Authorities in a Muslim Hui autonomous prefecture in northwest China's Gansu Province are combating poverty and gender discrimination to keep all school-age girls in the classroom.

Figures released last week showed all school-age children in its eight counties were attending primary school, and the attendance rate at junior high schools had reached 95.5 percent.

"This shows girls' schooling, a problem that has harassed us for decades, is settled to some extent," said Ma Yongming, deputy education chief in Linxia.

Linxia, with a population of 2 million, is dubbed "China's own Mecca" as more than half of the residents are Muslims.

Until the mid 1990s, only about 60 percent of its girls went to school. Inadequate education left 80 percent of women aged 15 and above illiterate.

"While some parents refused to send girls to school because of poverty, many others believed it was a waste to spend the money on their daughters, who would be married off into other people's family and there would be no return on such investment," said Ma.

Boys, however, were often treated differently.

"Parents rarely hesitated to send their sons to school," said Tang Yuwen, vice president of Beiling Village Primary School. "But some were reluctant to send daughters to school even if it was for free."

To ensure equal access to schooling for all children, the Gansu provincial education department launched a Sino-British joint research project in 1999. The six-year project on basic education was aimed at improving school facilities and teaching standards in Linxia.

It also offered scholarship for girls and trained young women to become competent teachers at village schools.

Starting in 2006, the Chinese government removed the biggest obstacle that kept girls from school, by exempting fees for all primary and middle school students in the underdeveloped western regions.

Officials in Linxia took the opportunity to brainwash parents into registering all children at school.

"School dropouts are reported to the education authority and the local government will held their parents responsible," said Ma Yongming. "We keep visiting these parents until they send their children back to school."

By last year, almost all school-age children in Linxia were attending school, except the few who were mentally-retarded or physically disabled, he said.

China's central government launched the nine-year compulsory education policy in 1986, making primary and junior high school education mandatory for nationwide children aged over 6.

Yet for Ma and his colleagues in the underdeveloped regions, it still takes pains to keep children at school. "It remains a challenge for many years to come."