Duan Jiayang, a 13-year-old student of a middle school in Shenzhen, learns the skills required to take care of vegetable fields.
"I learned how to place the mulch film (地膜)," he says, "It's not easy."
In China, many parents place a heavy focus on their children's good results, but vocational (职业的) skills have little been cared.
"Some parents do everything for their children," says Yan Mei, an official with the middle school, adding that many students are short of the basic skills needed in their daily lives.
Since March last year, the governments have launched a lot of policies, requiring that colleges, middle schools and primary schools pay more attention to teaching students practical skills.
Following these policies, the middle school launched an "agricultural (农业的) class base" on one of its school yards. Students plant fruit and vegetables on an area of land about 4,000 m2 in size.
In the days coming up to the May Day holiday, students of different grades at the school worked together in the fields, says a head teacher of a middle school. They planted watermelons, carrots and corn. May Day, also known as Labor Day, is celebrated on May 1st in China.
The school hopes that students will understand the food is quite precious so that they will better realize the difficulties that their parents went through.
