About 20 years ago, while on the way to a student's house, Zhang Guimei, then a rural teacher in Huaping county, Lijiang, Yunnan province, noticed a girl sitting on the hillside. The girl, 13, told Zhang she was about to get married though she wanted to go to school. It was arranged by her parents.
Zhang went to her house and tried to persuade her parents to let the girl return to school and promised to pay for her tuition herself. However, they didn't agree. Zhang felt sorry for not being able to help. "We always say that each child should stand on the same starting line, but these girls didn't even have a chance to get on the track," Zhang said.
It persuaded Zhang to build a free high school for girls with the objective of helping break the cycle that saw women drop out of education, marry early and spend their whole life in the remote mountain. Zhang had spent years trying to raise funds, and in 2008, Huaping High School for Girls, a free public high school, was founded, where Zhang is the principal. Over the decades, Zhang has walked thousands of kilometers, visiting students' families in the deep mountain, talking to villagers, and persuading girls to go back to school. It has been worth it. More than 1,800 graduates have been admitted to college. It is regarded as a "miracle" in the remote area, as most students didn't perform well in academic study before the school was established.
Though lacking full health, Zhang insists on a daily routine—get up around 5 a. m. to call students to get up with a loudspeaker, accompany students to classes and sleep after senior students' study ends at midnight. Zhang's husband died in the 1990s. She doesn't have children or a house, so she lives at the student dormitory. Besides girls in her school, Zhang also donates all her income to help rural education and poor people.
In early December, she was given the honor of the country's "role model for teachers" and "outstanding woman". Her commitment to her education career inspires thousands of people.
