Following a pilot project last year, China Women's University (CWU) officially launched a scheme to make fact-finding visits to some of the families of its impoverished students. The university hopes to use the results of the investigation to improve the accreditation system of those students from poorer backgrounds.
Organized by the CWU from May 5-25, CWU staff visited several affected students' families in Heilongjiang Province, Jilin Province, Sichuan Province, Anhui Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
CWU staff surmounted numerous difficulties including bad road conditions to reach those remote areas, whilst paying the families a friendly visit. Staff had in-depth conversations with the parents to know more about the economic conditions, and conveyed feedback about students' work and lives to their relatives.
Meanwhile, staff also publicized financial aid policies released and implemented by China and the university whilst soliciting those family members' opinions and suggestions on the school management system and the grant-giving policies. In addition, staff, on behalf of the CWU, delivered a gift worth 500 yuan (U.S. $81) to the students' parents to extend the CWU's regards.
Later, the CWU held a special meeting to summarize the visits. At the meeting, staff talked about how to give follow-up support and the very best education to impoverished university students, as well as how to promote the scheme of family visits in a better way in the near future.
Through the family visits, the CWU expressed its strong concerns and great expectations for those students facing financial difficulties. The CWU considered the visit as a form of actual support as well as spiritual encouragement, because the visits both enhanced needy students' management and education, and improved the students' financial aid system. Moreover, the scheme played an active role in cultivating students under the cooperation of the school and its corresponding families.
The CWU formally released "The Measures for the Implementation of the CWU's Family Visits to Impoverished Students" scheme in January, 2015, and aims to launch it annually, with the hope of improving its accreditation system in terms of accuracy and efficiency.
