Zhang visits a student's home in 2011 [Photo/Xinhua]

After years trying to raise funds, in 2008, Huaping High School for Girls, a free public high school, was founded at the foot of the Shizi Mountain in Huaping, where Zhang is the principal.

Over the decades, Zhang walked thousands of kilometers, visiting students' families in the deep mountain, talking to villagers, persuading girls to go back to school. It has been worth it. More than 1,800 graduates have been admitted to college, which is regarded a "miracle" in the remote area, as most students didn't perform well in academic study before the school was established.

Though lacking full health, not least dealing with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis, Zhang, now 63, insists on a daily routine－get up at around 5 am to turn on the lights of the teaching building, call students to get up with a loudspeaker, accompany students to classes and sleep after senior students' study ends at midnight. She swallows dozens of pills a day. She has collapsed several times from exhaustion on the campus.

Zhang's husband died in the 1990s. She doesn't have children or a house, so she lives at the student dormitory. Zhang Xiaofeng, director of the school's office, says the principal donated all her wages and bonus to bolster rural education and poor people.

Zhang Guimei says she wants children from the mountain to attend the best universities.

In early December, she was named a national outstanding member of the Communist Party of China for her dedication to education in rural China. She was also given the honor of the country's "role model for teachers", "advanced worker" and "outstanding woman". Her moving stories inspire thousands of people.

Zhang Guimei told the media a girl can influence three generations."An educated, responsible mother will not let her children drop out of school," she says, adding the goal is to prevent poverty from passing down from generation to generation.