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Why Poverty?

Nick Fraser

Why Poverty?: Episode 8: China's Ant People

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China's Ant People

Episode 8

Episode 8: China's Ant People

BBC Four - Why Poverty?, China's Ant People

Film looking at Chinese education through the lives of a tutor, a student and a jobseeker.

Film looking at the realities of Chinese education through the lives of a private college tutor, a graduate jobseeker and a high school graduate and would-be university student.

What does an education get you? Education is the only way out of poverty, as it has been sold to the Chinese population since ancient times. China's economic boom and talk of the merits of hard work have created an expectation that studying is how to escape poverty. Yet it seems the system only leads to jobs for a few, and debt for all. Weijun Chen's film, set in Wuhan in central China, looks at the realities of Chinese education through the lives of private college tutor Wang Zehziang, high school graduate and would-be university student Wang Pan, and graduate jobseeker Wan Chao. 

A BBC Storyville film, produced in partnership with the Open University, China's Ant People screens as part of Why Poverty? - when the BBC, in conjunction with more than 70 broadcasters around the world, hosts a debate about contemporary poverty. The global cross-media event sees the same eight films screened in 180 countries to explore why, in the 21st Century, a billion people still live in poverty.

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A series of films which ask what it means to live in poverty in the 21st Century

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