Less than 20pc of left-behind students have used internet

More than 80 per cent of the rural students left behind by city-bound parents have never used the internet, a study of differences in rural and urban pupils' access to basic school resources has found.

The study, released on Monday as part of the 2013 Blue Book of Education, also found that less than half of the school pupils in mainland cities had no access to the internet.

Han Jialing , who led the research, said the study was based on analysis of an unpublished survey on women's social status conducted by the All-China Women's Federation which polled 19,894 students.

Han, a research fellow from the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said that they divided the pupils, aged between 10 and 17, in four categories - urban, rural pupils living with both parents, rural pupils left behind by their parents and pupils living with their migrant families in cities.

Pupils living with their migrant families in cities were better off in terms of access to the internet with more than a third using it for at least half-an-hour a day. Meanwhile, just over a quarter of rural pupils living with both parents had regular access to the internet.

Han said their study showed that pupils living with their migrant families in cities were at a greater advantage in terms of access to school resources and parental care even though they still face many inequalities in cities due to the mainland's controversial hukou (household registration) system.