Donating computers to poorly equipped schools in remote mountainous areas is not something new nowadays for enterprises with just a moderate sense of corporate social responsibility. However, some companies choose to go one step further.

At the beginning of this year, Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co Ltd China donated 400 laptops to 20 primary schools in Southwest China's Guizhou province to improve the educational facilities there.

HP China returned to these schools with its service group in early September.

"We brought the service group to the schools in the Miao autonomous county in Guizhou province this time to give local teachers and students access to HP's professional support service, enabling students here to better grasp digital skills," said Liu Lei, director of marketing, personal systems group at HP China.

Because the schools receiving these laptops are mostly in areas where transport is rather poor, once any problems occur with the computers, it is very difficult and inconvenient for teachers and students to get repairs and maintenance.

During the trip, Long Qiqing, a computer engineer from HP China, who is also a member of the service group in the Tongren prefecture, in Guizhou province, taught the teachers and students in their computer-equipped classrooms how to use the laptops and gave them the telephone number of the service group.

Teachers can call the service group whenever they have any problems using these laptops. The group promises to deal with them as soon as possible.

"HP will always stay focused on China's educational development, and help to promote reform of educational informationization through diversified means, customized products and services," said Liu.

Nearly all the students here saw a laptop for the first time when HP brought them earlier this year.

Wu Xiangying, a 10-year-old girl at Tongmuwanquan primary school, said: "I had never seen a laptop until the HP company donated several to our school, and I was rather excited at the first sight of them."

Wu Yi, a boy in grade six at the same primary school, likes typing so much that he once asked his teacher for permission to stay in the computer room to practice typing after class. He then spent two hours on a machine.

"I love practicing typing and I wish to be a scientist when I grow up," he typed on the laptop.

In these primary schools, the classrooms equipped with computers are only open to students from grade four to grade six because younger students are not ready to learn how to use them, according to teachers.

The language barrier is also one of the reasons why only students above grade four are allowed to have computer classes.

The Miao language is the first language for most children in the Songtao Miao autonomous county in Tongren prefecture. This means that teachers for the lower grades have to be able to speak both Miao and Putonghua.

"When they enter higher grades, usually they have no problem speaking fluent Mandarin," said Wu Bicao, a teacher at Guanzhou primary school in the Zhengda Township of Songtao Miao autonomous county, Guizhou province.

There are two computer classes every week and each one lasts 40 minutes. Teachers usually teach students how to type words and other techniques in operating Microsoft Word software because there is no access to the Internet.

Li Yan, deputy head of Zhengda Township, said the lack of a network forced them to copy digital educational materials from outside and then apply them on the computers at school, which is inconvenient and limits the full application of the machines.

She also expressed concerns that computer education will survive in the area because of a shortage of good teachers and Internet coverage.

"I don't think there will be Internet coverage here within five years as transport is so poor that Internet providers are not willing to afford the high cost of installing a network cable," Long said.