NOT ONE LESS

By Yuan Yuan

With her short hair dyed bright purple， 15-yearold Du Fangmei is easy to spot in her class. She practiced giving a haircut to a mannequin head as she talked to Beijing Review in her classroom. “My hair was dyed by the hairdressing teacher last month，” she said in standard Chinese. “I like it a lot.”

With her in the classroom are some of her classmates， all teenagers， and hairdressing teacher Duan Zhiwen， whom the students prefer to call shifu （master） rather than teacher to show their respect. The students all have stylish hairstyles， either created by their shifu or by each other. A boy with a buzz cut said he cut his hair by himself with the help of a mirror.

The clothing and jewelry worn by some of the students reflect their pride in their ethnic minority heritage. Fugong， where the school is located， is a county in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province. Most of the residents there hail from either the Lisu or Nu ethnic groups.

The special school

The school was established with the special permission of the autonomous prefectures government in order to address geographical inequalities in access to education. All the students at the school， mostly aged between 13 and 16， either had dropped out of primary school at a very early age or hadnt gone to school at all before entering this school. For these students， this school provides the only chance to get an education before adulthood.

“The reason they didnt go to school or dropped out early varies from family to family， but poverty was the major reason for their lack of access to education，” said Zi Yuefang， headmaster of the school.

The headmaster added that the parents of these children attach relatively little importance to education and would rather keep their children at home to help with housework and farmwork. There is also another special reason for some childrens previous lack of education， owing to the unique location of Fugong. The county is located on Chinas border with Myanmar， and some children in the county previously lived in Myanmar with their parents， missing out on Chinas compulsory education.

Ensuring that every child of school-going age receives compulsory education is one of the major tasks in Chinas campaign against poverty. As one of the six regions in the country affected most severely by poverty， Nujiang has made greater efforts to achieve this goal.

As part of these efforts， the local government established several teams of local officials who walked all the way to remote villages， visited every family to identify kids in need of education， and persuaded them to attend school. But as hundreds of these children were in their teens and couldnt catch up after years of missed classes， it became almost impossible for them to join regular schools. A vocational school tailored to the needs of these children was seen as the best solution.