Economic Development

Many places in China, especially coastal areas and large cities, have reached a reasonably wealthy living standard. However, there are still many mountain villagers struggling with basic needs like food and water. They cannot cope with the progress of life and natural disasters, not to mention children's schooling. Many children believe that the aim of education is "so that we can go outside of our villages to work", or that "we won't be easily deceived when we work outside."

Getting a place at a university so as to get the urban residentship is like crossing a narrow bridge for village students: only very few can cross it. Even among those who finish secondary school education, only a handful can make the best use of their knowledge to help local development. The content and method of education in rural areas rarely match the need of local economic development. Vocational Institutes in rural areas blindly follow the national trends by teaching their students computer and clerical skills, none of which are practically useful to local development in an agricultural setting. At the end, very few people can make use of what they have learnt, and graduates can hardly manage basic farming.

IRD believes that it is important to combine education and economic development in poverty-stricken rural regions so that local people can make the best use of their education for the local development.

In order to achieve this, IRD is setting up agricultural skill cooperation projects within the destitute villages of Baojing County. Our strategy is to strengthen the skills and networks of local career training schools so that they can become the supporting matrix of their current students and alumni. Then, when they return to their local villages, they will be able to contribute in agricultural development.