We are compeers
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Since I have been living in China, every time I travel in the country, I pay special attention to education. I am probably influenced by a 30-year teaching career. This is what I did in June 2005 when visiting Xinjiang. I had been impressed, then, not only by the excellent condition of the Woyimoke school in Burqin County (Altay Prefecture), but by the warm welcome reserved for us. It was a business trip and it was a Sunday. Pupils had been asked to go to school on their normal day off in return for a Monday off. Children offered us a musical and dance performance in the schoolyard before quietly returning to their classrooms. They were unfazed by our camera flashes and our circulating between their rows of tables. Afterward, the school headmaster and all of the teachers prepared a superb dinner that ended in dancing and laughter. We departed with refrains of "next time," "you will come back," etc., but at the bottom of my heart, I thought I would never see these people again and this obscure land in the far north of Xinjiang. However, the interviews needed for writing the present book offered me a new opportunity, and I asked to interview a young male teacher in whom I had found a sentient being, Pazli•Hablhahe, during my former visit. But I was told that Pazli had left. Disappointed but not defeated, I requested to interview the school headmaster instead.
Immediately after landing – a 50-minute flight between Ili and Altay – I was accompanied to Burqin, which was a 90-minute car ride. There, another car waited, in which the headmaster, Bahetiehan•Salimbahe, and the chief of the Burqin Information Bureau, Bahetibek•Axmhan, were sitting. They led us to the Moaibas Village school. Bahetibek served as an interpreter, translating from the Kazak language to Chinese. On the narrow earth road full of stones, the cars whipped up dust. I thought, 'nothing has changed from two years ago,' and I asked myself if there would be as many mosquitoes. Yes, mosquitoes were present and were not at all shy! They didn't miss their great opportunity to fill up with the fresh blood that had come from afar.
The headmaster removed the tiny lock on the wooden door, and we entered his office. Not a soul could be seen in and around the school; summer holidays were in full mode. A female teacher who could speak Chinese had been invited to come again to meet me. Wasina•Taiman had taught me a Kazak dance two years ago, and I had given my silk scarf to her as a gift. She had not forgotten me and it was heart-warming to see this.
Bahetiehan, 48, took the interview very seriously. Sitting at his desk, he thoughtfully answered my questions while asking questions of his own and at the same time took notes in Kazak. The headmaster confirmed to me that the rate of compulsory education – nine years – is always 100 percent, and that this occurred not only in his township but everywhere in Xinjiang. Schooling and textbooks are free; children don't have to pay any tuition. As indicated by a brass plate above the door, the Woyimoke school was opened under the auspices of Project Hope, a social welfare education program under the China Youth Development Foundation.
As evidenced by the Kazak cemetery, Burqin County is populated by Kazaks, who were nomads earlier. The government encouraged 3,415 families to change their way of life. To this end, they distributed land to cultivate corn and livestock food. The children of nomadic families used to follow their parents with the herds and so could not receive an education. Now, they attend school. In fact, four out of five families remain at home while the fifth takes all the livestock to the mountains in summer. When winter comes, the herdsmen return with the animals and station them close to the house. The double harvest of forage suffices for them all, while before, with harsh winters and abundant snow, the animals would have died of hunger. The rate of settlement was around 86 percent in 2005. Another miracle hard to imagine consists in these thousands of hectares that used to be expanses of gobi (stone). Humans have appropriated land from the desert.
Schools can be found everywhere now and, generally, schools must be built closely enough so that the children do not have to walk more than 12 km a day. The average is presently five km in each direction; it is the case for all the Woyimoke students, except for 15, who walk or cycle to school. Needless to say, these children lunch at school, rather than making a return trip home for that meal.
Woyimoke had 248 pupils in 2005 and now has 232; all of them are Kazak. There are a few more girls than boys. From 21 teachers previously, they now have 20 for 10 classes, including two pre-school classes. I asked the third grade teacher, Pazli•Hablhahe, who had 22 students, what his main problem was. He answered, "Material difficulty, as our school has no electricity; pedagogical difficulty, as teaching the Chinese language to children who never hear this language except at school is not easy; and logistical difficulty, as children have to walk far and are tired." In the next class of the second grade, there were 37 students, three per bench, and only one teacher for all the subjects. I also noticed that teachers spoke Chinese with a very strong accent. Most knew enough Chinese to pass a written exam, but they could not communicate verbally. This aspect of the situation has not changed, I noted.
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