Women learn traditional Yi-style embroidery at a farmer school in Xide county, Sichuan province. YE ZIZHEN/CHINA DAILY

The farmer school also holds classes to improve young people's skills that can enable them to work in cities.

A dozen of young villagers who have learned to drive excavators and managed to pass the certificate test are now working at more developed coastal cities.

Around 400 villagers are working out in cities, and more than 200 have got qualification certificates of various occupations.

"Once there's one person out for work, the whole family is able to get rid of poverty," Zeng says.

For him, a more important sign of progress is that the villagers are more ambitious to expand their career possibilities. He tells the story of Jimu Erdimo as an example.

The woman in her thirties has four children to raise on her own. She was sponsored to start the one and only supermarket in the village several years ago. Now she's working in a city for a barbecue restaurant, in the hope that she can learn to run one and start her own business at home in the future.

Contact the writers at fangaiqing@chinadaily.com.cn