Farmers in less-developed northwestern China have become more willing to send their kids to school as education has been viewed as a sure-fire investment for a better life.

In remote Minqin county of Gansu province, farmers used to be reluctant to send their daughters to school and always preferred to grant opportunities to sons. Nowadays, it's normal to find moregirls than boys in primary and junior high schools.

Principal Wang Xunhe of the Middle School in Datan village said that more and more farmers believed good schooling would guarantee their daughter a better husband with higher education while a son-in-law with a decent job could surely afford to help them out.

"Speculative or not, this concept has helped improve the enrollment rate of girls in schools," said Director Sun Yiren of the Education Bureau of Minqin county.

In some other regions, schools have been viewed as a vital place for networking. Whether their kids are good enough for college or not, farmers would send them to high schools and encourage them to be as sociable as possible.

Sophomore Gao Bin of the Long March High School said it was his parents who insisted he should go to school although he himself had little interest.

Gao said that his parents always worried he would have no siblings to turn to since he was their only child. "My father always said, 'Befriend your schoolmates, and in the future, you can help each other,'" he said.

According to Principal Liu Yafei of the Long March High School,many students came a long way to attend the private school that has over 1,000 students on campus.

"Given the limited rural job opportunities, lots of people want to pursue a career in cities. Due to the country's family-planning policy, most of them are single children and find themselves lonely in new environments," Liu acknowledged.

As more and more farmers come to realize the importance of education, private schools started to burgeon.

In Dingbian county in northern Shaanxi province, there are 15 non-public schools with five in the countryside and 10 in the cities.

As the education of urban schools is relatively better than that of rural schools, local education bureau director Lu Hongbin said that many farmers would like to pay extra to have their kids study in urban schools.

Source:Xinhua