Farmer training gets its first local regulation

Recently, the "Tianjin Municipal Farmer Education and Training Regulations" was adopted at the 17th session of the Standing Committee of the 15th Tianjin Municipal People's Congress and will take effect on August 1 this year.

It is understood that this is China's first local regulation specifically formulated for farmer education and training. "This regulation defines the meaning of farmer education and training, formalizes past work experience in an institutional form, and farmer education and training will no longer be a passing fad," said Li Yuxing, deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Tianjin Municipal People's Congress Standing Committee.

"Laws cannot remain on paper"

"Rural laborers who have not received education and training and move to non-agricultural industries and cities and towns find it difficult to achieve stable employment in cities and towns, and difficult to raise the level of the positions they hold," Li Yuxing said.

The "2009 Migrant Worker Monitoring Report" for Tianjin, released by the Tianjin Survey Office of the National Bureau of Statistics, confirms this point. The report shows that skills training has become an important route for Tianjin farmers to increase their employment rate and an important means of strengthening the employment competitiveness of migrant workers. The survey shows that 50.2% of migrant workers in Tianjin, in addition to formal school education, have also received training in labor skills.

"Laws cannot remain on paper." How to ensure the operability of the regulation was the focus to which legislators devoted the greatest effort.

During nearly two years of legislative research, what left the deepest impression on Li Yuxing was farmers' desire for education and training, especially free education and training. Yet what exactly is the meaning of farmer education and training? In many conversations with farmers, legislators found that the education and training farmers long for today can be divided into three areas: adult academic education, practical agricultural technology training, and vocational skills training. Therefore, the Regulations for the first time define farmer education and training as the above three areas.

Once the name was set, problems followed one after another. Under China's current system, adult academic education, practical agricultural technology training, and vocational skills training fall under the separate administration of the education department, the human resources and social security department, and the agriculture department, and their duties also overlap. For example, training for special technical workers in agriculture (such as milkers) should in principle be the responsibility of the human resources and social security department, but in reality training in this area is a blank. During the legislative process of the Regulations, legislators coordinated the relationships among the relevant departments many times, clarified the division of labor among the competent administrative departments of agriculture, human resources and social security, and education, and established a joint meeting system for farmer education and training work, resolving the problems of overlap and blank areas.

To ensure that farmer education and training can truly be carried out, the Regulations specifically provide that farmer education and training work be included in the national economic and social development plan, that farmer education and training plans be formulated, and that farmer education and training funds be included in the annual fiscal budget, earmarked for dedicated use. Each year, when people's congress organs deliberate the fiscal budget report, they can supervise the availability of farmer education and training funds.

"Able to read books and go online, life is different too"

In defining the targets of training, the Regulations provide for "laborers with agricultural household registration in this municipality, laborers with non-agricultural household registration in this municipality who engage in agricultural production, and laborers who do not have household registration in this municipality but who have leased land in this municipality to engage in agricultural production for more than two years." This is almost a definition that covers all training targets. For farmer education and training alone, the Tianjin municipal finance department invests more than a dozen hundred million yuan each year, and district and county finance departments provide supporting funds ranging from several million to ten million yuan.

Li Yuxing believes that although farmers desire education and training, training does not necessarily suit farmers' tastes. In past training, there have also been awkward situations in which the government gave money to training institutions, but the training was not welcomed by farmers. Some training institutions, in order to make up the number of trainees, used "providing meals" as a condition to attract farmers to attend lectures.

To avoid training that is praised but poorly attended, the newly issued Regulations specifically provide that institutions undertaking farmer education and training must obtain legal person status and have qualified teachers, management personnel, equipment, practical training bases, and so on. Local government departments regularly assess the education and training work.

After participating in training, a rural woman from Zhangsizhuang Village, Dazhangzhuang Town, Beichen District, said that in the past she was illiterate and only knew how to work and sleep, but now she can read books and go online, and she feels that her heart has suddenly brightened and her life is different too.