Shanghai claims last year to have become the first city in China to provide free education for all migrant children, mostly in state-run schools, with some in subsidised private ones.

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By one estimate, there are 300 migrant schools catering to 500, 000 children.

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Migrant children are eligible to attend local primary and middle schools, but barred from Shanghai's high schools.

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Shanghai had 170, 000 students enrolled in high school in 2010, but there were 570, 000 migrant children aged 15 to 19 living in the city who were unable to attend those schools.

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Chu Zhaohui, of the Ministry of Education's Central Institute for Educational Research, says Beijing could afford to accommodate all of its more than 400, 000 migrant children, some 40, 000 of whom have little choice but to use unlicensed schools.

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Schools, and the education they provide, are the preferred vehicle to assist migrant children in the processes of social and cultural integration.

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Schools are supposed to even out the odds among children of different backgrounds, but by the time migrant children arrive at Thomas Morus, its director thinks, it is almost too late.

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