urban areas, they are still popular and even specially sold in rural areas, damaging the health of rural residents.

Poor quality food being sold in the countryside reveals the failure of the dual supervision system of rural and urban areas. As scandals relating to food safety increase, supervision departments are busy examining big supermarkets in cities and don't have time to supervise smaller countryside shops.

The reality is the food safety situation in the countryside is severe and urgent and should be paid more attention to. In the short term, emergency supervision must be conducted in rural areas. In the long term, we should improve the governing capability of supervision departments in rural areas through innovations in the system.

The Beijing News



 
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