Rural teachers gather in Beijing for training

Teachers from rural areas in Central China's Hunan province gathered in Beijing over the weekend to start a ten-day training program in the capital.

The opening ceremony of the annual training camp was held in Beijing No 4 Middle School on Aug 10.

The 110 primary and middle school teachers are from villages across 13 counties in Hunan. During their time in Beijing, which many have never visited before, they will visit the sights including Tian'anmen Square, the Bird's Nest, the Water Cube and the Great Wall.

The teachers will also visit some of the best primary and middle schools in Beijing to study teaching and learning systems.

The training is mainly supported by an education NGO founded by Cui Yongyuan, a popular Chinese talk show host, that has a focus on improving education and?living conditions for children in rural areas. The organization is part of The Chinese Red Cross Foundation.

Since 2006, the organization has held eight training sessions for teachers from rural areas and has invited a total of 689 rural teachers to Beijing to take part in the program.

"This year, we specifically invited middle school students in Beijing to participate," said Cui Yongyuan, at the opening ceremony, "We believe it would be the experience of a lifetime for these students to do something good for the public when they are young."

Students from Beijing No 4 Middle School organized the opening ceremony.

"We were greatly moved when kids participated in this year's training program. They had planning meetings about the opening ceremony at school almost every day," said Dong Feng, who helped organize this year's program.

"Their parents have been quite supportive," he said.

Cui said that he came across the idea for the training program when he was filming the TV program My Long March in 2006 in which Cui, accompanied by a TV crew, hiked through rural villages around China. He found many children in the villages had difficulties receiving a good education because the teaching quality in their area was not very high. Since that experience Cui, through his organization, has been inviting teachers to receive training in Beijing.

"I hope they will bring what they see in Beijing back to the children living in the countryside, and try their best to broaden their horizons," Cui said.