ifeng.com:

The fact that many major incidents related to left-behind children have taken place in the past few years indicates they have become a real issue that can influence China's development. In this sense, the arrangement announced by the Jan 27 State Council meeting for providing care for left-behind children embodies the national will to address this social issue.

By emphasizing that it is the joint responsibility of families, the government and society to ensure the healthy development of left-behind children, the government has addressed the growing public concern over the series of tragic incidents involving such children in recent years.

Many parents do leave behind their children in rural areas, but this does not justify the absence of government role in their healthy development. A responsible government should take measures to provide care and education for left-behind children.

Aside from making more efforts to establish boarding schools, the government should also try to lower the threshold for migrant workers to get urban hukou, or household registration, and create conditions to enable financially capable parents to keep their children with them in the cities they work.

A workable solution to the problem will propel the country's urbanization drive. And whether or not the government can reach a social consensus on the left-behind children problem and make necessary efforts to address it will test its governance capability.