[Editorial Review of Workers' Daily]

Original title: Happy to see migrant workers with high academic qualifications double in ten years

Worker's Daily - Cheng Lili, commentator of China Industrial Network

Improving education and expanding life will allow many people, including migrant workers, to find more opportunities and platforms to make their own contributions to the country and society. We are happy to see more and more highly educated migrant workers, and more and more migrant workers, including the vast number of migrant workers, in the path of continuous self-improvement, pioneering and enterprising, blooming wonderful life.

The proportion of migrant workers with college degrees has doubled in the past decade - The National Bureau of Statistics recently released the "2023 Migrant Workers Monitoring Survey Report", based on which the surging news compared and analyzed the changes in relevant data over the past 16 years, and released a report on May 10 that compared with the previous generation, the cultural level of migrant workers today has significantly improved. In 2023, 15.8% of migrant workers have college degree or above, compared with 7.3% ten years ago.

Migrant workers with college degree or above can be called highly educated migrant workers. Their proportion has doubled in the past decade. To calculate, the number of migrant workers with college degree or above has doubled from nearly 20 million ten years ago to 47 million in 2023. This change is encouraging. This is due to the strong will of migrant workers to seek progress and development, and also the result of the joint support and promotion of government departments, trade union organizations, universities, enterprises and other parties.

Migrant workers are an important part of the industrial workforce. At present, the total number of migrant workers has exceeded 297 million, of which there are many outstanding people who have been rumored as good stories because of their entrance into universities. For example, Zhang Juncheng, known as "the first person in the security adult college entrance examination of Peking University", returned to his hometown after graduating from the law department of Peking University, founded a vocational school and served as the principal; Zhong Bo, who went out to work with his father, received an admission notice from Wuchang Institute of Technology at the decoration site... Their efforts not only made their dreams come true, but also set an example for more migrant workers, thus encouraging a group of people to work hard and forming an upsurge of learning, enterprising and pioneering.

On the way of these migrant workers pursuing their dreams, there have been many solid forces protecting them. Among them, the Ministry of Education has jointly launched the "Dream of Learning" since 2016 to help migrant workers improve their educational level and technical skills by integrating the resources of politics, industry, schools, enterprises and other parties, providing preferential policies, subsidizing tuition fees and other ways. At present, it has covered more than 500 colleges and universities across the country, and has improved the educational level of more than 2.4 million workers, including migrant workers.

We are pleased to see more and more highly educated migrant workers, but it cannot be ignored that the data shows that among 297 million migrant workers, the proportion of junior high school education is still the highest, accounting for 52.1%, the proportion of primary school education is 13.8%, and the proportion of those who have not attended school is 0.8%. In other words, more than 43 million migrant workers have not yet completed compulsory education. We can't be blindly optimistic about the overall improvement speed of migrant workers' education.

To improve their education and skills, migrant workers need to overcome some practical obstacles, including how to deal with the conflict between migrant workers and learning time. Many migrant workers have long working hours and high labor intensity. It is hard to complete their own work. It is even more difficult to study in their spare time. The difficulties in reality may extinguish the spark in their hearts and dispel their enthusiasm for learning. They undoubtedly need more understanding from all parties, as well as more humanistic support and detailed care of policies.

On the way of migrant workers' life, the improvement of their academic qualifications is a major event, but not all. Some migrant workers who did not seem to realize the life counter attack after entering the university once also suffered a lot of social criticism. Some migrant workers returned to the construction site to work after graduation from vocational and technical colleges. Some migrant workers still work in factories with multiple undergraduate diplomas. After their experiences were reported by the media, many netizens said they were puzzled: What's the significance of going to college like this? Is there any need to struggle at such an age? In the face of external doubts, the migrant workers involved responded: "Going to college has made up for my regret in my 30 years of life, which is more valuable than working to make money." "I want people to redefine migrant workers."

Yes, a certificate can not fully represent the bright position and rich income, and the lack of a certificate can not prevent us from blooming a wonderful life. Those migrant workers' poets, painters, translators, etc. who are "out of the circle" because of their love are proof.

Improving education and expanding life will allow many people, including migrant workers, to find more opportunities and platforms to make their own contributions to the country and society. Perseverance in learning may not be enough to change the mundane circumstances of life, but it will certainly open new doors for us to learn more about the world, look at ourselves, expand the vision of life, and enrich the depth of life. We are happy to see more and more highly educated migrant workers, and more and more migrant workers, including the vast number of migrant workers, in the path of continuous self-improvement, pioneering and enterprising, blooming wonderful life.