"Cloud-borne School Bus": Once a Daunting Journey, Now an Accessible Route to Education

BEIJING, March 14, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report by China.org.cn on the "cloud-borne school bus" service in China:

At a sheer 550-meter rise from the valley floor to the mountaintop, the Nizhu River Grand Canyon poses a daily challenge for nine children from Nizhuhe Village as they make their way to school. The phrase "a nerve-wracking journey" once accurately described their treacherous trek to the classroom. However, with the launch of a "cloud-borne school bus" service, their daily schooling commute has taken a much easier turn.

The story of change was achieved just a few years ago.

Nizhuhe Village is a small community nestled in the Nizhu River Grand Canyon in southwest China's Yunnan Province. Guanzhai Primary School is located on the mountaintop. In the past, children from Nizhuhe Village had three options to go to school: they could either walk for at least three hours, taking a long detour of dozen kilometers to reach the mountain top; or spend more than two hours navigating steep and narrow mountain paths to cross the valley; or, occasionally, older children might climb to the top accompanied by their parents. Likening this route to school to a "journey to the heavens" is no exaggeration.

In 2022, the completion and operation of the Nizhu River Grand Canyon Ecological Cultural Tourism Area was a game-changer. A 268-meter cliff-side elevator and an aerial cable spanning nearly 200 meters in elevation, built over five years, are now open for free to local villagers, serving as a "cloud-borne school bus" for children.

With the start of the new semester, students, accompanied by their parents, take a shuttle bus to a cliff three kilometers away. There, they ride a cliff elevator up to the cable car platform, where they switch to cable cars that take them to the mountaintop in just five to six minutes. What was once a grueling three-hour journey to school now takes only 30 minutes.

The 550-meter "leap" represents a monumental transformation in the rural landscape that has unfolded over several decades.

Once a remote and isolated village, Nizhuhe was cut off from the outside world, even lacking electricity before 2002. Back then poor transportation conditions meant that much of the equipment needed to install power lines had to be carried manually. The project, covering a vertical drop of over 500 meters and using nearly 1,000 meters of wiring, took more than three months. Today, local infrastructure has markedly improved. In 2018, Nizhuhe upgraded its electricity system, erecting two 110-kilovolt power towers on the cliff and the opposite riverbank. The local power supply bureau also provided dual power supply for the cliffside elevator, ensuring that the "cloud-borne school bus" can operate all year-round without interruption.

For the children in the village, the dramatic change featuring the "cloud-borne school bus" has removed the cliffs as a barrier to education.

In a similar vein, as children from Nizhuhe Village ride an elevator across a canyon, 1,600 kilometers away, over 300 students in Qingliu County in southeast China's Fujian Province are taking the Fuxing high-speed train as a school bus to commute between their county and homes deep in the mountains. This route, established during China's railway expansion period, has specifically optimized its timetable and ticketing rules to maximize convenience for students traveling to and from school.

Similar stories are unfolding in many parts of China today.

Amidst rugged mountains, various "school buses" symbolizing the achievements of the development of Chinese modernization are traversing geographical barriers, making the journey to education easier for children in remote areas. These initiatives also bring them closer to the wider world, transforming daunting journeys into accessible routes for ordinary people to pursue a better life.

China Mosaic 
http://chinamosaic.china.com.cn/index.htm