A Probe into the Path of Caring for Rural Children in the Era of “Internet+” ()
1. Introduction
According to the Monitoring and Investigation Report on Migrant Workers in 2021 issued by the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2021, there will be 292.51 million migrant workers, 171.72 million migrant workers and 9.02 million left behind children in China, 96% of whom will be under the custody of grandparents from generation to generation and under the care of relatives and friends [1]. Rural education, especially the education of left behind children, has become the focus of academic attention. Scholars’ research perspectives vary from educational equity to promotion strategies, but it is generally recognized that rural education needs the joint efforts of the whole society and more attention and care from all walks of life. The advent of the “Internet plus” era has brought more choices to rural education. The joint efforts of the country, society and various groups will inevitably accelerate the revitalization of rural culture.
2. Summary
The implementation of the rural revitalization strategy is a major decision and deployment made at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and a major historical task for building a moderately prosperous society and a modern socialist country in an all-round way. The country prospers when the country prospers. The key to rural revitalization lies in talents. The soul lies in culture, and the cornerstone lies in education. Only when rural children are well trained can the intergenerational transmission of rural poverty be blocked, the sustainable development of rural economy and society be promoted, the comprehensive capacity of rural development be enhanced, and the real revitalization of rural areas be achieved.
As a special group, rural children have received more and more attention and become the focus of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization [2] Rural children, especially left behind children and children in need, are the key targets of social assistance. Through sorting out the problems faced by the current rural children’s family education, this paper points out the importance of strengthening the care of rural children, and then carries out coordination and integration from the country, society, groups and other multi-level, multi angle, to help rural families solve problems such as inability to guide homework, too few relatives, obsession with the network, lack of care, and lay a talent foundation for rural revitalization.
3. The Dilemma of Family Education for Rural Children
3.1. The Number of Left-Behind Children Is Increasing as Farmers Migrate to Cities to Work
Due to the development of urbanization, a large number of farmers have moved into cities in order to make a living. In 2021, the total number of migrant workers in China will be 292.51 million, and the number of migrant workers will be 171.72 million [3]. However, the tight medical and educational resources in the city, the intense work rhythm, and the high labor intensity in the work make them have no more time and sufficient energy to better educate their children. At the same time, the wages, and benefits of migrant workers in cities are quite different from those of urban workers. It is difficult for them to afford their tuition and living expenses with their wages. Due to the limitations of time, energy and residence, parents cannot bring their children with them. For these reasons, children have to stay at home, and the number of left-behind children in rural areas is increasing.
3.2. Lack of Family Care Leads to Various Problems in Children
Parents play an indispensable role the growth of children, and family care is crucial. However, today’s rural areas are full of families that lack the role of parents due to migrant workers. The direct result is that rural children have various problems. The guardians of rural grandparents often only care about whether their children eat well and whether they are warmly dressed. Neglecting children’s psychological and moral problems, as a result, these children may feel lonely and helpless when they encounter psychological problems because no one can tell and solve them, and the virtual network has become a place for them to seek warmth. However, there is a mixture of mermaids and mermaids on the Internet, and children cannot distinguish right from wrong, so they are easily influenced by some violent and exciting content, which leads to violent behaviors and even criminal behaviors. At the same time, these children who lack care also have psychological problems such as low self-esteem, inner fragility, and emotional instability. They are not confident, more confused, and have no plans and expectations for the future, because in their living environment, people’s lives are almost the same. Childhood is a key period for the formation of a person’s personality, psychology, and quality. Children are highly plastic, but at the same time they are easily affected by the environment and bad behavior. Therefore, it is very necessary to care for children’s mental health problems and promote their healthy growth of. Due to the many factors affecting the outside world, children who are not mature enough will be more likely to be tempted by the outside world. At this time, it is even more necessary for parents, relatives, school teachers, and the whole society to work together and devote more energy and patience to help these children, through this special period.
