CRI听力:Mobile Eye Clinic Drives to School

It's playtime at Hu Jia Lou Centre Primary School in the centre of Beijing. Just outside the main entrance is a bus. Nothing so strange in that you might think - that is, until you step inside."

Inside, the bus is like a small eye clinic with equipment to scan eyes and prescribe classes. It's driven around Beijing visiting schools and can give up to 400 eye tests per day. 10 year old Cao Shi Yi is one of the many kids having her eyes checked today. She's worn glasses for six years and has a hard time without them.

"It's really difficult and when I don't wear glasses I almost can't see anything – I can't see what teachers write. So, it's bad."

Government statistics show one third of all children between 7 and 12 in China suffer from poor eyesight. And 80 percent of all college students have similar problems. Experts say this is caused by too much reading and not enough time outdoors. Liu Lijuan is a doctor's working with the bus and says this is exactly the problem in China.

"Kids have to compete academically from a really young age, which leads to an increased pressure to study. They also play outside less often because of an addiction to computer games and electronic devices."

The mobile eye clinic helps tackle this problem as it makes it easy to check the eyesight of a large number of students. Zhao Yonghong is a Minister with the government department behind the project.

"Over the last three years the bus has checked the eyesight of about 400,000 children. We hope to increase this service for teenagers and eventually reduce the number of young people with poor eyesight in China."

Each year the bus visits 20 schools including those for special needs students. And there are plans to increase the service to rural areas. But the government may need to do more if it's to tackle the problem of poor eyesight on a national scale.

For CRI, I'm Dominic Swire.