About 2.9 million Chinese school leavers have returned to class
in the past 17 years with the help of a national program to help
poor children in rural areas to continue their education.
Project Hope has set up 12,559 primary schools
in the countryside since it opened its first in 1989 in east
China's Anhui Province, said Gu Lan, an official with
the fellowship center of the China Youth Development Foundation
(CYDF).
The CYDF launched Project Hope in 1989 to pool donations to help
impoverished rural children to complete primary school education.
Since its inauguration, Project Hope has received more than three
billion yuan (US$3.75 billion) in donations.
The program also helps train teachers in rural areas, establish
libraries for Project Hope primary schools and equip schools with
computers, televisions and audio-visual equipment.
China faces serious challenges in providing universal education
to its population of 1.3 billion and particularly to its rural
population, despite steady progress in recent years.
In outlying mountain regions and areas inhabited by ethnic
minorities, many children of needy families still cannot afford to
go to school, and every year about one million pupils leave school
to help support their families.
Project Hope has played an active role in promoting elementary
education in China's rural areas, especially in
economically-backward rural areas, said Gu.
(Xinhua News Agency August 16, 2006)