Better education gives wings to children in Xinjiang's remote areas

Paving a way to school

However, the road to school has always been challenging for Reskam's students.

Over 20 years ago, Ayizmal Mirzjan's father attended the school in Reskam, which only gave lessons up to sixth grade. Like most of his peers, he did not continue with his education afterward.

Even five years ago, as Chen Jingquan, an officer at a police station along the route to the county seat recalled, once when a snow disaster struck, the students had to get out of the car and trekked 18 km across the snow-capped mountain peak, and then got in another car waiting for them at the other side.

Having escorted thousands of students over the past eight years, Chen knows all too well the difficulties: students had to navigate a perilous journey -- two 5,000-meter-high mountain peaks, a single-lane way built on the cliff right along the roaring Yarkand River, and snowfields -- before making their way to school.

Thanks to a construction project with an investment of 1 billion yuan (about $157.7 million) in 2019, the road to and from the county seat has been renovated, while a tunnel that bypasses the two mountain peaks is scheduled to open to traffic by the end of this year.

Now, with 14 school buses put into operation this year, students in Taxkorgan can enjoy safe and comfortable journeys free of charge, which their past generations could hardly imagine.