Ms. Kitty Vorisek, consultant of Dandelion School and founder of DHR International, Beijing office, shared her views on the talent training in the supply chain and the demand of talents for China’s economic growth.

 

Firstly, Ms. Kitty Vorisek talked about the Sino-US cooperation in the education field-the project involves100 000participants from the two countries. Until now, over 10.000 Chinese students have studied in American Middle Schools and over 14.000 American students have studied in China. Based on this, she started researching the education of children of Chinese migrant workers.

 

 Without a registered permanent residence in Beijing and enough money to pay the high tuition fee, many children of migrant workers cannot receive education at school age. Established in Beijing in August 2005, the Dandelion School is a non-profit institution for such children. The aim of the school is to provide those children superior education. The total number of students reached 215 in autumn of 2010.Students can learn more about China and know that they are the future of China in the school which was built from a run-down factory.

 

Then, she mentioned that in the Dandelion School, students are expected to be more optimistic. For example, teachers will give children a map of China and ask them to mark their hometown and the school and connect the two points. Children are also told to mark the place where they meet good friends. Such a map can make the children aware of the fact that although they may suffer from some misfortunes, they still have beautiful memories. The present time is an important starting point for them. Besides, since the parents of these children are migrant workers, the children are told to observe the hands of their parents. Some of the parents lost one finger and some injured their hands in their work. For those children, such an activity helps them to know more about their parents’ efforts.

 

Recently, with 62 faculty members from different parts of China who are committed to developing a different teaching mode, the school still lacks professional teachers. Their average monthly salary is USD 2000. Meanwhile, Dandelion School cooperates with enterprises and NGOs (such as ACWF) so that many volunteers come to help teach the children. However, the graduates still lack the access to high-level ongoing education: some enter vocational high schools in Beijing and some just return to their hometown and become a farmer. But there are still some diligent students who are admitted to first-rate universities in the world and further their study.

 

In the last part of the speech, Kitty Vorisek mentioned two main problems of Dandelion School: the lack of fundings and the high mobility of volunteers. Therefore, it is hard to establish a model among students.

 

Ms. Kitty Vorisek’s speech about the education of children of Chinese migrant workers received warm response of the audience who asked questions and communicated with her.

 

Intern reporter: Guo Fangfei