Since 2006, the Chinese government has implemented a 9-year compulsory education scheme and at the same time offered“Two remissions and one subsidy” which means remissions of miscellaneous and textbook fees, subsidy for boarding students . While this makes basic education possible for all, attending high school and higher means of education remains out of reach for the impoverished. Drop-out rate post junior secondary school reaches as high as 30% and the main attributing factor is financial difficulties.
To reflect the change in education policies, our student support focus has evolved to helping those in senior high school and university, in the form of living and learning expense assistance. At the moment, we are concentrating our effort in Yunnan, Gansu, Sichuan and Guizhou.
Sowers Action has been funding the expenses of the Sowers Action Hua Guang Girls High School in Nanning City since April 2006, and the school has become the one and only pure public welfare girls high school in China. Poverty-stricken girls in high school can have the opportunity to “step out of the mountains”, and use knowledge to change their own destiny, and even that of families and villages.
Over the past 20 years, Nanning’s education undertakings have become increasingly prosperous, with continuous improvement in educational conditions, and the country’s targeted poverty alleviation policies have gradually seen positive results. However, the situation at Sowers Action has been less than ideal, with fundraising severely hit by the economic recession, and donations have fallen by more than one-third. At the same time, the education policy in Nanning has changed. Since last year, the all girls’ high schools can only accept local Nanning students, and unable to take on students from other poverty-stricken counties. Since the school is a non-profit public operation which relies heavily on donations, the funding is often so tight that it is difficult to employ and maintain a stable group of teaching staff. Moreover, the government informed the school some years ago that it needs to be demolished in future for the construction of a new highway, prompting the school to relocate. However, despite several years of hard work, relocation of the high school has not been possible.
Following much deliberation and careful consideration, Sowers Action has decided to cease all donations to the high school after completion of the 2021 spring semester. The school will be taken over by another institution and re-named Hua Guang Girls High School. Students originally in years 1 and 2 will have all their school fees subsidised by the new owners and continue their education. Sowers Action’s historical mission will be completed.
