We are compeers
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Pazli was gone, but for other reasons than those I thought. He now teaches politics in a high school of Burqin where his family lives, which makes his life easier. A Woyimoke school headmaster earns 2,500 yuan a month and teachers earn between 1,200 and 2,500, including bonuses, according to their competence and seniority. They benefit from a medical insurance and a pension fund.
During the summer holidays, children have homework to do at home and they go back to the school monthly to meet their teachers and to hand in what they have completed.
What improvements has the school accomplished in two years? The headmaster was proud to answer. First, teaching by computer. A portable television with a giant screen can be moved from class to class. The central government provided the school with two computers, which also serve for administration purposes. I saw them beside a printer, a photocopier, and a typewriter – the type that can be seen in museums. Second, children begin learning Chinese in the first grade. Chinese is taught by four Kazak teachers who are all graduates from Urumqi or Changji advanced learning establishments and who have one to four years' experience. Third, the teachers' apartments and surrounding grounds have improved. Fourth, all teachers go to Urumqi or elsewhere in turn for improvement courses. These classes are partly subsidized by the school and partly by the Burqin Education Bureau.
All the Moaibas children attend local school. In middle school, they go to a boarding school. Only food fees are imposed on the families. The best students, about 15 percent of them, are chosen to continue their studies in a high school under Shihezi University or in special Kazak classes elsewhere in the country.
The school library is composed of four shelves of books in Chinese and in Kazak, as offered by the China Youth Development Foundation.
We leafed through French and English editions of magazines that had published my articles about Xinjiang. Bahetiehan could "read" the images only. Then he asked me questions about my family, and I, about his. I found out that he has three sons. The eldest is a driver, the second one just graduated from high school, and the youngest graduated from middle school.
Bahetiehan's wife is 46 years old. She also is a teacher at Woyimoke. That evening, she joined us for a dinner which was enlivened with music, and, obviously, I could not avoid looking silly as I tried to follow her steps in a Kazak dance.
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