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To Zhong Jiezhen, an 11-year-old in baggy red sweatpants and worn-out rubber sandals, home means cooking, laundry, looking after her younger sister and grandmother.

"It feels so hopeless, lonely and scary when you have to mind over everything all by yourself, constantly worrying, 'What if something happens to Papa and Mama? What if they can't send money home anymore?'" says Zhong, wiping tears with her stained white shirt in her rural village home in Chengxiang township of Quannan county, in southern China's Jiangxi Province.

Jiezhen's mother Huang Zhinian has tears in her eyes as well. She and her husband Zhong Shengping made a special effort to come home for the annual Mid-Autumn Festival, traditionally regarded as another family reunion day besides the Spring Festival. "Placing my two daughters under the care of their grandmother is the last thing we want to do, but we have no alternative."

"We had to leave home to make money to put the children through high school. And we cannot take them with us. Living costs in the city are too high."

Huang, who appears seven or eight years older than her age of 38, migrated from her hometown with her husband in 2002. They are transient construction workers in Fogang city in southern China's Guangdong Province. A stone's throw from Hong Kong, they lead a working life 300 kilometres separate from their children. At best, they earn 10,000 yuan a year. "If we stayed at home to tend a small plot of rice, we could barely keep the wolf from the door," says Huang.

Huang's mother-in-law Tu Qingmei, 70, is no longer physically capable of taking care of her grandchildren. "More importantly," says Tu, "I'm illiterate, and unable to supervise and instruct their study." This leaves Jiezhen virtually on her own.

Or perhaps not quite: the mountainous region of Quannan contains 4,503 6-16 year-olds whose parents work outside. The left-behind children account for 22.47 percent of the county school's students. Most lack adequate care, says Lu Fangqing, deputy director of the local education bureau. "Ineffective guardianship has left those children with no sense of certainty or security. It also creates study difficulties and psychological problems."

Rural development remains top of the agenda for the Chinese Government in Beijing. But the problem for this poor, remote county is that families have only 0.04 hectares of arable land each, one tenth the national average. Scarcity drives villagers to the cities. "The average annual income per head is 2,534 yuan in his county, of which 50 percent comes from those working in cities," says Luo Zongqi, county government chief.

On a national scale, 120 million rural migrant workers are doing the menial jobs that city dwellers refuse. As their sweat and toil have raised China into an economic powerhouse, 20 million of their children remain at home to deal with growing pains and unpredictable miseries alone.

Absence of parental affection and study pressure are the most difficult and overlooked challenges confronting these children, according to a survey conducted by the Beijing-based China Children Press & Publication Group last March in collaboration with the UNICEF China.

The Group surveyed 5,000 children from Quannan, and also Xinxian county in Henan Province, from where a big portion of the country's migrant labor force originates. Of these, 65 percent said they understood the reasons parents had to work so far from home: family welfare and their children's futures. But the children said that they were fearful that they might not be able to live up to their parents' expectations and often felt guilty about their poor grades.

While 50 percent said they worried their parents might fall ill, get injured in an accident or get taken advantage of by urban criminals, 77.4 percent wanted their parents to quit their jobs and come home.

One girl in Zhushan Central Primary School in Quannan tried to kill herself with pesticide after she was sent to live with her aunt. School principal Chen Yongqiao says the paranoid girl felt no one wanted her and everyone disliked her.

The psychological pressure is often overwhelming, leading to study-weariness and negative, destructive tendencies. Chu Rui, director of the Group's Activity Department and responsible for the survey, warns that these troubled children will grow into troubled adults in ten years and government needs to pay attention to them now.

With financial support from UNICEF, Chu says the Group donated 120,000 yuan's worth of books to schools in Quannan County. They are also trying to create "Hand-in-Hand Library" at each school for rural children and offer them some spiritual confort.

To stop left-behind minors feeling left out, Quannan government has launched a "children-friendly project" in rural schools that deploys counselors and telephone hotlines for parents to use to contact their children.

In addition, a special school is opening to teach custodians how to take care of the minors under their custody. "It's especially important to educate rural guardians," says Huang Zhengren, principal of Pitou Town Central Primary School.

He cites the case of the student Hu Jingjing. Jingjing lived with his grandmother and became hostile and destructive after his parents divorced. His grandmother consulted a fortune-teller. The soothsayer advised her Jingjing was doomed to be executed some day in the future.

After hearing his fortune, the principal recalls, Jingjing started to steal his classmates' pocket money and urinate in the classroom. He often picked fights. Every time a teacher tried to help, Jingjing would heckle the teacher, saying "Why bother? I'll end up on death row anyway."

To bring Jingjing back on the right track, Huang says, "We contacted his father, telling him how much Jingjing was desperate for his love. Eventually he was convinced that Jingjing would be totally consumed with the invented fortune and he took Jingjing with him to Guangdong. Luckily, Jingjing is catching up now at a new school."

Huang says many of the left-behind children's custodians are illiterate and "they tend to be superstitious" when trying to discipline the kids. "That's why a special school is necessary for them."

Other efforts include a family-style dormitory within schools, and a care centre where 13 teachers act as substitute mothers for the 50 children. "We are not only responsible for their daily life from food to clothing, but also for their study and their emotional needs," says Chen Qinying, an experienced pre-school teacher and now director of the centre.

Chen Juwu, an outstanding high school student, used to struggle in his studies. "Thanks to the centre, rural kids here have made remarkable progress in their study," says Chen. "I don't know where I would be today without their help."

"Hopefully, the attention can replace some of the family love that is missing in their lives," says county government chief Luo Zongqi. "Maybe they can grow up with less pain." However, he stressed, the best choice is still to resume the normal and reliable relationship between parent and child.

As for Jiezhen, her mother plans to work in Guangdong one more year to save up enough money for Jiezhen's high school education. "Then," says Huang, "I'm coming home for good."

For the first time in hours, Jiezhen smiles.

(Wen Chihua, China Features)