Last year, China launched a project to enroll students with a series of beneficial policies, including exemption of tuition fees and lowering the college entrance examination scores, for colleges training teachers. Those students will be dispatched to work as teachers for six years in 832 counties, which have eradicated poverty in recent years, but are still short of educational talent.

Also one of the five students joining the Gouba visit, Li Ruoyu, a 19-year-old majoring in English at the Beijing Normal University, benefited from the program. Li says she was moved by the sincerity of countryside children.

Recalling that most of them are "left-behind" children, referring to those who remain in rural areas while their parents leave to work in cities, Li says: "We could see the light in each of their eyes. They are so curious about the outside world and yearning for knowledge."