| The Poor Need Rights Too
The Chinese Government is reportedly considering raising the country's poverty line from 1,067 yuan ($152) to 1,300 yuan ($186). The proposed figure, which translates into a real daily purchasing power of $1, will bring China's poverty line up to the UN-sanctioned level for the first time. This adjustment takes into consideration not only impoverished people's needs, but also their financial capability to pay for education and medical care.
For a long time, there have been outcries complaining that the present poverty line is too low to ensure low-income people's basic livelihood.
However, while raising the official poverty line, the more important thing is to eradicate the root cause of poverty, because poverty does not merely mean the shortage of living necessities, but of rights for the poor.
For example, in five cities running out of natural resources in northeast China, it is found that after leaving state- or collectively-owned enterprises, most of the laid-off workers can hardly find new jobs and their access to unemployment and pension insurances and medical and educational services is not guaranteed. The deprivation of these basic rights forces them to slip into or back into poverty. This is the same case with China's farmer-turned-workers, who do not have institutional protection to turn to when their wages are defaulted or unreasonably slashed or even refused. The fundamental reason for their poverty is absence of some basic rights.
To provide the poor with an equal playing field and equal opportunities and to abolish policy-related unfair treatment, there should be more extensive poverty alleviation measures.
Chinese Business View
No Experience, No Work
The Shanghai Municipal Government announced recently that it would stop recruiting civil servants from new college graduates, and instead use existing civil servants in grassroots governments to fill vacancies. According to the Shanghai Municipal Government's recruitment record, 59.7 percent of the recruited civil servants in 2007 were new graduates only because they had good exam results.
If the reason to refuse new graduates is that they are short of work experience at grassroots institutions and know little about the working environment, then the refusal makes some sense. But it seems unfair to reject them just because of their proficiency in negotiating examinations.
There are still many holes in the present civil servant recruitment system, so the key is not to exclude certain groups of candidates but to improve the system.
To make the recruiting process more rational, Shanghai can set work experience as essential and eliminate the importance of examination results in the overall recruiting process, but by no means should new graduates be absolutely excluded.
Beijing Youth Daily
Statistics Need a Wider Net
In May 2008, the National Bureau of Statistics will release new statistics on urban workers' income, adding data on employees in private businesses who have long been omitted in the statistics. Previous results only cover the wages of those who work in state- and collectively-owned enterprises and in government departments and various public institutions, who generally have higher incomes. The new methodology is expected to lower urban workers' average income level.
Statistics on workers' average income is the basis on which the government work out economic and social policies. If the data is not comprehensive or factual, the policies will be ineffective or even improper. When the statistics only cover higher-income earners, relevant policies may seem unreasonable.
For example, the benchmark for social security insurance premiums is fixed according to workers' average income. A certain proportion of workers' monthly wages is deducted as the premiums. The current premiums are actually unaffordable to many low-income earners, because the benchmark is based on the income level of higher-income earners. To a large extent, this is the same case with the current individual income tax cutoff point.
It's a step forward for the National Bureau of Statistics to include workers in private businesses in its income monitoring, but it's hoped more job categories can be covered, such as street traders. Only complete and accurate statistics, which reflect the social reality, help the government produce effective policies.
Workers' Daily
Disguised Public Schools
The High School Affiliated to Shanxi University in north China is a tax-funded public school. Yet its junior middle school section was converted to a private teaching institution and began to have independent student enrollment and to charge high tuition fees. This brought in almost 100 million yuan (more than $15 million) in the past nine years. Teachers in the school thus enjoy high salaries, bonuses and also numerous opportunities of free travel every year.
In order to compete for outstanding students, the school management instituted entrance examinations, which goes against the education authorities' ban that stipulates all primary school students can enter higher-level schools without being subjected to an examination.
What happened to this Shanxi school is only one of the many examples in the education sector that take advantage of public resources for self-benefits. Despite their considerable tuition charges, many students still scramble to go to these fake private schools, which actually should not be charging such exorbitant fees, because of their sound teaching staff and facilities. Meanwhile, the survival and development of genuine voluntary schools is threatened.
People's Daily | 
