“Learning is really important. I didn't understand technology before. Most of the tea oil camellia trees I planted died and I lost a lot of money.
Once I enrolled in a training course at Guangshan Radio and TV University (Guangshan RTVU), the teachers taught us planting techniques, which not only improved the survival rate of the tea oil camellia, but also made it possible for some of the trees to bear fruit. I really see hope for me to get out of poverty and become well-off one day." In early summer, Xiang Zhengmei, a villager from Dongyue Village, Wenshu Township, Guangshan County, Henan Province, was busy in her tea oil camellia field, making up for the agricultural work delayed by the COVID-19 epidemic.
Yang Changtai (right) is showing some special farm produce growing on his family farm
Implementation of the OUC Educational Programme Targeted at Poverty Alleviation
Dongyue Village used to be a national level poverty-stricken village with more than 2,000 villagers. The number of poor households that have registered for and obtained poverty cards reached 585. Xiang Zhengmei’s household was one such household. However, she not only successfully lifted herself out of poverty three years ago, but further expanded her business by contracting up to 100 mu of land (about 16 acres) with transferred use rights to plant tea oil camellia trees and raise shelducks. Why working together with her husband, their family has become well-known among nearby towns. These successes came from the agricultural technology and management knowledge she learned in a programme as part of the "Long March Belt" Educational Programme Targeted at Poverty Alleviation independently implemented by the Guangshan Branch of Xinyang RTVU (hereinafter referred to as Guangshan RTVU) relying on the support of the Open University of China (OUC).
According to Zhang Zhijun, director of the OUC Poverty Alleviation Office, the OUC is a new type of university directly under the Ministry of Education (MOE) which is supported by modern information technology and engages in distance education for all members of the society. In order to implement the decisions and work deployment of the CPC Central Committee, the State Council, and the Party Group of the MOE on the implementation of targeted poverty alleviation through education, Guangshan RTVU has given full play to its own teaching characteristics and the advantages of the resources of its school running system, and implemented a series of educational assistance projects for areas deeply stricken by poverty, old revolutionary areas, and remote ethnic minority areas in the west within "Three Regions and Three Prefectures", benefitting more than 35,000 people.
Guangshan County is one of 25 national poverty-stricken counties. The programme provides free training for rural grassroots cadres, free continuing education opportunities for poverty-stricken people who have had their files set up and obtained poverty cards, and free vocational skills training. As part of carrying out poverty alleviation, special awards and student subsidies have been set up to help students complete their studies. At the same time, the construction of education targeted poverty alleviation bases in poverty-stricken counties was accelerated, the school running conditions of study centres was improved, the construction of assisted study centres was enhanced, school running capacity was improved, academic and non-degree education projects were carries out effectively, education targeted poverty alleviation models were explored, and reserve forces to win the poverty alleviation battle were cultivated.
Get Rich Through Skills Training
Fifty-year-old Yang Changtai is a celebrity in Dongyue Village. Over the course of three years, his family has completed the great leap from a poor family to a a rich family. The villagers all joked that Yang Changtai had become a pacesetter for becoming rich in Dongyue Village.
In the past, Yang Changtai was a migrant worker in Beijing. A car accident in 2011 forced him to return to his hometown to start his own business. In 2012, he began to plant seedling trees and flowers. Due to his lack of experience and technology, he not only lost his savings from working for many years, but also ran into debt of tens of thousands of RMB. In 2014, his family was listed as a poor family.
“I felt very embarrassed that my family had become a poor family when I was still a young man,” Yang Changtai recalled, so he made up his mind to get out of poverty. Village cadres and members of the poverty alleviation team came to help Yang Changtai, helped him to analyse the reasons behind his poverty, provided a guarantee for him in applying for small loans, and also found planting experts to give him technical guidance in the field. With the help of the poverty alleviation team, by the end of 2014, Yang Changtai had made RMB 150,000 from the sale of seedling trees and flowers, part of which he used to pay off his debt, and the other part of which, equalling around RMB 60,000, was kept as profit. In this way, the family successfully lifted itself out of poverty.
"Without the support of knowledge and skills, sustainable development cannot be assured,” Yang Changtai said. Having benefited from the success brought by technology, he deeply realised the importance of knowledge. However, he found it difficult to find learning opportunities.
