FOCAL POINTS

China is entering a new era. With the concerted efforts by the government, amazing progress has been made over the past decade in lifting the living standards of the rural populations, including the provision of basic living necessities, general education, and medical care. “Becoming prosperous together” is high on the list of government’s goal for the future, and tremendous gap between urban and rural populations remains to be overcome.

In the new era, the problem facing the large rural population of China is how to further improve their living quality, especially in providing high-quality basic education and in realizing creative human potentials in the changing rural environment. Compared to the conditions of rural education a few decades ago when ESS began its rural education programs, things are much improved. Yet, serious problems such as the lack of adequate teaching staff, facilities and curricula remains. The new era also faces the double threats of severe weather changes brought about by global warming and constant thread of infectious diseases as shown the COVID-19 pandemic, both set new demands in the agenda of rural education.

An important long-term social impact of COVID-19 is the prominent role of online education. China’s Ministry of Education announced a ‘China MOOC Action Manifesto’ in December 2019, charting the blueprint of China online courses in the future, with the goals of achieving higher equity, quality, and availability across all regions in China, developing individualized and precise targeting instruction, and devising mechanisms for resource sharing. Although this manifesto addresses mainly higher education, online courses could be designed for primary and secondary education, allowing elevated efficiency and innovative use of internet technologies, such as 5G network, virtual reality, and block chains. Importantly, the efficient use of new AI technologies could help large-scale training of instructors. This network-based education is thus one approach to meet the needs of resource-deficient rural regions.

During the 2021 ESS summer science camp held in Taojiang County of Hunan providence, we had the new addition of teaching staff – physicians and medical interns from Xiangya Mental health Center of Changsha City. I was very impressed and inspired by both the enthusiastic participation of these physicians, and the questions and responses of students. The young school kids are now facing increasingly stressful conditions, such as severe competition for higher education and uncertain future job prospects. This makes the mental health problem an increasingly serious issue among young population in both rural and urban area. Future ESS science camps will thus include more instructors from the medical profession, so that issues of development and care of physical and mental health could be addressed.

For more than two decades, the rural education programs of ESS have evolved along with the changing needs of rural China. Two well declared goals of the government are the common prosperity of the entire population and the sustainable development of green environment. In my opinion, future ESS programs could contribute to these goals by focusing on new approaches in promoting the sharing of educational resources between urban and rural schools and in raising the environmental awareness, so that future rural population could flourish in “lucid water and green mountain.” In the past decade, we have witnessed the emergence of many non-governmental organizations throughout China. Many volunteers of these organizations share the same value and goal of ESS members. We could foresee fruitful collaborations with them in various new programs in China. Last but not least, we need more volunteers and sponsors abroad to support future ESS activities, so that the torch of ESS for rural education in China continue to shine.