By WANG JUN

Education Prepares for the Future

By WANG JUN

Hubei Province is making efforts to make school children in ethnic areas better understand their culture

Wang Sirui, 8, is a grade-3 pupil at the Ethnic Primary School of Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture (shortened as Enshi Prefecture), central China’s Hubei Province. Although from the Tujia ethnic group, the little girl knew little about the Tujia culture before she came to study in the school in 2008. During the past two years, she has had a dance class every week and now the girl can skillfully perform dances of her ethnic group and knows much more about the culture.

Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, with a population of 3.95 million, is the only autonomous prefecture of Hubei. Of the total population, 53 percent are from different ethnic groups. As the city grew and the floating population increased, the educational resources fell short of need. To improve this situation, Enshi Prefecture Government decided to set up a new primary school.

As part of the campaign launched by the Hubei Provincial Government in August 2007 to offer aid to the areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, 5 million yuan ($738,550) worth of supporting funds was allocated from the provincial departments of education and fnance to set up an ethnic primary school in the prefecture.

With a floor space of 20,000 square meters, Ethnic Primary School of Enshi Prefecture was completed in the fall of 2008, enrolling 2,015 pupils in 31 classes. The school tries to inherit and pass on traditions of major local ethnic groups.

“The architectural style of the school refects the characteristics of the major ethnic groups of our prefecture,” said Yuan Min, headmaster of the school. The design of the school showcases local characteristics. With the keynote feature of white walls and black tiles used by houses in the province, the school’s buildings combine modern and traditional architecture.

The school has also gone to great lengths to pass on intangible ethnic heritage. Yuan says the school compiles its own textbooks and every pupil has a class focused on ethnic knowledge every week. Moreover, the school also offers every pupil a free ethnic costume.

Yuan also says the school holds a yearly cultural festival where pupils learn songs and dances of Tujia and Miao ethnic groups, participate in a picture competition to describe life of the groups and make posters of food, customs and other cultural aspects.

The Tujia people are well known for a hand dance with more than 70 ritual gestures to indicate war, hunting, farming and feasting. The dance is particularly popular at the Spring Festival when thousands of people participate.

The school also creates a set of folk dance exercises, which incorporate elements of hand dancing and many other folk dances of the Tujia and Miao ethnic groups. By doing these exercises, pupils can easily learn many folk dance movements.

Improve the vocational skills

Jiang Xi is a student of the Secondary Vocational School of Laifeng County, Enshi Prefecture, majoring in electronics. The 17-year-old Miao teenaged boy is exempt from tuition fees, and his family only needs to pay about 3,600 yuan ($598) worth of boarding expenses each year. After graduation, he doesn’t need to worry about job, because graduates of his major can fnd jobs in electronics factories in Shenzhen and Dongguan of south China’s Guangdong Province, or in local electronics factories.

After the province launched an aid cam-paign in August 2007, which mobilizes local resources to promote development in areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, the Secondary Vocational School of Laifeng County has received supporting funds of 6 million yuan ($886,260) from the Hubei Provincial Tobacco Monopoly Administration and 1 million yuan ($147,710) from the Hubei Provincial Development and Reform Commission.

“With help of the aid campaign, we focus mainly on improving our capability in running the school and upgrading the hardware,” said Wang Wanyu, head of the school.

With these funds, the school completed a new dormitory in 2008, greatly improving accommodation for the students. The school is to upgrade the sports feld this year, building a plastic cement racetrack to the tune of 1.5 million yuan ($221,570).

To make students practice what they have learned from textbooks, the school invested 4 million yuan ($590,840) in 2009, constructing a practical training building. Here there are computer rooms, multi-media classrooms, welding classrooms, piano rooms, a gym and an art studio.

“Our goal is to nurture practice-oriented technical talents,” said Wang. More than 95 percent of the students can find jobs after graduating. Many are employed in coastal areas such as Guangdong. Moreover, since 1992, there have been more than 1,000 students from the school recruited to university by taking part in the country’s College Entrance Examination, Wang said.

PING NA