Squatting down on a terrace in Shitougou Village, 9-year-old Ma Haiwu is reading. He writes letters on the ground using a twig.

Ma's classmates in their village in Dongxiang Autonomous County of Northwest China's Gansu Province, are doing the same thing - squatting in a circle and studying outside their classroom - a discarded cattle shed.

The shed actually was dug out from a small mound and the light inside is very poor at best, with light flickering in through just one window. Desks and chairs are crowded next to one another and students have to crawl to get to their own seats.

"I can't see the words on the blackboard clearly and it's very crowded there," Ma Haiwu said.

"Some parents are reluctant to send their children to school here because we have no school except this shed-turned classroom," said Ma Yaheiya, the school's only teacher.

"There are 95 school-age children in this village but only 78 of them are studying here. Moreover, only 17 are girls," said Ma Dengliang, the village's Party secretary.

According to the teacher, if children in Shitougou want to find a better school, the nearest one is about six kilometres away and it takes at least two hours for them to make the journey on foot.

The students' difficult days are expected to be over in a few months, however. Near the shed-turned classroom, a new building donated by China Daily is now being built. It will be big enough to accommodate the children's and villagers' school dreams.

Farmers in the village know the benefits the new school will bring. They have volunteered their labour for the project, levelling the hillside slope and delivering building materials without asking for pay.

Teacher Ma offers the volunteers free lunch - boiled potatoes, which are the main food in the dry, poverty-plagued and remote mountainous area of Gansu Province.

The new school will have two big classrooms, two small classrooms and three dormitories, with a floor space of 2,650 square metres. Each classroom will be bright and spacious, featuring brand-new desks and chairs.

In addition, the newspaper's readers and staff members will make donations to make sure all the children can study at no cost.

"My sister will be glad to hear that," said Ma Xiulan, an 11-year-old girl at the school.

Living on the slope of the big mountains, Ma Xiulan, her parents and three siblings lead a threadbare life, squeezing a living out of planting potatoes and herding sheep.

Although each student has to pay only 20 yuan (US$2.40) per semester, Ma Xiulan's parents cannot afford education for all their kids. As the youngest child, Ma Xiulan got the chance while her elder sister has to repeat days that revolve around day-long household chores.

"Going to school was a wild dream for my sister," Ma Xiulan said. "I feel sorry for her."

Luckier kids

Children in several other villages nearby are luckier since their new schools were set up earlier. One is in the Pingzhuang Village and the other in Nutuping Village. Together, they hold 322 students from 19 villages.

The two school buildings were separately donated by Zheng Zhizhi, a Chinese who returned from overseas and now lives in Xiamen in East China's Fujian Province and Lit Ng, a Chinese American.

In 1999, Zhongbao Hope School was built with donations from China Daily. As one of the best schools in the county, it has 300 students in eight classes, and all the teachers are college graduates. Proudly, the school's faculty boasts, 80 per cent of its graduates now go on to middle schools in the county.

In addition, thanks to donations, five primary and middle schools in poor areas have been improved over the past years.

Donations of foreign countries also brought a ray of hope to the development of basic education in Dongxiang.

One of the most massive projects carried in Dongxiang is funded by the British Government Department for International Development.

The project, started in 1999 and will run for six years with a total investment of roughly US$18 million, covers four counties in Gansu Province. Dongxiang is one of the beneficiaries.

The goal of the project is to help Gansu to universalize primary education by next year and achieve the nine-year compulsory education goal by 2010.

Five years since the project was begun, enrolment of school-aged children in the four counties has increased from 71 per cent to 87 per cent, according to the Guansu Education Department.

Besides Britain, Japan also offered a hand to Dongxiang.

A middle school donated by the Japanese Government with an investment of nearly US$8,000 was just completed in the Wangji Township of Dongxiang.

About 43,000 people living in the nearby seven townships are benefiting from the project.

In the past, there were no middle schools in any one of the seven townships. Students there had to travel long distances to the county town for secondary education.

"There are more than 5,000 primary students. When they graduate, they can enjoy the new middle school without having to go so far," said Xue Chaohua, who is in charge of projects to assist Dongxiang.

"The main barrier to school attendance here is poverty and a lack of schools," said Xue.

A place with little resources

Dongxiang Autonomous County is made up of an endless array of soil mountains.

With a population of 266,900, Dongxiang is a compact community, with Dongxiang ethnic people accounting for 84 per cent of the local population.

Harsh natural conditions and drought have left the Dongxiang people at the mercy of the heavens.

With an annual government revenue of 10.97 million yuan (US$1.32 million) and an annual per capita income of 921 yuan (US$110), the county government has to keep running with the central government's full funding allocation.

Most local people make a tough living the traditional way, farming potatoes and raising sheep. Some young people leave their hometown to work, but with low education levels, most can only do manual work with little pay.

Hit by poverty, the school facilities are very backward, with more than 40 per cent of primary schools lacking advanced equipment and facilities, according to the county's education bureau.

"A shortage of water has blocked Dongxiang's agriculture and industrial development, but the shortage in education is worse," Zheng Jinxia, the deputy-magistrate of the county once said.

(China Daily 11/02/2004 page5)