ABSTRACT
I visited this school in 1988, 1992 and 2001. As a non-state school providing education for ‘mentally handicapped’ children and young people, Zhi Ling was doubly unique when it opened in 1984. It was the only non-state special school in the country at that time for students who would otherwise have been excluded from education. Official support was first given by the Guangzhou Municipal Labourers and Farmers Education Office in early 1985. In 1986, the year in which the new Compulsory Education Law was ratified, the school was formally recognised by the Education Department of the Tien Huao District of Guangzhou.
