From backwater to the mainstream

In an attempt to promote equality in education, China's leading universities are reaching out to students from disadvantaged rural backgrounds, as Luo Wangshu, Su Zhou and Cao Yin report.

Su Lingwen had no choice but to drop out of high school after just one year. The 17-year-old was expected to get into a key university, but he found it almost impossible to keep pace with his peers from the cities. Su was raised in Sankeshu, a poor township in Suqian city, Jiangsu province, and went to primary school and middle school there.

After graduating from middle school, he transferred to a key high school in Taizhou, a prefecture-level city in the center of the province, which his parents believed would provide him with a better education.