People living in a poverty-stricken mountainous area in Shaanxi province have found a way to integrate the local school with the village, offering much needed farming skills and techniques. What sorts of education reforms has the village gone through in order to achieve its increased living standard?
When we step into the supermarkets and are often dazzled by the variety and quantity of food and vegetables, it may never cross our mind that there are still people suffering from destitution and struggling on the verge of poverty. But there are indeed such people, especially those living in mountainous areas of China, who don't have much contact with the outside world, and who are desperately trying to set out on the road of prosperity.
The Qianyuanzhuang Experience has helped many farmers escape from poverty, but self-sufficient production will never really lead the farmers towards prosperity. Qianyuanzhuang and other similar villages in China still have a long way to go in practising modern and market-oriented farming.
Qianyuanzhuang Village in Lvliang Prefecture of Shaanxi Province suffers from barren land and lack of natural resources. It is a well-known poverty-stricken village in this not so well-to-do area. The yearly per capita income of the village in 1983 was merely 83 yuan, far less than the average income of the surrounding villages. For years, there was only one small path in the village leading to the outside.
" Some villagers don ' t even have steamed corn bread; bran has to be added when they make them, " said a local teacher named Zhang Fuai.
The place is so poor that it cannot even support its people. Kang Yi lives in the village and was once a village official and headmaster of the village school.
According to Kang, in 1987, 638 people from 138 households in the village lived on about 160 hectares of land scattered on the mountain slopes. There are four mountains, three big ditches and 42 mountain ridges—poor natural surroundings. Farmers here are hardworking; they go to work in the fields at sunrise and go back home at sunset, but barely have any harvest.
Barren land, together with a lack of knowledge, made it impossible for farmers to harvest bumper yields. For years, hard work has brought the local people hardly enough to eat.
" Why are they poor? The core of the problem is the lack of talent. From 1972 to 1982, there were 120 junior and senior school graduates, but almost all went outside, with only 7 left in the village. Why should so many of them leave? Because it was too poor here, and they wanted to leave. They didn’t think how to change the situation here. Thus it became a vicious circle: the poorer the place was, the more people were leaving; and with no talent, the place became even poorer. So what could be done to make these people stay? This is the problem we are trying to resolve," Kang said.
In 1987, Qianyuanzhang Village began to change their thinking and set out on the road to solve the dilemma of poverty and brain-drain in the village. Over 10 years have passed; the village has changed a lot in that time. Zhang Fuai, the village teacher, planted grapes in her field, altogether 200 plants. She said she benefited a lot from planting grapes.
The village teacher Zhang Fuai told the reporter that he earned 4500 yuan every year. "In summer, it is all green with bunches of grapes here. This field yields 1500 kilograms of grapes. Starting from 1989, I have gained over 60,000 yuan from this piece of land, affording college education for my three children, " he said.
Now, houses like this in the village are common. There has been a sea change here, totally different from the past. In 2002, the per capita income in the village was over 2000 yuan; many people built new houses. And the villagers raised money to build a road leading to the county. It has become more convenient for them to contact the outside world.
In Qianyuan Village, the most eye-catching construction is the teaching building of the village school. This is the only junior high school in the neighborhood. Villagers hope that their children can help the village shake off poverty after they have gained knowledge. But many years had passed, the village was still poor, lacking talents that could teach them agricultural know-how.
The former headmaster Kang Yi said, "a survey shows that of the peer group in the whole prefecture, only 5 percent of the students could enter more advanced schools. That's to say, the other 95 percent would have to stay on the farmland, but what about these people? "
Liu Huihan was the local education director in 1987. In his view, education in the countryside should cultivate talent for agriculture.
Liu said, "The education mode is test-oriented, the key is to help students further their learning in advanced schools. It didn’t pay attention to those who cannot enter higher schools. That’s why students are not prepared to stay at home. …And after they returned home upon graduation, they are not psychologically prepared to engage in farming; neither do they have the technical know-how to do so. In a nutshell, they neither love farming nor are capable of farming. "
What should be done to cultivate talents the countryside really needs? In 1987, Qianyuanzhuang Village launched an educational reform program under the guidance of Liu Hanhui. They were resolved to first and foremost equip the students with farming skills.
