Placement Communities

Placement Communities

Teach for China selects placement schools in partnership with the local Chinese government. In assessing placement schools, Teach For China uses rigorous criteria that considers student, school, and community need, support from local administrators, and Fellow safety.

Teach for China currently operates in Yunnan Province and Guangdong Province, both in Southern China. In the 2011-2012 school year, over 150 Teach For China Fellows are working at nearly 40 middle and elementary school placements. Most Teach For China schools are in small townships, with some also located in larger county-level towns. Teach For China host communities are tight-knit and offer Fellows a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in Chinese daily life.

Teach For China places Fellows exclusively in high-needs schools so most placement communities are also relatively low-income, with a majority of students coming from families that rely on basic agriculture for survival. The students face a range of daunting challenges above and beyond those faced by children in urban communities. Extreme poverty increases the pressure to drop out of school early and find work. Rural children tend to start school several years later than their urban peers, slowing their development of critical foundational skills. Smaller villages are often located many miles from the nearest community schools, such that many students must walk 4-8 hours in order to reach school.

These and other factors are at the root of a severe achievement gap between urban and rural schools. Though the challenges they face are greater, students in rural areas must compete on the same province-wide standardized tests as their urban peers. As a result, many students are unable to pass the entrance examinations required to ascend to higher levels of education. This is particularly true at the middle school level, where on average fewer than 50% of rural students are able to pass the high school entrance exam (zhongkao 中考). As they struggle to pass these tests, disadvantaged students are engaged in rote learning and memorization in an effort to pass exams, rather than mastering the knowledge and developing the skills that would position them for further educational and life opportunities. Furthermore, chronic underperformance on highly emphasized tests leads many students to give up studying long before they have the opportunity to take the high school entrance exam. As a result of little student investment in their own schooling, schools in rural China often experience staggering dropout rates, sometimes as high as 50% over a three-year period.

Teach For China believes that rural students can overcome these daunting challenges with the help of exceptional educators who inspire and lead them to succeed. Teach For China Fellows work each and every day to deliver quality instruction and inspire their students to overcome these daunting obstacles.