3.3. The Backwardness of Rural Education Cannot Provide Comprehensive Care for Rural Children
Education is the foundation of a country and the symbol of a nation’s prosperity. Education is an important pillar for the development and growth of a country. “Rural revitalization, education first. The revitalization of rural education is an important breakthrough in the realization of the strategy of rural revitalization [4].” However, the current rural education still faces huge problems. Due to the inconvenient geography, transportation, and social living environment of rural middle schools, and the general low salary of teachers, it is often difficult to recruit excellent teachers in rural areas, so the quality of rural teachers is relatively poor. A large part of teachers in rural primary schools are teachers who have just transferred from rural private primary schools to public teachers or teachers hired by villages. Only a small part of them have received special teaching, and most of them rely on their own Some of the educational experience accumulated over time is used to carry out teaching work. In rural schools, almost every teacher is “multi-tasking” and can teach almost any subject, and there is basically no psychological Education course in rural schools. As for the inability to provide corresponding understanding, care and enlightenment to rural children. After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Chinese rural education has been significantly improved, but compared with urban education, there is still a big gap. All children are the future and hope of the motherland, and they need our common care. The State Council’s “Opinions on Strengthening the Care and Protection of Left-behind Children in Rural Areas” pointed out that “strengthening the care and protection of left-behind children in rural areas and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of minors are important responsibilities of governments at all levels, as well as the common responsibility of families and the whole society. All regions, and relevant departments must fully understand the importance and urgency of strengthening the care and protection of left-behind children in rural areas, enhance their sense of responsibility and mission, increase their efforts, and take effective measures to ensure that left-behind children in rural areas receive proper guardianship, care and better care and protection.”
4. The Need to Establish a System of Rural Children
4.1. Rural Revitalization and Development Are Inseparable from the Healthy Growth of Rural Children
Children are the hope of the nation and the future of the nation. As the future successors of the motherland, the healthy growth of children is of great significance. Helping rural children and solving the problems of rural children today is not only necessary to realize rural revitalization, but also can accelerate the development of the national economy and maintain the rapid and steady progress of the country. By the end of the 13th Five Year Plan, “there were 6.436 million left behind children in rural areas nationwide [5].” The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out: “It is necessary to improve the care and service system for left-behind children, women and the elderly in rural areas.” The revitalization of rural talents is very important for rural revitalization. Education is the endogenous driving force of rural revitalization, education has always been the focus of national attention and development, China has also introduced various policies to support education, rural children’s education has also been widely paid attention to.
4.2. Social Harmony and Stability Require More Care for Rural Children
At present, urbanization is still a general trend, and the number of rural children is still increasing for various reasons. Migrant workers have left their hometowns to build their country, but they often worry about their children’s left behind and will not be able to work with peace of mind. The lack of supervision of rural children at home, coupled with the induction of some undesirable factors, is likely to lead to violence among children, which invisibly increases the factors of social instability. Solving the problem of rural children is to solve the worries of migrant workers, which is conducive to improving people’s happiness and satisfaction. The gap between urban and rural education restricts the development of rural children and solving the problem of rural children is conducive to resolving social contradictions, maintaining social stability, and promoting harmonious social development, and is also the need to implement the rural revitalization strategy.
4.3. The Lack of Parental Roles Calls for a Comprehensive Care System
With the further acceleration of China’s industrialization process, urbanization and modernization, many rural surplus labors have successively shifted to large cities, resulting in an expanding trend of left-behind children in rural areas. As the child’s first teacher, parents leave the family early to go out to work, almost all year round, the child’s ideological enlightenment is not taken seriously, and the lack of family education will inevitably affect the child’s future life. For families, the estrangement between children and parents will not only alienate the parent-child relationship, but also have an indelible impact on the child’s physical and mental development. At present, all sectors of society are very concerned about rural children and provide care for rural children through various forms. But once or twice to send warmth activities cannot really make up for the lack of love, a few days of activities are not urgent needs of children, more and more children who lack parental care call for a comprehensive social care system to guide them to grow up healthily.
