Boarding School for Toddlers

There has been much debate whether children in the U.K should start school at the age of two or three years of age this has sparked a fierce and heated discussion, a lot of them on social media sites. However Ofsted chief Sally Morgan, who made the controversial comment has claimed starting school and starting education is very different.

If you think starting school at two or three is unfair on youngsters in Britain then spare a thought for children in China; toddlers as young as three are being sent to boarding school. What makes this story all the more remarkable is China is a country that has so many traditional values based around the care of families members.

Children likes these are being forced to go into boarding school, not seeing their parents for five days. Picture courtesy of BBC.

There can be up to twelve children in one dormitory in one of these many popular Shanghai boarding schools. So why do parents dump their children off at a boarding school, and only get to see them at weekends?

The Chinese claim it offers these youngsters independence and freedom. Yet the whole idea of looking after a child is that they don't need independence. At three years of age they are still growing and learning about the world. A persons independence comes when they are able to look after themselves no-one expects a child to look after themselves; especially at the age of  three! Psychologist Han Mei Ling told the BBC: "It achieves independence only in parents' minds - it is brutal."

What is more remarkable is in a place like China where there is a one child policy shouldn't a child be treasured if it was an only one not chucked away in a school and only seen during weekends and holiday periods.

Parents who take advantage of these facilities claim it gives their child an increased chance of going to a good university and a better education, something else that is key in China, even though there's not anymore education taking place than at a generic school.  Additionally some parents use this facility because they cannot cope with looking after a child - if that is the case then they should never even have had a child.

Another boarding school in China under construction. Picture courtesy of akha.org

Fortunately the number of children this age attending these boarding school has dropped since the 1990s when it was seen as a status symbol but there are still people who use this scheme.

Chinese psychologist Han Mei Ling has treated a number of ex-pupils of the boarding schools one of the type of pupils he has treated: Wang Danwei was a 'boarder' she said: ""When I later went on to boarding school I felt a deep sense of exclusion, and spent most of my time alone, keeping quiet."

Before China becomes the next world super power, something that has been forecast by many financial experts, some of their social policies could do with a re-shuffle before they get more media attention for negative and provocative stories.