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| Wang Zuoyuan in an interview [Photo/bjby.bjwmb.gov.cn] |
Before his retirement in 2003, Wang Zuoyuan was a professor of the Department of Civil Engineering of Tsinghua University, one of China's most prestigious universities.
Born in 1940, Wang has devoted dozens of years to teaching. When he retired, someone asked him what he would most like to do next. Wang said opening a school for the children of migrant workers in his hometown was on the top of his wish list.
However, he did not find a fit opportunity to realize his dream at that moment.
Unexpectedly, an opportunity arose in 2005, when through research on migrant workers he found that their children had nothing to do, perhaps because they lack marketable skills or simply because their families could not afford their education expenses.
Wang decided to set up a vocational school for migrant workers' children, young migrant workers and children from poor families.
In May, after several months' preparation, Wang and Yao Li, chairman of a local property management company, with the help of their friends and partners' resources founded the Bainian Vocational School, the first institution to provide free skills training for young people from poor families.
Wang Zuoyuan was elected principal by the board of directors.
In early July 2005, the school began to enroll its first group of students. However, no one had been recruited after the first three days. The migrant workers were asking for more information about the courses and did not believe they were free.
Therefore, Wang and his colleagues distributed brochures in densely-populated areas such as marketplaces, construction sites, and residential communities of migrant workers. They also advertised on Beijing People's Broadcasting Station and answered the migrant workers' doubts and inquiries through a hotline.
Two months later, the first group of students began their studies in the school.
Wang went to work every week day at around 7:30 from his house in Haidian, taking the subway for at least one hour to the school in the Chaoyang district.
"I feel enlightened, because what I am heading for is a pleasant career and the school is a promising destination that may bring hope," Wang said.
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Wang gives a lecture to students at the Bainian Vocational School in Beijing's Chaoyang district. [Photo/bjby.bjwmb.gov.cn] |
