(ECNS) - More than 36 percent of left-behind children at boarding schools said they were bullied two to three times a month at school, according to a research.
So-called left-behind children are those who stay in rural hometowns while their parents migrate to work in cities.
The Beijing-based charity organization Growing Home joined the China Institute for Educational Finance Research at Peking University, the Institute of Population and Labor Economics, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (IPLE-CASS), and the School of Labor Economics, Capital University of Economics and Business, to release the report.
It was based on surveys of 17,000 fourth and fifth graders at 137 boarding elementary schools in five counties, located in northern and western China. More than 10,000 teachers and parents also participated in the survey that started in October 2015.
The survey found that 36 percent of students had parents who both worked in other cities for more than six months, and 60 percent had either their mother or father working away.
In the survey, 31.7 percent of students said they were bullied two or three times a month, and 16.5 percent, at least once a week. More than 48 percent saw other students fall victim to a school bully two or three times a month.
For the left-behind students, the bullying appeared to be more serious since they were far away from their parents. The survey showed that 36.3 percent suffered from bullying two or three times a month and 26.3 percent said they bullied other students at the same frequency.
The left-behind children were found to be in more disadvantageous situations in terms of physical health (height and weight), sleep quality, mental status, interpersonal relations and academic performance.
More than 18 percent of left-behind children had to retake a grade, 2.3 percentage points more than their peers with parents at home, and they were also eight percentage points more likely to become depressed than children staying with their parents.
Yang Dongping, director of the think tank 21st Century Education Research Institute, said a majority of rural boarding schools lacked cultural activities and other assistance measures, so students spent their time preoccupied with studying long hours and were prone to depression.
In the survey, 20.5 percent were children who were from cities, and this group was more prone to sleep disorders, depression (76.01 percent) and violent behavior. They also performed worse in reading than their peers.
Song Yingquan, an associate professor at the China Institute for Educational Finance Research, said city children who boarded were the most vulnerable group and deserved special attention.
China currently has about 33 million students in rural boarding schools, which received at least 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) in funding from the Ministry of Finance from 2004 to 2008.