Then, Yang Changtai met another of his life’s "saviours." Huang Baoyin, the president of Guangshan RTVU, came to him and provided him with just such a learning opportunity.
In recent years, by leveraging the support of provincial and municipal RTVUs and by taking account of local realities, the education targeted poverty alleviation project implemented by the OUC in old revolutionary base areas has provided on-demand training of competent local talents who love and are willing to stay in the countryside.
Knowing that Guangshan RTVU had this kind of free training plan, which would allow him to study scientific technology knowledge for agriculture and get a diploma, Yang Changtai quickly signed up and became a student of the OUC.
"The systematic studies helped me grasp planting and breeding technology, learn about agriculture-related market economy and e-commerce sales, widened my vision, gave me the confidence and courage to start my own business, and enabled my family, once a poor household, to build up our family fortune and become rich,” Yang Changtai said, gratefully.
Yang Changtai used the management knowledge he gained through the OUC to run a family farm. He built five strawberry greenhouses and engaged in businesses covering seedling trees, flowers, green rice, tea, and aquaculture. On the eve of Spring Festival 2020, the sales volume of his family farm reached more than RMB 800,000. He has led more than 50 nearby poor households to get rid of poverty and live a well-off life.
Train People Who Can Lead to Help Villagers Become Rich
"In recent years, Guangshan RTVU has made great efforts to define sources, boost ambition, and build up wisdom, and has actively carried out a training plan that focuses on cultivating local talents and leaders to help people get rich and provide a strong talent guarantee for the overall construction of a Chinese Smart Town and rural revitalisation,” Huang Baoyin said. In order to comply with the requirements of the OUC, Guangshan RTVU has given full play to the important driving role of the OUC in targeted poverty alleviation through education, has worked according to local realities and focused on strengthening the construction of its study centre’s software and hardware facilities, explored new paths and methods of poverty alleviation through education, and made new breakthroughs in rural talent training, education connotation construction, and training in industrial development. Preliminary results have been achieved in targeted poverty alleviation through education.
"The key to rural revitalisation lies in the revitalisation of talents." Yang Changjia, Secretary of the General Party branch of Dongyue Village, believes that no matter whether someone is a village cadre or a leader helping others getting rich, they should be equipped with knowledge and technology in order to better serve the villagers. In Yang Changjia’s eyes, the reason that he was able to lead the villagers out of poverty and become rich comes down to the power of knowledge: "I signed up for Guangshan RTVU’s learning programs twice, covering both agricultural knowledge and self-cultivation. I found that the learning programmes are closely related to the needs of village cadres and are very helpful to our work."
This training plan has cultivated a group of talented village cadres and leaders for and has brought tangible benefits to the villagers. In recent years, Guangshan County has vigorously advanced the "Colourful Countryside" industrial poverty alleviation plan. The villagers have set up family farms, some planting seedling trees, flowers, and organic rice, some raising pheasants, black pigs and ducks, some even raising crayfish and rice simultaneously in paddy fields and planting organic tea trees. They sell these agricultural products to all parts of the country through the e-commerce service centre they established. In 2018, Dongyue Village alone achieved per capita disposable income of RMB 11,653, marking success in lifting the farmers out of poverty.
"Learning has improved my personal abilities and played an obvious role in my language expression, working attitude, and working methods,” Jiang Shixue, secretary of the General Party Branch of Jiangwan Village, Suntiepu Town, Guangshan County, said, sharing how he had benefitted from learning.
Based on the knowledge he obtained from the OUC, Jiang Shixue established a rural land credit cooperative, which is the first "land bank" in the whole province and represents a step towards setting up a new road to experimental land reform in rural areas. A Jiangwan model integrating “three rights in one,” in which the village collective possesses land ownership, the farmers’ own land contract rights, and the cooperative owns land management rights, has been built. The once poor and backward village has become a "National Ecological Village" and "National Civilised Village/Town.”
As of the spring of 2020, Guangshan RTVU has enrolled 218 students, including 211 rural cadres and seven students from poor households to study in the OUC's graduate and junior college degree programs. One hundred and fifty rural technical personnel engaging in tea trees, tea oil camellia trees, seedling trees, and flower cultivation have been trained.
Written by He Jing & Long Cheng
Reprinted from Farmers Daily