Synthetic pitches add happiness for students in China's mountainous villages

GUIYANG, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Yang Yuze, a sixth-grade student at Bailong Elementary School in southwest China's Guizhou Province, feels delighted and more confident playing with her classmates on the new synthetic basketball court completed last month.

The school's sports ground used to have a cement surface, and students would get scraped if they fell. In March, when the new synthetic basketball court was unveiled, students were excited to see the attractive and safe sports facility.

"We now feel more secure and confident during sports classes, allowing students to engage in more strenuous exercises," said Tian Weizhong, the school's headteacher.

In the mountainous areas of Shiqian County, where Bailong Elementary School is located, some villages have established elementary schools for children whose parents have left for work, leaving the elderly and young behind.

In these villages, each of the elementary schools has roughly 100 students, and some playgrounds used to be small and rough.

Wanghe Elementary School, an hour's drive from the county town, is surrounded by mountains and has a total of 175 students from eight nearby villages.

According to Huang Wenjie, headmaster of Wanghe Elementary School, the former playground had a concrete floor that would fill with water on rainy days and become dusty after several days of sunshine. Without suitable venues, students spent most of their free time in the classroom and were not keen on going outside.

With the new synthetic basketball court, most students now leave their classrooms after the bell rings and head to the court to play basketball or sit in a circle to play games with classmates. Some younger children even roll on the ground, giggling from time to time.

Since 2021, as part of the central government's paired assistance program to promote coordinated regional development and common prosperity, the county has received donations from various enterprises and built 15 synthetic playgrounds in 14 schools in mountainous areas, improving the physical education and exercise conditions for teachers and students.

For Wang Mingyong, headmaster of Leqiao Elementary School, the new sports ground also changes the students' outlook. "Now, we often see students at the basketball court, and our campus is full of laughter," Wang said.

The school's second synthetic basketball court is under construction. Wang said that once the site is fully built, they plan to hold a sports meeting every semester to further enrich students' campus life.

Some of the basketball courts in these mountainous areas feature designs such as a spaceship navigating through space or a rocket lifting off.

Yu Pianyi, the designer of the new basketball courts, said she hopes the design will encourage children to have more unique experiences in sports and pursue their dreams among the stars.