5. The Path of Caring for Rural Children on the Internet+ Era
5.1. The Government Leads and Builds a Caring System
The “Opinions of the State Council on Strengthening the Care and Protection of Left-behind Children in Rural Areas” pointed out that “adhere to protection according to law, constantly improve laws, regulations and institutional mechanisms, adhere to problem orientation, strengthen the main responsibility of family guardianship, increase care and protection, gradually reduce the phenomenon of children left behind, and ensure that The safety, health, education and other rights and interests of left-behind children in rural areas are effectively guaranteed.” To build a care system for rural children, we must first start with basic education. General Secretary Jinping Xi pointed out: “Basic education is the cause of the whole society and requires the close cooperation of schools, families, and society [5].” The development of basic education can make children in the mountains a vital force in rural development, while neglecting basic education will directly affect the future of the village. Due to the unbalanced development of objective factors such as urban and rural economy and politics, the development of urban and rural education is extremely unbalanced.
1) It is necessary to increase funding, narrow the gap in educational opportunities and teachers, and provide fair education for rural children.
2) To promotes farmers returning to their hometowns to start businesses, rural revitalization ultimately depends on farmers, and the best way to solve the problem of rural children is the return of their parents. Therefore, “the government should vigorously develop the rural economy, promote industrial development, and increase the number of migrant workers returning to their hometowns for employment, opportunities to start a business, and reduce left-behind children from the source [6].”
3) Promote rural revitalization and development. The environment can cast a talent or destroy a talent. A good environment is a very effective silent education. A good environment will make people self-disciplined and motivate people to forge ahead. From the perspective of the countryside, China’s current rural revitalization is also a way to improve the educational environment and improve the living environment of rural children. “A traditional rural community is a village composed of blood and geography, and it is also an important place for rural children’s social education [7].” The environment after rural revitalization is the cradle of students’ study and life, which is conducive to the formation of a positive atmosphere, and the education will get twice the result with half the effort.
5.2. Social Care, Strengthening Family Education Guidance
Parents are children’s first teachers. Family education is an important part of the national education system and the foundation, supplement, and extension of social and school education. Family education accompanies and affects a person’s life and is crucial to a person’s growth and success. Mr. Yuanpei Cai, a Chinese educator, said: “Family is the first school in life.” A clear understanding of the important role of family education is of great significance to each of us, every family and even the entire society. The society’s care for rural children can take advantage of “Internet+” and establish a corresponding platform to set up free family education courses for farmers, strengthen the educational awareness of rural children’s parents, actively learn correct methods, actively improve children’s learning environment, and explore the solution to rural children’s educational difficulties creates an atmosphere for children’s healthy growth in many ways.
5.2.1. Study Guide
Parents can update their educational concepts through the corresponding “Internet+” children’s accompanying reading platform, use the platform to guide their children’s learning, understand their learning situation, respect, encourage and learn to appreciate their children, and improve their own quality, set an example, and set a good example. Through the corresponding platform, on the one hand, it can promote effective communication between parents and children; Use the platform to provide targeted counseling answers.
5.2.2. Family Accompanying
Family companionship is very important for children. Family companionship is conducive to enhancing the intimacy of the relationship between parents and children; it is conducive to increase children’s self-confidence and stimulating their inner potential; it is conducive to the healthy growth of children’s mind and body. Emotion is a thing that takes time to cultivate and improve. Even if it is a natural blood relationship, there must be enough time to spend together to make the parent-child relationship between parents and children closer. There are also many “caring mothers” activities in the society, such as Daye City Women’s Federation “Caring Mothers”, “Hulunbuir Caring Mothers Group”, “Caring Mothers’ Family Connection”, etc. These activities approach rural children and let these children feel family love like companionship. But these activities are short-lived and lack persistence. Through “Internet+”, we can establish a lasting connection, break the spatial distance, and let children feel the uninterrupted family companionship.
5.2.3. Psychological Counseling
In this era of high-speed Internet development, video is also an indispensable way of teaching. Mental health knowledge can be disseminated through the Internet. Mental health education and teaching videos are set up on the Internet platform to help rural children learn to seek appropriate help when necessary, to achieve the purpose of protecting and improving mental health. Provide corresponding psychological counseling services through the Internet, attract social-related psychological professionals to participate, and timely counsel and solve the psychological problems of rural children, to prevent children from falling into confusion or even misunderstandings due to the unresolved psychological impact caused by external behaviors. Help rural children understand and solve more psychological problems, to enhance children’s “adverse quotient”.
