SFG2127 Public Disclosure Authorized China: Guangdong Compulsory Education Project (P154621) Social Impact Assessment Report Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Sun Yat-sen University Department of Education of Guangdong Province February 2016 · Guangzhou, China Public Disclosure Authorized China: Guangdong Compulsory Education Project (P154621) Social Impact Assessment Report Executive Summary Entrusted by the Provincial Project Management Office of the World Bank Loan Guangdong Compulsory Education Project, editorial specialists from the Research Center for Immigrants and Ethnic Groups of Sun-Yat-sen University visited the 16 project counties (cities/districts) from January 15 to 29, 2016 and conducted field investigations for social evaluation on the 8 established projects of the World Bank Loan Guangdong Compulsory Education Project. In February 29, 2016, they finished the social evaluation report of the bundled projects in 16 counties (cities/districts) of weak compulsory education, namely Chaoyang, Wengyuan, Wuhua, Haifeng, Lufeng, Suixi, Lianjiang, Leizhou, Wuchuan, Dianbai, Huazhou, Chao’an, Huilai, Puning, Jiexi, and Luoding. Based on field investigation and data analysis, the social evaluation group draws the conclusion that separate Ethnic Minority Development Plan is not necessary, thus the report mainly focuses on the analysis of the overall social impact of the project. The content of the World Bank Loan Guangdong Compulsory Education Project includes 8 items, namely pilot project of sharing high-quality education resources, pilot project of school standardization, pilot project of quality-oriented education experiments, pilot project of optimized allocation of teachers, pilot project of education availability for special groups, pilot project of education quality management, pilot project of project management and ability improvement, and research and pilot project of management system for social donations to schools. Under the 8 items, there are 22 sub-items. The project involves 16 counties (cities/districts) of Guangdong Province, namely Chaoyang District, Wengyuan County, Wuhua County, Haifeng County, Lufeng City, Suixi County, Lianjiang City, Leizhou City, Wuchuan City, Dianbai District, Huazhou City, Chao’an District, Huilai County, Puning City, Jiexi County, and Luoding City. Of the total population of 22.8626 million, urban population accounts for 6.887 million while rural population accounts for 15.9752 million. In the preparation period of social evaluation, the group identifies major social I China: Guangdong Compulsory Education Project (P154621) Social Impact Assessment Report factors which may affect the project implementation: 1. Pilot project of sharing high-quality education resources. Major social factors which may affect the project implementation include infrastructure during early stage, behavior pattern of concerned groups, involvement of related stakeholders, later-stage management, professional services, etc. 2. Pilot project of school standardization. Major social factors probably existing in the project of standard classroom are demolition and temporary relocation, demands and expectations of stakeholders, use, management and allocation system, etc. While major social factors that may exist in the project of standard mobile laboratory are coverage of benefit, project participants, demands and expectations of stakeholders, medium- and later-stage management and maintenance of operating equipment, etc. Major social factors probably present in the project of dormitories for teachers in remote rural areas are demolition and temporary relocation, involvement of affected groups, compensations, etc. 3. Pilot project of quality-oriented education experiments. Major social factors which may affect the project implementation include the project understanding, expectations and demands of the benefited groups, later-stage evaluation standards and system, reasonable formulation of educational content and standards. 4. Pilot project of optimized allocation of teachers. Major social factors probably existing in the project of general primary school teachers include advance publicity, entrance exam system design, project understanding, expectations and demands of participants, later-stage compilation and arrangement. While major social factors that may exist in the project of ability improvement of headmasters and backbone teachers include demands and expectations of benefited groups, reasonable and well-established system, measure and guarantee, etc. 5. Pilot project of education availability for special groups. Major social factors probably present in the research and pilot project of the family care system for left-behind rural children are needs of rural people, interaction among project participants, such as between schools and families, connection between schools and other social institutions, reasonable curriculum design. Major social factors existing in II China: Guangdong Compulsory Education Project (P154621) Social Impact Assessment Report the research and pilot project of special children’s learning in regular class system are tolerance to special children from the society and schools and the establishment of reasonable examining system, etc. 6. Pilot project of education quality management. The evaluation group holds that scientific system design, full involvement of schools, headmasters and teachers, establishment of scientific evaluation system, later-stage monitoring and management are major social factors influencing the implementation of the project. 7. Pilot project of project management and ability improvement. Major social factors which may affect the project implementation include executive capability of relevant personnel, organization publicity, organization ability, system construction capability, later-stage monitoring and management capability, etc. 8. Research project of management system for social donations to schools. Major social factors which may affect the project implementation are donation willingness towards the recipients, establishment of scientific and reasonable donation system, establishment of connection between donating institutions and recipients, later-stage improvement and maintenance, etc. 9. Involvement of vulnerable groups (including poor students, disabled students, left-behind children, minorities). Demands, expectations and involvement of vulnerable groups should be taken into consideration, especially the involvement process of poor students, disabled students, left-behind children, minorities, the impact of family on the involvement of vulnerable groups, family involvement, and family support. Based on the analysis of above social factors, corresponding policies and measures for vulnerable groups should be put forward. 10. Groups affected by temporary demolition. The right to information and involvement of groups affected by temporary demolition (students affected by temporary demolition of classrooms and teachers affected by temporary demolition of houses) should be paid attention to, including setting up special settlement methods and compensation standards, the formulation of safety management measures in the construction period in order to guarantee the daily life of affected people. Centering on the above factors which may affect the project implementation, III China: Guangdong Compulsory Education Project (P154621) Social Impact Assessment Report based on the field investigation, and combining with relevant results in the social evaluation and analysis report of 16 counties (cities/districts) in Guangdong Province, the report focuses on the following: I. Overall condition of economy, society, culture and education in project counties (cities/districts), including social and economic developemnt level, implementation condition of compulsory education, distribution condition of compulsory education resources. Foundings by the evaluation team are: 1. Seen from the financial input in compulsory education, the expenditures for compulsory education in the counties (cities/districts) mainly come from national, provincial, municipal and county-level financial input. In addition to financial input, social donation is another source of the expenditures for compulsory education. 2. Seen from the layout of educational resources, there are a total of 5795 compulsory education schools in the places under the influence of the project, of which there are 3460 primary schools, 688 junior high schools, 1916 teaching schools, and 430 boarding schools. According to the result of spot survey and research conducted by the evaluation team, lots of schools are located in comparatively remote towns which are fairly far away from downtown areas and are featured by low accessibility. Seen from the numbers of labs owned by the counties (cities/districts), the numbers of labs in such regions as Luoding City, Suixi County, Wuhua County, Wengyuan County, Jiexi County and Leizhou City are all smaller than the total numbers of the existing schools. In particular, the numbers of labs in Chao'an District, Leizhou City and Wengyuan County account for less than 50% of the total numbers of schools, which shows that lack in labs is still a fairly general issue. 3. According to the information on the teachers in the project counties (cities/districts), the number of female teachers accounts for 61.32 % of the total number of teachers, teachers aged between 30 and 50 are the majority in the age structure of the teachers. 4. According to the distribution