ChineseToday | Free education helps rural girls in mountainous areas chase their dreams-Xinhua

Students have a class at Huaping Senior High School for Girls in Huaping County, Lijiang City, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Dec. 23, 2025. (Xinhua/Wang Guansen)

LIJIANG, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- Each morning at Huaping High School for Girls in Yunnan Province, the schoolyard rings with a bold pledge, "I was born to be a mountain not a creek, rising to the high peaks with the valleys at my feet." Behind that voice stands Zhang Guimei, the school's founder and principal. In her sixties and struggling with illness, she still devotes more than 18 hours a day to her students. Megaphone in hand, she has become a living symbol of how education can open doors that poverty once closed.

Founded in 2008, Huaping High School for Girls is the country's first senior high school to offer free education for girls. The school in mountainous Yunnan Province has created a miracle, with more than 2,000 graduates -- most of whom come from low-income rural families -- admitted to colleges and universities. Many of them later became teachers, doctors and civil servants, fulfilling their aspirations.