Top students help to lift county out of poverty

An impoverished area in Shaanxi province is seeing living standards rise as a result of proactive education policies.

Since 2000, Baihe, a poverty-stricken county with a population of about 220,000 in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, has sent more than 1,800 students to some of China's best universities, providing a way to raise living standards in the area.

"The science student who got the highest score in this year's national college entrance exam in the city of Ankang was in my class. He was admitted to Tsinghua University," said Xie Peicheng, a teacher at Baihe Senior High School.

Seventy percent of the students in Xie's class are from rural households, and many come from poor families. "A decade ago, few students could pass the college entrance exam. But now, more are being accepted by top universities," he said.

Baihe lies in deep in the mountains, where there are rocky roads and large areas of infertile soil. "To send a student from here to college will help his or her family escape poverty," said Zeng Yougen, one of Xie's students. Zeng, who graduated from one of China's top three universities, is manager of a large company in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province in East China.

Niu Yubin, principal of Baihe Senior High School, said: "Mountainous Baihe lacks flat terrain, but the local government offered the largest area of land for us to build our high school. It was completed within three years with total investment of 400 million yuan ($57.5 million), and its modern facilities are even better than those in high schools in many large cities."

The local government of Baihe has always seen education as a top priority. From 2011 to 2015, spending on education reached 128.2 million yuan, nearly double its fiscal revenue. Five middle schools and high schools in the county have been relocated to better places, while 27 primary schools have been extended or rebuilt, and 11 kindergartens have been built from scratch.

As a result, Baihe Senior High has become a leading school in the area around Ankang, which administers Baihe, sending the largest number of students to second-tier universities for 17 years.

Thanks to the high level of education they receive, more young people from the county have sought better lives in big cities, sending money home to help their families. Meanwhile, members of the older generation have been returning, hoping to make a difference in their home area.

Huang Zhigui, a 50-year-old miner who now owns a coal mine, returned after working in Central China's Henan province for 30 years. "I would drink a big bowl of wine to encourage myself before I went below," Huang recalled, adding that it was a worthwhile sacrifice because he has donated most of his savings from the work to help the renovation of a primary school.

"I have tasted the hardships of life as a dropout - our children deserve a better education," he said.

In 2009, Huang returned with the ambition of helping his hometown out of poverty. He invested more than 20 million yuan in a tea factory with and 200 hectares of growing land.

Last year, his tea business became profitable after selling 6 metric tons of tea and generating net earnings of more than 400,000 yuan.

"Investment in agriculture is a long-term business, and I hope it will become a stable business for generations to come," he said.

Li Changhua could hardly make ends meet before she began working at Huang's tea factory, which has provided a stable and major source of income for the 64-year-old and her family.

Former migrant workers account for up to 60 percent of the population in Baihe, which is hampering its economic growth.

"We will continue our efforts in education and provide one-stop services for businesspeople to attract investment and help raise employment levels," Chen Jun, Baihe's Party secretary, said.