Read the article again. What difficulties do children in these places face to get to school?
1) The children of the Iñupiat community in Alaska.
2) The children who go to the school in Banten, Indonesia.
3) The children who go to the Gulu Village Primary School, China.
4) The children who live along The Chetla Road in Delhi, India.


‘How do you get to school?’ This question often gets an answer like ‘By bus’ or ‘I walk’ or ‘My parents take me by car’. But not always – there are children in many different parts of the world who, every day, have to go on a difficult journeyin order to get to their lessons. They travel for kilometres on foot, or by boat, bicycle, donkey or train. They cross deserts, mountains, rivers, snow and ice: for example, the children of the Iñupiat community in Alaska go to school and then come back when it is dark, in extremely cold temperatures. And they are not the only ones – kids in many countries do this and more.
These children in Indonesia have to cross a bridge ten metres above a dangerous river to get to their class on time. (The bridge fell down in 2001 after very heavy rain.) Then they walk many more kilometres through the forest to their school in Banten village.
A pupil at Gulu Village Primary School, China, rides a donkey as his grandfather walks beside him. Gulu is a mountain villagein a national park. The school is far away from the village. It is halfway up a mountain, so it takes five hours to climb from the bottom of the mountain to the school. The children have a dangerous journey: the path is only 45 centimetres widein some places.
These children live in poor houses on Chetla Road in Delhi, India. Their homes are near the busy and dangerous railway lines that go to Alipur station. Every morning they walk along the tracksto get to their school, forty minutes away.
So one question we can ask is: why do the children do this? Because their parents make them do it? The answer, in many cases, is no – it’s because for them going to school means a better future: They hope to get a job and money, so they can help their families and their neighbours. And this is why rivers, deserts or danger won’t stop them on their way to school.