Hu Xiaofei, a moral education teacher in Binjiang Middle School in Fengdu County, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, established a special educational institute in Daxi Village in Fengdu in 2018, where his role changed from educating children to teaching their parents.

The idea of a parent school may sound strange, but the reason becomes clearer after one gets a picture of Daxi. Located in a mountainous area, the village is nearly three hours' drive from the urban area of Chongqing. Like its backward economy, its education system has also lagged behind.

Taking responsibility

"Unlike parents in big cities who invest abundant energy and money into their children's education, most villagers here don't pay attention to the importance of education," Hu told Beijing Review. Hu was temporarily transferred to Daxi last year as a member of a work group to help the village shake off poverty. Aiding the poor through education has been an important part of China's poverty alleviation efforts.

"For many parents here, family education has long been absent. They believe it's the teacher's job to educate their children and have neglected their own responsibilities," Hu said. Qin Jiaxiong, Hu's colleague, agreed and said, "This can be seen in the grandparents."

Many young people have left the small village to work as migrant laborers in big cities. Among the 65 kids in the village, 22 live with their grandparents, most of whom barely received any formal education.

"During my observations in the past year, I found that most parents in this village lack correct methods to educate their children," Qin told Beijing Review. "Besides providing material things, many parents have very little emotional communication with their kids. Children carry the hopes of a family, their future lies in education and a family should play its role."

Hu and Qin were determined to change this situation and worked together to develop a parent school. Parents or grandparents of children aged 3 to 17 are encouraged to take the classes. The subjects range from how to become a responsible parent to how to nurture children's team spirit and sense of responsibility and how to deal with setbacks in life. Over 40 parents attend the classes.

As a veteran educator with over 20 years' experience, Qin, besides teaching regular classes, also keeps in touch with parents in need such as He Lianhua, a 35-year-old mother of two.

She attends every class, eager to learn as much as possible since she is facing a severe challenge trying to communicate with her 15-year-old son. "Mr. Qin has helped me a lot," He told Beijing Review, adding that she finds it difficult to discipline her elder son, who grew up with his grandparents and has never been close to her.

He used to work in south China's Guangdong Province as an assembly line worker and was absent when her elder son was growing up. "I regret not being with my son for a long time and tried to make up for it, but it seemed he really hated me," she said. "I was usually mad at him and scolded or even beat him since I felt that he was always against me. I could feel the distance between us but I couldn't do anything about it."

Her relationship with her son was bad until Qin reached out to her. He said she learned a lot about how to educate children and communicate with them from Qin. Parents should put themselves on an equal footing with their children, she said. "I used to be arbitrary, but now I am trying to make some changes. I hope to learn more from Mr. Qin in order to better educate my children. I realize I should question myself sometimes. Who says parents are always right?"

What she wants least of all is for her children to follow in her footsteps. "This parent school and Mr. Qin mean a lot to me. I hope my kids can receive a better education than I did, I hope I can teach them how to behave, and I hope they can live an easier life than I did," He said with tears welling up in her eyes.

Educational divide

An educational gap between rural and urban development has long existed in China, demonstrated not only by the awareness of parents of the importance of education, but also the competence of teachers, access to educational resources such as extracurricular activities and museums, and educational methods.

China's megacities, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, compare favorably with many international cities in all respects. But that's far from the whole picture of China. Many small towns and villages have missed the fast track of economic development, resulting in poor infrastructure. The disparity is so evident that many people believe that children from poor families, especially in rural areas, cannot excel in competitions with their better-off counterparts because they are already behind.

Stressing the importance of education in poverty alleviation, President Xi Jinping said in 2014, "Making sure children in impoverished families enjoy access to high-quality education is a fundamental solution to poverty." To narrow the gap between rural and urban areas, the Central Government has increased the investment in rural education year on year.

Today, hardware such as school buildings and teaching facilities in rural areas have greatly improved. However, disparity in soft resources, such as educational concepts, models and environments continues to exist, according to Wang Dianjun, principal of Tsinghua University High School, a leading school in China. There is a long way to go to realize balanced education in its true sense, Wang wrote in an article published in the China Education Journal in 2018.

According to Wang's observation, most students in remote mountainous areas and rural poverty-stricken areas lack the motivation to study and knowledge of what kind of development possibilities they could have in the future because they are limited in vision and imagination by their environment.

Wang's opinion echoes that of Jack Ma, co-founder and Chair of the Alibaba Group, a multinational e-commerce giant. "If village teachers themselves do not embrace a broad vision and imagination, how can we expect the children to do so?" Ma said at the annual Rural Teacher Award ceremony, established to recognize rural teachers in Sanya, Hainan Province, since 2015. The Jack Ma Foundation offered opportunities to outstanding principals from countryside schools to visit the U.S. and the United Nations last year.

The emergence of new technology is contributing to bridging the educational gap. Students in some poverty-stricken areas can now take online classes along with students of good schools. For example, Beijing Royal School established programs with Jinggangshan Middle School in Jiangxi Province in 2013. Through live-streaming technology, students at the middle school can study English with foreign teachers simultaneously with their peers in Beijing.

"Every child should enjoy fair and quality education. This is the objective of targeted poverty alleviation through education," Wang Guangfa, principal of Beijing Royal School, said.

(Reporting from Chongqing)

Copyedited by Rebeca Toledo

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