If you were a rural student you might have a classroom like this with
home made stools. If you were a rural teacher you might have a room in
the school for your home, unless you had a family and went home on
weekends. Many of the rural teachers use bicycles and have few
belongings.

As you can see here it is normal even in China's best middle schools
to have 70 in a physics class. This class is at Pubei Middle school in
one of the surrounding towns a short distance from Qinzhuo. Students
stack their books on their small desks, since there is very little
room anywhere else. The classrooms have to have a good cross breeze in
their hot climate. There is no air conditioning or heat in the
classrooms. Teachers change classes instead of students, so the
students are responsible for their classrooms and may stay in the same
classroom most of the day.

Most rural schools will have a blackboard and teacher's desk. This
larger school has a blue box containing a loudspeaker and tape system
to aid the teacher. Richer schools will have a classroom computer for
teacher use and a large screen for power point presentations.
Computer labs are rare and most students do not get to use a computer
in school. There is very little room to walk around the room, because
of all the desks that have to be crammed into the classrooms.

The students do exercises at the beginning of every school day making
a large outdoor recreation area a necessity. No. 1 Middle school has
many basket ball courts and a running track. Anna Liu, shown in this
picture, is head of the English Department with 35 teachers under her
care. She orders the books for her school and directs the summer
English camps. There are 6,500 students in her school presently. She
estimates that four poorer students out of a class of 70 would need
help with paying their tuition fees.

Anna has agreed to administer tuition funds for Blessing Hands in the
Qinzhou area, and will see that the most worthy students receive
tuition help based on income, ability, responsibility, and family
circumstances. Her husband is a radiologist, and her son attends a
college in another province.

Country schools in contrast to city schools have fewer students per
class and fewer teachers trained in English. All of the schools take
a lunch and nap break from noon until early afternoon. The school day
starts early and ends late for all students. The rural students have
to walk to school, which takes an hour for some of them. Because the
farmers in the countryside usually only make 200 US dollars a year in
income the families are very poor. Many parents leave to work in the
city, and grandparents are left to raise the children.

Despite these hardships, children prize education and want to go to
school. Unfortunately they often have to drop out after age 15 when
tuition from the government stops. They cannot afford the tuition fees
for the higher grades and especially not the boarding fees necessary
when country students have to go to larger city schools.

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