Feature: China's rural poor learn to fight poverty

The son of a poor farming family, Zheng Wenhui grew up believing his dream of attending the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing was one "far too good" for him.

A top student at his high school in Shilou county, where he lived in a village of about 30 households on the Loess Plateau, no one from Zheng's village had been admitted to Tsinghua in more than a decade. His parents never studied beyond secondary school.

But Zheng's dream became real in 2012, after he was selected as part of a new government program to study engineering at Tsinghua's Department of Precision Instruments, a field with huge demand in underdeveloped areas.

Launched in 2012, the program offered 10,000 students from poverty-stricken counties admission to top universities by lowering the entrance examination score requirement for candidates.

In return, students are encouraged to go back to their hometowns after graduation to help with local development.

Zheng was the only student to be selected from Shanxi province in the program's first year.

With the annual plenary session for Central Committee of the Communist Party of China concluding on Thursday, the country's top leadership is placing poverty high on the agenda for the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-2020), which will be ratified in March 2016.

Despite plans to build a moderately prosperous society by 2020, China still has more than 70 million people living under the poverty line. In an effort to lift up the next generation, education is playing a pivotal role in the country's poverty alleviation efforts.

LADDER

In Chinese society, schooling has long been regarded as an effective way for rural children to escape poverty. One child's admission into college means hope for the entire family.

However, there has been criticism in recent years that young people from poor rural families now have fewer chances to enter prestigious universities like Tsinghua and Peking University, both regarded as the proving grounds for the country's new elites.

Many argue the reason is that rural children are less competitive than their urban peers when taking the entrance exams due to lower or even poor education quality in the countryside.

Critics worry that this trend may prevent those from poor rural areas from seeking a better life for themselves and their family.

However, the government sees education as an effective way to help rural poor exit poverty. Education support has always been on the country's poverty alleviation agenda.

After decades of efforts in promoting nationwide nine-year compulsory education, the country has begun to offer more policy support to poverty stricken rural areas in vocational and higher education.

This year, the special college admission program in rural poor areas expanded from 10,000 to 50,000 candidates, supporting students from 832 poor counties to pursue higher studies at key national universities.

In addition to governmental efforts, colleges have also beefed up their steps to support rural students.

In 2012, Tsinghua launched a new enrollment initiative, the Ziqiang Project, targeting candidates from rural and poor families. Ziqiang roughly means to "toughen oneself."

The initiative was later joined by five other prestigious universities including Nanjing University, Zhejiang University and Shanghai Jiaotong University.

PSYCHOLOGICAL TRANSITION

With an average annual subsidy of more than 5,000 yuan (about 800 U.S. dollars) and a part-time job, Zheng says for the first time in his life, he doesn't have to worry about money.

Instead, his biggest challenge is psychological pressure.

As a freshman, he had to face the fact that he was no longer top of his class as he had previously been in high school. At times during his first year, he felt inferior to his urban peers.

"I thought I was not as smart as my classmates. It took me four to five extra hours to do what others had already finished in class," Zheng says.

Calculous and linear algebra made his head spin. It was only after studying textbooks for days in the library that Zheng broke down all the problems he couldn't solve.

"I was so worried about failing all my exams. If I did, I would have to drop out. That's not what my parents and I had fought so hard for," he said.

To make it worse, Zheng, an introverted, socially shy man, felt he shared no "common language" with his classmates. For example, he couldn't play computer games, a favorite hobby for his urban peers.

Constantly worried, he couldn't calm his anxiety and began feeling depressed.

Things got so bad at one point he went to the hospital for psychological examination. Doctors told him he had an obsessive compulsive disorder. The doctors' prescriptions did not work.

"I took some medicine but I couldn't tell the difference," Zheng says.

Finally he turned to the class instructor, hoping to be allowed to delay his exams.

The instructor, Ye Liangchen, told Zheng not to worry about examination scores but instead to concentrate on studying.

Zheng didn't fail his exams, though his scores were not that satisfying in his eyes. But he kept on studying and in the following years, his hard work paid off. Now in his final year, Zheng has been recommended for a postgraduate program at a research institute in Tsinghua.

"Now I know that I have put too much pressure on myself. I didn't have to compare myself with others. Actually, I can do my best in what I am better at," Zheng says. "The key to your problem lies in your own hand. This is what I have learned." Endit