Knowledge Is the Way Out China sees education as the best path to lead people out of poverty
Despite the hot summer sun, young voices can be heard from the classrooms of Hope Primary School in Xiaohe Village in Ziyang District of Shaanxi Province in northwest China. As soon as the bell rings, children run out into the playground to have fun and play basketball or table tennis.
Two years ago, the village school had fewer than 60 students, poor school conditions and only one small teaching building. The quality of teaching was far from optimal. From grade four on, the children had to go to another slightly larger school more than 10 km away.
In November 2018, a brand new Hope Primary School was built and opened in Xiaohe Village. It has bright classrooms and modern teaching equipment, as well as much more professional teachers.
“The students in the village can now benefit from educational resources of the same quality as those in the cities. Thanks to education, more children in disadvantaged areas will be able to use their knowledge to get rid of poverty and lead a better life,” said Huang Xiaoli, Headmaster of the primary school .
Since 2014, Ziyang District has invested more than 800 million yuan ($114 million) in building schools, purchasing school equipment and providing training to about 20,000 teachers, thereby significantly improving the quality of education.
Ziyang is a microcosm of China’s sustained efforts over the years to reduce poverty through education. Providing quality education to children in rural areas is an important task in the fight against poverty and a crucial means to put an end to the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
Strength in numbers
President Xi Jinping has stressed the importance of the role of education in the fight
against poverty on many occasions. At the 2015 Global High-level Forum on Poverty Reduction and Development, Xi outlined five targeted and differentiated measures to combat poverty, including the development of education in impoverished regions.
In December 2016, a plan for combating poverty through education was formulated in China’s 13th Five-year Plan (2016-20), the first five-year plan covering this area. The plan was jointly published by six government departments, including the Ministry of Education. The plan included a number of measures aimed at achieving full coverage of public education services in disadvantaged areas and among populations affected by poverty. The underlying goal was to prevent any student from leaving school due to family financial difficulties.
According to the plan, in addition to funding tuition and living expenses for students from poor families, the government has also made efforts to train rural teachers and organized vocational training for disadvantaged adult populations. In addition, the plan called for the participation of social forces such as associations, companies and international organizations.
Since May 2018, Evergrande Group, a Chinese real estate company listed on the Fortune Global 500, is working to reduce poverty through education in poor areas of Shaanxi. It has donated 1 billion yuan ($141 million) to build 35 schools there. Moreover, in December 2018, the group donated 20 million yuan ($2.85 million) to create a scholarship for poor students at Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University.
China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), a construction and engineering group, has also financed education in poor areas. In March 2020, the first phase of the Lanping District School construction project, located in an impoverished area of Yunnan Province in southwest China, was completed. The school will cover an area of about 215.74 mu (14 hectares) and will include a teaching building, a library, a dormitory, a canteen, and a sports field. The school will be located right in the center of the city. As the largest school in the district, it will accommodate more than 3,500 students, providing nine years of compulsory schooling from primary to middle school.
In addition to large corporations, many social organizations and individuals in China have invested to support education in the poorest areas of the country.
Working for the future
“Expanding access to education in poor areas is a fundamental measure to stop the intergenerational transmission of poverty. This is a great long-term undertaking, and we will always take it seriously,” said Liu Yongfu, Director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.
According to Liu, China must continue to ensure that children are able to attend school during the entire nine years of compulsory
In addition to funding tuition and living expenses for students from poor families, the government has also made efforts to train rural teachers and organized vocational training for disadvantaged adult populations.
education period and to improve the quality of education services. At the same time, the country is actively developing vocational, higher and pre-school education.
For students in poverty who are unable to attend university, the government provides special grants to the students to enable them to receive vocational training, a measure to explore employment opportunities for them. As for higher education, the country offers hundreds of thousands of special enrollment places each year to students from poor areas to ensure their access to higher education.
Reducing poverty through education is a project related to China’s future. The year 2020 is crucial to winning the fight against poverty. At a press conference organized on March 12 by the State Council Information Office of China, Liu presented some of the results achieved in this regard. After more than seven years of implementation of targeted poverty reduction policies, the number of poor people in China has fallen from 98.99 million at the end of 2012 to 5.51 million at the end of 2019, and the number of impoverished counties in the country has been reduced to 52 as of March 2020. CA