Across China: Free education benefits Kirgiz children

Pazla Simayel, the only teacher at a remote village school since 1989, has seen his students leave the school over the past three years. However, he said he was happy to see that.

Pazla Simayel, 46, used to teach Kirgiz language and maths to students from grade one to grade six at Sogat school in Akto County in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. He now looks after preschoolers.

The school, little more than a tent with a worn-out blackboard, was combined with another 62 primary schools scattered across the mountainous areas into two new schools in the county seat.

Akto County, a heartland for the Kirgiz ethic minority, provides free tuition, buses and accommodation for students.

Elberdi,the school bus driver, said it usually takes about 20 days to pick up more than 5,000 primary and middle school students from the mountains and take them to their schools when each semester begins or send them back home for holiday.

At first Pazla Simayel was depressed to see his children leaving him, but was relieved to see them studying in classrooms with decent facilities and heated dormitories.

"With poor education, most of my students were trapped in poverty, now they have opportunities and have high hopes," he said. He used to take several days to bring textbooks to the school himself, either on a donkey or a horse.

Xiaobaiyang Bilingual Primary School is one of the schools to receive the Kirgiz children. The number of students has increased from 380 in 2013 to 2,484 now, most of whom come from the mountainous pasturing area, said Yan Xubo, Party secretary of the school.

Yan said he was sad when he discovered how many children never had the chance to eat vegetables or eggs and could not even write their names in mandarin Chinese.

Now the Kirgiz children enjoy free eggs and milk, flush toilets and water heaters, as well as learning to read in mandarin Chinese, he said.

Akto invested 865 million yuan on education in 2015 (133 million U.S. dollars), accounting for nearly a third of its total expenditures.

Free education has lifted the enrollment rate of senior high schools to 89 percent from less than 40 percent five years ago, said Li Xiangdong, head of the county education bureau. Endi