170 8 School Mapping and Boarding in the Context ...
20,312 in 2000. A large wave of rural citizens moved into urban areas and smaller
townships. The proportion of the population who possessed urban residential iden-
tity grew from 26.2 % in 1990 to over 36 % in 2000 and is now over 50 %. These
changes led to the radical decline in the overall enrolment of students, especially
in rural areas. The number of rural students in 1995 was 93 million and a num-
ber of new entrants 18 million. By 2000 only five years later the number of rural
students enrolled had fallen to 85 million and the number of new entrants was
12.5 million. The average size of rural schools began to fall below the national
standard of about 350 students, and the numbers of small schools with enrol-
ments below 250 started to increase. These national changes are reflected in data
from Tongzhou in Beijing and Ansai in Shaanxi and in particular townships this is
discussed in the next sections.
8.3.1 Demographic and Change and School Enrolment
in Tongzhou District, Beijing
Population growth in Tongzhou was rapid in the 1990s but slowed up 2000. A fall-
ing birth rate was more than compensated for by inward migration needing to pro-
found changes in the population between 1990 and 2010. Figure 8.1 shows how
total population was growing slowly after 2000.
Tongzhou has experienced a widely fluctuating birthrate. In 1990 the birth rate
was 15 %. This fell to a low level of 3.8 % by 2003 and recovered to reach 7.0 %
by 2006. There were more slightly more females than males in the population with
a tendency for the number of males to increase. This may be a result of inward
migration of more men than women but no data is available on this.
The two case study townships, Xiji and Majuqiao, mirrored these overall
demographic patterns. Xiji had 160 new born babies in 2006, a rate of 3.3 ‰,
compared to 17 ‰ in 1990 showing a demographic transition of unprecedented
scale. Majvqiao townships birth rate dropped to its lowest point of 4.4 ‰ in 2003.
However this recovered to 9.5 ‰ in 2006.
Figure 8.1 Population growth in Tongzhou
in Tongzhou