What does a kitchen garden mean to children in a rural primary school in China?

To Yang Peng, it makes a school feel like home.

Yang is principal of a primary boarding school that has 360 students in Heping, Sanjiang Dong autonomous county, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. One in every five students is a "left-behind" child, whose parents are migrant workers in cities far from home.

As the Ministry of Education and the United Nations Children's Fund have been jointly carrying out the Whole School Environment Improvement Project across the country, positive changes have taken place, making students such as Yang's feel less lonely at being parted from their parents.

In the garden at Heping Primary School vines wind their way up the fence and one can see melons and passion fruits, while garden tools sprinkle water. The area has become a playground for the students.

The idea of having a vegetable garden came to Yang when the school joined the Campaign to Build a Beautiful School, an extension of the Whole School Environment Improvement Project.

In 2016, Yang rented a piece of wasteland from a farmer for 1,500 yuan ($212) a year.

"I told him that it would be better for me to make it into a vegetable garden. The students would be happy and he would make some profit, too," he said.

Each class has its own vegetable plot, and the students have a weekly session led by their head teacher.

"The kitchen garden not only helps them to understand farm culture, but also makes their school life more fun," Yang said, adding that the students are not only interested in the class, but also in the crops they plant. They often visit in their spare time to see how their crops are doing.

The project, called Farming Education into Schooling, stems from the implementation of the beautiful school campaign in Sanjiang.

In 2006, a program called Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Schools, aka WASH, was jointly implemented by the Ministry of Education and UNICEF to provide safe drinking water, improve sanitation facilities and promote hygienic behavior at schools in the less-developed central and western regions.

In 2013, the WASH-led Whole School Environment Improvement Project included health, nutrition, environment and climate education, and disaster management.

From 2013 to 2016, Sanjiang invested more than 11.8 million yuan in the construction and renovation of hygienic toilets in 108 schools. The latest statistics show that by September last year, 94 percent of schools in Sanjiang had sanitary latrines, compared with 18 percent in 2013.

This "toilet revolution" was a success, and Sanjiang decided to go further.

The Whole School Environment Improvement Project was expanded to embrace school construction and ecological awareness in an effort to build beautiful schools, according to Long Huaiyi, head of the county's education bureau.

Yu Bin, head teacher of class one, grade six, at Heping Primary School, said: "Many students are left with their grandparents. Some only have their mothers at home because their fathers have left for better-paying jobs in big cities. They do not have enough care and guidance from both parents."

The 27-year-old teaches during the day and takes care of the children at night. She also leads them in cleaning the toilets and dorms, and works as an art teacher. "It makes me a little busy," she said.

Each dorm is equipped with 10 beds, two toilets and a regular supply of hot water.

"The Build a Beautiful School campaign gives children a second home," Yu said.

He Weihua, a sixth grader, only has his mother at home, about an hour's drive from the school. His father is a migrant worker.

When he began living at the school, He missed his mother, but now he has adjusted to his new life.

"The toilets are clean. My teachers are nice. I can play ball with my classmates on the playground. Everything I need is in the school," he said.

School bus

The school bus picks up students from their homes on Monday and takes them back on Friday afternoons.

"There are always several kids who cry when they have to leave school on weekends," Yu said.

The Second Primary School in Doujiang Town has also joined the beautiful school project, with a focus on girls' physical health.

Every semester, Principal Lu Guilian gives lectures on physical health for those ages 9 to 12, who are entering puberty. In the past, girls often went to Lu's office to ask what to do when they started menstruating.

"The panic they experienced made me realize that I needed to educate them more about their bodies," she said.

The girls' restrooms are equipped with doors and trash cans with lids to protect the students' privacy. In addition, sanitary pads are available at all times in the principal's office.

The teachers at the boarding school are like parents to the students. "Being closest to them, we are obliged to take good care of them," Lu said.

The school environment improvement project has been launched in five provincial-level regions: the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region; Chongqing; the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, Guizhou province; and Yunnan province. It benefits more than 150,000 students in over 300 schools, and plans are being finalized to expand the program to help 300,000 more children.

Heping Primary School has one of the highest scores in China. A plaque hanging on the doorway bears characters that read "Sanjiang county's Beautiful School", followed by four red stars.

No school has yet received the full score of five stars.

"We would like to try," said Yang, the principal, adding that he just wants things to continue improving for the children.

"All my colleagues are fighting for a better life for the children."