Education in endurance

Being a teacher in the Chinese countryside can be a hard assignment.

Like many others nationwide, those in Xihaigu - known locally as Bitter Barren Land - work with scant resources and face tough environmental conditions.

Xihaigu comprises seven poverty-stricken counties including Xiji, Haiyuan and Guyuan in the south of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

The region, which sits on the Loess Plateau and regularly suffers from droughts, is recognized by the United Nations as one of the world's most inhospitable places.

Yet despite the challenges, teachers continue to do their best to give their students a fun and rounded education.

According to the Ministry of Education, the number of rural teachers fell from 4.73 million to 3.3 million between 2010 and 2013, while those who remain in the job help to teach some 40 million children.

Text and photos by Lai Xinlin and Chen Zheng

From left: Li Yulan teaches children embroidery to enrich their extracurricular life; after school, Yang Jingru (left) is escorted to the intersection by Li Xingyuan, who has been a rural teacher in Erchakou Elementary School in Xiji county for 40 years; pupils wait in line for lunch, while Wang Xiaochun holds up an umbrella for them.

Principal Wang Xiaochun watches a film with children in class.

(China Daily European Weekly 08/19/2016 page4)