Education Comes First in Poverty Alleviation

IT’s a misty morning in late August at the remote Jiebanada Village. Six-year-old Jineng Xiaofei is already up, washing and having breakfast. As the sun rises and burns off the mist, his mother checks that he’s ready, and the two of them walk hand in hand to the village kindergarten.

- WEN QING

“Clap your hands. Wash them often...” Xiaofei and his classmates sing a nursery rhyme each day at the beginning of their class, and it is clear by the smiles on their faces that the children are all happy to be in school.

The village is located in Zhaojue County, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, the county with the largest Yi ethnic group community in China. It is also among those counties that have not yet been lifted out of poverty in Sichuan. Due to the lack of regular transportation, geographical remoteness, and lack of educational resources, the local people have not had many opportunities to improve their livelihoods, leaving them in the poverty trap.

With the implementation of poverty alleviation plans, the Liangshan prefecture has realized that poverty alleviation can only be achieved by improving education. So they launched a “Preschoolers Learn Mandarin” project, aimed at helping children like Xiaofei learn Mandarin, or standard Chinese, to lay a solid language foundation for their future.

Preschoolers Learn Mandarin

“Before coming to school, Xiaofei could hardly speak any Mandarin, but now he knows it so well that sometimes he offers to teach me at home,” said his mother Azhi Wuji.

In Liangshan, the Yi people speak their own language and children like Xiaofei’s brother Jineng Wuhan, only started learning Mandarin after he entered primary school. Wuha is nine years old and now in second grade. His mother is disappointed with his academic performance.

Unable to understand or speak Mandarin, Wuha could not follow what the teacher was saying until the second grade. This led to his lack of interest in classes and subsequent poor grades. “I am worried,” said his mother.