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http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/20...schoolkids

Quote:If you have kids or know kids who complain about their commute to school, then consider the challenges facing the children in the Atule'er village in southwest China's Sichuan province.

The schoolkids are walking half-a-mile vertically each way, and must navigate steep cliffs, hundreds of feet high, on rickety wooden ladders to get to and from school. It illustrates the yawning chasm between China's gleaming first-world cities and its impoverished hinterland, and the difficulties faced by China's many ethnic minorities.  

Living conditions vary greatly around the globe and even within countries in the so-called developed nations. For years, high school students in remote northern B.C. were flown 1000 miles south to reside in a dormitory and access high school, going home only for Christmas and spring break. While it does not compare to the physical challenge and danger of negotiating the mountain in China each week, it is still very stressful for youngsters to live away from their own family for most of the year in an institutionalized setting. In more recent years, there has evolved a reciprocal arrangement for those students to come to Whitehorse, Yukon and be able to go home every weekend. That option was not available when my brothers and I, among others, were in need of secondary schooling.