Residence permit

From Southern Weekly's review section page F 29, 03.12.2009.

Residence permit! Residence permit!

Year in year out I've been a migrant worker, and after a while my wife joined me, while my parents were looking after our 6 year old daughter, making her a stay behind child. When our child entered kindergarten, I planned to settle down in this alien land and then for her to attend school here, but because we are not "locals", not having a "residence permit", not included the costs of transfer her to another school , but just the normal fees for one school term was more than 1000 Yuan. At the time me and my wife had just found work and we were short of money, so we had no choice but to temporarily drop our plan. Later when we got a small raise, we once again started considering bringing our daugther over to study. But when we went to the local primary school to seek advice I once again felt dejected, again because we do not have a "residence permit". If our daugther was to attend school here, she wouldn't be able to take the required entrance exams for middel school and university because the local school won't let people without "residence permit" take the test. Finally, I abandoned the plan of bringing our daughter over for study, and my wife returned home to accompany her to study.

Sunweiguo, farmer Quanjiao county, Anhui province