Corning employees are helping to create better schools – and brighter long-term opportunities -- for children in rural China. Their enthusiastic support of a public service program focused on teacher training has forged new relationships and created more hope for the children from China’s less-wealthy interior regions.

The program – IFly – brings rural teachers to Shanghai each summer for two weeks of intense training and encouragement from private-sector supporters. Last month, Corning China team members in Shanghai took a prominent role in the annual IFly training.

Not only did they cover travel expenses for five of the 160 teachers who attended – they also presented more of Corning’s vision at a public lecture in the IFly training center at East China Normal University and welcomed the teachers on a personal tour of Corning’s optical fiber and cable facility in Shanghai.

These teachers traditionally have fewer resources and less training than their urban counterparts. Many of their students face special challenges, including poverty and the need to travel long distances just to attend class.

With only about five percent of rural students going on to college – and just 40 percent even making it as far as high school – China leaders are placing greater emphasis on bolstering rural schools. Nonprofit programs like IFly, started five years ago by a well-known Chinese television host, help support that effort.

Here are some of the highlights of Corning’s most recent involvement with IFly:

• Five quotas of sponsoring teachers’ travel expense were allocated to Corning China employees and were claimed promptly.
• Teams in China shared Corning’s long history of innovation and plans for future product applications by testing the toughness of Corning® Gorilla® Glass and showing of “A Day Made of Glass” videos to engage the teachers in conversations about glass science.
• Members of Optical Communications plant in the Jiading section of Shanghai, welcomed the teachers to the facility demonstrated the full suite of optical fiber and cable products.
• Corning also helped the teachers learn more about glass with a visit to the Shanghai Glass Museum, where they saw special exhibits and took part in glass-blowing crafts.
• After receiving special “wish” cards written by the students, several employees donated clothing, school supplied, dictionaries, toys for the children.

Corning employees in China are proud to support the IFly program and hope the students and teachers have a successful school year.