Setting The Scene -- Compulsory Education in A Rich District Tongzhou in Beijing -- Nine Year Compulsory Education in A Poor District Ansai in Yan’an, Shannxi -- Nine Year Compulsory Education in a National Minority Area Zhaojue County, Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan -- Rural Teacher Issues -- Financing Compulsory Education in Rural Areas: The Development of a Sustainable Fund -- Marginalised Children and Universal Basic Education -- School Mapping and Boarding in The Context of Demographic Change in Rural Areas of China -- Education and Change – Retrospect and Prospect.This book examines how educational change has progressed in three contrasting areas spread across China since 1990, exploring key issues concerning rural education in both poor and rich areas. Of the three areas covered in this book, the first is a rich one near Beijing; the second is in the northwest in Shanxi on the Loess plateau; and the third is in Sichuan on the high plateau leading to Tibet. Central issues include the impact of large-scale demographic change and migration, with increasing numbers of left-behind children in sending areas, and large increases in the numbers of inbound migrants in receiving areas; dramatic increases in the boarding of children in rural areas; changing patterns of teacher deployment; recentralization of responsibilities for school financing; and growing concerns regarding horizontal and vertical inequalities in both access and participation.