In order for the students to know more about basic farming skills, students in primary and junior high schools are all offered relevant courses. And the students may choose different subjects according to their own interests. There are courses on planting, mulching, date tree trimming, grafting, pig and chicken raising, motor and auto car repairing etc. Students all feel that the courses are useful.
A student said, "We may teach our parents at home or we can make money in the future. "
"If I cannot get a place in senior high school, I can use my knowledge of tree planting to earn a living. " a another student said.
The former headmaster Kang Yi said, "We thought it over carefully at the beginning. In primary schools, for example, we add only the most basic skills in the five- year education. And in order not to affect this goal, we have stretched the usually three-year junior high schooling to four years. But we still use the textbooks for three-year students. Why should we add one more year, you may wonder. We inserted this additional year evenly over the three-year courses, and finish them in four years. In the extra time, we offer technical courses that are practical for local farmers. There are two lifelines in our school, one is to prepare students for higher schools, the other is to assume the responsibility of teaching some technical skills to those who cannot enter high schools, in order not to affect their future development. This way, they will be able to make their own living with their skills when they step into society. "
To ensure the two lifelines, teachers in Qianyuanzhuang School have to give at least one course in technical skills in addition to cultural courses.
A villager named Kang Mingfang said, "Some of the students can enter a higher school, but some can't. Take me for an example, I couldn't enter a higher school but I learned some practical skills and I’m still able to make a living in society. "
In the past ten or more years, Qianyuanzhuang School has sent over 300 students to senior high schools and prepared the same number of farming experts for the village and the neighborhood. The education reform has achieved preliminary effects. What then has Qianyuanzhuang done for those with no scientific knowledge and who still live in poverty?
Another villager named Kang Yisheng told the reporter that he didn’t dare raise pigs in the past, because he didn’t know what to do if the pigs were ill.
The former headmaster Kang told the reporter, "These are the people engaging in farming. If we don’t offer them adult education and teach them skills, the younger ones are unable to catch up immediately. It was a gradual process. At the start, we divided them into different classes according to their schooling. We had popular, primary and intermediate classes. Another way is to divide the classes according to different subjects. For example, some villagers raised goats and we taught them how to raise goats better; if they happened to raise pigs, we would teach them accordingly. The training is well targeted and the villagers are more interested and active in learning. The third way is to install a satellite ground reception system so that every household has access to cable TV. We make use of advanced science and technology to popularize knowledge in villagers' homes. We broadcast videos brought from outside and farmers can get educated when they sit at home with food bowls in their hands. "
Qianyuanzhuang School not only helps provide the talents the village desperately needs, but also helps the villagers shake off poverty. For the school to play a greater role, it incorporates support from the local officials. Kang Mengxiong, the late party secretary of the village, led the local people to set up teaching buildings, offered free farmland to the school for experiment, and launched an overall reform plan to integrate farming and education.
"The underlying purpose of integrating the village and the school was to readjust the external relationships of education, namely the relationship between the village and the school. Before the pilot reform, officials in the village wouldn't go to the school to solve problems they met in agricultural production. And the school concentrated on teaching only and had no relation with the farmers, agriculture or the village, " Kang Yi continued.
In line with the plan of the integrating farming and education, beginning in 1987, the headmaster of the school also took an important post in the village and therefore took part in the village's decision-making.
"With this cross post holding system, we established a village education commission, the most grassroots and smallest education commission across China. The major task of the commission is to work over the development layout of both the village and the school. The village retained the teachers to form a think tank for the village. Each village, however small it is, has a school, and in each school, there is at least one teacher. And this teacher is sure to have more learning than the villagers. He or she acts as a consultant for the village's future development. If there are more teachers, they will form a think tank, " Kang Yi added.
In Qianyuanzhuang Village, teaching is the most respectable profession. Teachers should not only give cultural courses, but also come up with ideas for villagers to relieve poverty and become well off. Farmers can really learn about the power of knowledge from these teachers.
|