5.3. Integrate Resources and Establish a Caring Service Team
The society has been paying attention to family education for rural children for a long time. At present, there are two main ways to improve rural family education: one is to start with parents and establish an “Internet+” home-school education platform or a simple family education platform. Push various educational theories, methods, and strategies to parents. At the same time, parents can also feedback their practical experience to the platform, and parents can communicate and learn from each other. The second is to start with children, which can be divided into two aspects: on the one hand, parents send their children to after-school tutoring institutions to study and rely on tutoring institutions for education; some local public welfare organizations send love and warmth activities, and college students go to the countryside activities. These activities have various forms, but they do their own things. Some activities have repetitive content and time conflicts. Social resources should be integrated, combined with the existing care model, to establish a rural childcare service team, mainly in the following categories.
5.3.1. Establish a Reading Platform for Rural Children
It is common for young and middle-aged parents in rural areas to go out to work and leave their children at home to be looked after by their parents and elders. Due to the separation of parent-child guardianship responsibilities or the failure of proxy guardianship responsibilities due to migrant workers, some rural children do not receive enough care and communication. Obtaining long-term or uninterrupted continuum of companionship is critical. Establish an “Internet+” rural children’s accompanying reading platform, use the resources of college students and social love resources, form a one-on-one pairing form of assistance, establish a long-term communication mechanism between rural children and caring groups, and effectively guarantee the effectiveness of assistance activities. Continuity and coherence, and more stable personnel, is more conducive to forming a trusting relationship with the matching children and making up for the lack of parents not around. Moreover, college students have a broad vision, and there is not much age gap with children, so it is easier to form friends with children and communicate with them, to promote healthy growth of children.
5.3.2. Expand the Scope of University Teaching Support Services
Give full play to the function of colleges and universities to educate people, “Since its birth, the university has gathered a large number of scientific, technological and cultural elites, and has had a tremendous impact on social culture through knowledge dissemination, knowledge creation and interaction with society [8].” Serving the country and benefiting society has always been an important function of Chinese universities. The connection between colleges and universities and rural revitalization is not only a policy requirement, but also a need for teaching and educating people in modern society, which can better reflect the corresponding social value. Most of the existing teaching activities for college students are short-term teaching activities, which are organized by student organizations during winter and summer vacations. The teaching time is as little as half a month and if two months. The teaching effect is affected by many factors. There are also limited supporting teaching schools, so there are often many students who sign up for supporting teaching, but there are few places for supporting teaching, and many students sign up enthusiastically but have no chance to volunteer. The teaching time is relatively short, and the schools that may be contacted with great difficulty may not be able to participate on time due to uncontrollable factors such as epidemics or sudden floods. College students are a huge group of enthusiastic, energetic, and stable students. The existing offline teaching service time is short, and the scope of service is narrow. Establishing connections through the Internet perfectly solves these problems, giving full play to the abilities of college students and helping rural children at the same time.
5.3.3. Integrate the Social Caring Team
There are many love activities in various universities, such as love sister activities, platform accompanying reading activities, warmth sending activities, letter exchange activities or regular exchange meetings, etc. There are also many social volunteers service teams in the society, such as China Volunteer Service Network, China Volunteer Association, Social Volunteer Service Team, etc., as well as many small software’s programs that provide corresponding platforms for volunteer services, such as Cloud Companion Reading, Companion Cloud, Companion Lang, Companion for Blind Children, etc. There are also many caring people and teams, but because of “poor information”, there will be many caring people and caring teams in some areas to give love every year, while children in some areas have no one to help, resulting in uneven distribution of resources. Therefore, through the establishment of a unified platform, information sharing, and the integration of social love forces, on the one hand, avoids duplication of activities, and on the other hand, can distribute love resources in a balanced manner, and try our best to help every child in need.
Fund Project
College Students’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program Project “All the way ‘children’ line ‘Internet+’ rural children with reading platform” stage research results, project number: XC2022021.