About 70 percent of China's 360 million children live in poverty-stricken rural areas. Compared with their urban peers, they are more vulnerable to social problems like children trafficking, water shortage, domestic violence, iodine deficiency, and the threat of epidemics.

Preschool kids play under the guidance of a teacher in Yatou Village, Northwest China's Gansu Province, which is one of the poverty-stricken areas in the country. China has pooled 5 billion yuan (US$625 million) between 2001 and 2005 to improve the education infrastructures in rural areas, renovating run-down school buildings and buying new desks and chairs.	Preschool kids at Longhuai Primary School in Pohe Village, Longlin County of South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Many local farmers send their children to preschool education even though Longlin remains one of the most impoverished areas in China.

Children in poor villages have to study in stone-mud structure with pane-less windows, sharing one desk with five or six other children and standing all the way at the windowsills to do their written assignment.

Children in mountainous regions, such as Loess Plateau in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, are used to tracing the winding path to fetch salty and bitter water, which may result in arsenic poisoning.

Students at Anyuan Elementary School of Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Gansu Province have a geographical class about the Three Gorges on the country's longest river, the Yangtze, with teaching materials and curriculum from Beijing in one of the school's multi-media classrooms.	A teaching-aid designing expert from the Ministry of Education is demonstrating to teachers from Longhuai Primary School in Pohe Village, Longlin County of Guangxi, on how to use the aids. The teaching aids sponsored by an international organization have aroused great interest among the students, and have helped improve education conditions in the remote areas.

For those left-behind children whose parents leave the villages to work in the cities, they always feel lonely and lack a sense of safety. The lack of educational resources has caused some children in ethnic minority regions to wait until 14 when they can go to primary school. Not to mention those AIDS orphans who are suffering long-term discrimination and loneliness.

Pupils at Huimei Primary School in Xunyangba Town of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province are both attracted and scared by a teaching-aid skeleton.	Pupils at Huimei Primary School in Xunyangba Town, Shaanxi province, learn geographical knowledge through a terrestrial globe. Teaching aids, like this one donated by domestic and international foundations and organizations, help improve education conditions in the poverty-stricken areas.

The central government attaches great importance to helping these children find back a happy childhood. China pooled 5 billion yuan (US$625 million) from 2001 to 2005 to improve the education infrastructures in rural areas, renovating run-down school buildings and buying new desks and chairs. Besides, various domestic and international organizations have provided the children with educational resources including textbooks, stationery, computers, sport equipment, and teaching facilities. Some rural schools have carried out distance education for their students.

A student in Xiajiawan Village, Longlin County of Guangxi collects the recyclable textbooks after every class session to make sure the books are not spoiled and could be used again. In the poverty-stricken area, the recyclable textbooks are used to save the tuition expenses. Starting from 2006, China will provide free nine-year compulsory education for every kid in the countryside, and also exempt some of them from textbook charges.

Outdoor activities of the students in class breaks at Shimen Elementary School in Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Gansu Province. The county is home to 15 ethnic minorities with a total population of 217,400.

At the end of 2005, the Chinese government announced it would invest 125.4 billion yuan (US$15.6 billion) over the next five years to foot the bill for compulsory education in rural areas, making sure every rural child has the opportunity for a free nine-year education.

Students from five schools in Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Gansu Province, participate in a training workshop on children's rights from Oct. 21-23, 2005. The workshop is the first its kind for rural kids in China.	With the help of Hefei Children's Assistance Center, run-away girl Xue Lian (front), 13, goes back to school and is playing with her classmates in Huidong County, East China's Anhui Province. Statistics from the government show China has about 150,000 street children each year, more than 80% of whom are from the poverty-stricken areas.

In 2006, a "new socialist countryside" program was unveiled by the Chinese authorities, which focuses on providing increased support for farmers together with improved education and health care for the rural population. China will spend an extra 5.2 billion yuan (US$650 million) on rural schools, hospitals, crop subsidies and other programs, raising spending on those areas by 15 percent.

A job-hunting workshop for female students in Baofei Township Middle School, Renshou County, Sichuan Province. The county has a population of more than one million and is a major source of migrant workers seeking jobs all over the country.	Girls on their way to school in Zhidan County, Shaanxi Province, another poverty-stricken area in China. Launched in 1989, the Spring Bud Project, dedicated to female pupils forced to drop out of school by financial difficulties, has helped more than 1.5 million girls return to classrooms.