Province exemplifies new attitude toward education for girls

Special subsidies

Though such subsidies are common in many places, Ma said theirs are special.

Instead of depositing the money into their bank accounts, village officials hire drummers, light firecrackers and deliver the money in person. The extravaganza helps make girls and their families proud.

"I saw tears in their eyes," he said.

Efforts to shift people's attitudes are crucial in regions where "older relatives and neighbors usually express strong disapproval for parents who allow their daughters to stay in school for so long," he added.

In the past few years, China has worked successfully to slash dropout rates in rural primary and middle schools as part of broader efforts to curb rural poverty and build China into a "moderately prosperous society in all respects" by the end of this year.

Counties with large numbers of unschooled children are not allowed to remove their poverty labels, which will lead to censures from higher-ups.

China had 600,000 children who dropped out during the first nine years of schooling, according to the Ministry of Education.

That number had plummeted to less than 6,800 by mid-June. Only 97 unschooled children were from families labeled as impoverished.

Though poor students can get easy loans to attend high school and university, many poor parents lack the incentive to invest in girls' education. Instead, girls are told to join the workforce, sometimes to offset the financial burden caused by educating their brothers.

"People in my village do not take girls' education seriously," said Wang. "Even girls themselves do not take education seriously and choose not to continue."

Wang said she was the lucky one. She said her parents are well aware of the difficulties facing illiterate migrant workers and allowed her to continue. But she cannot help interpreting her parents' decision as a way to get her to pay for her brothers' tuitions after graduation.

"One of them is in a vocational school, and the other is a second grader," she said.

The gender bias in education is an even greater issue early on.

Gun Dongmeng, a senior at Guizhou University, said it was common a decade ago for girls in her village in Liping county to start working after completing the ninth grade.

The 21-year-old has a sister in high school and brother in middle school. Both she and her sister are beneficiaries of the Mountain Phoenix program.

Gun said her fellow villagers have grown more supportive of girls' education after finding that female students take lessons more seriously when given the opportunity to carry on with studying. Banners have also appeared everywhere, reading "knowledge is power", which has inspired younger generations of rural women.

"The younger girls that I know of in my village now are all clinging to their studies," she said.