NANNING, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Waiting by the river in the grey shadow of dawn has been the daily routine of Shi Lansong for the past three decades.

As the sky gets brighter, three little figures, accompanied by a black dog, approach the bank and deftly slip on their life jackets. Shi then pulls the boat closer, fires up the motor, and the boat of four begins its journey with a roar of the engine toward Diaowang School, about 2 km away.

Inside the boat hangs a board reading "boat of hope," as the boat has been the only method for students in nearby villages to reach school.

Shi, 54, is the only teacher of Diaowang School in Shanglin County, a two-room village school in the mountainous region of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It accepts pupils below the third grade from several small nearby villages.

Ringed by steep hills and a deep lake, children in the isolated region can only reach the school either by crossing the mountains or by water. Worrying over the safety of their kids, many parents previously chose instead to have them drop out of school.

The summer of 1985 changed the fate of many local children, and Shi's own as well. Back then, Shi was preparing for the gaokao -- the national college entrance exam -- and came back home to visit his teacher who was critically ill. "He was the only teacher in Diaowang School and no one was willing to take his job," said Shi.

"My teacher held my hand and repeatedly asked me to stay and help the children here," recalled Shi. It was a difficult decision as Shi, like most born in poor and remote areas in China, regarded the gaokao as the only chance to change his fortune.

Shi finally relented and he has remained at the school for the past 34 years. "I know how important it is for those village kids to go to school, so I must try my best," said Shi.

Knowing that the biggest obstacle to their education was nature itself, Shi cut down the toon trees in front of his house and made a boat to ferry his students, as he could not afford to purchase one. The trees were also used as materials to build his house.

Ferrying his students to and from school through the 2 km waterway has ever since become Shi's daily routine, and Shi has made a total of eight such boats over the years. He has therefore gained the nickname "the ferry teacher."

"I had thought about leaving," said Shi. Many locals began to work at the neighbouring coastal Guangdong Province in the 1990s, earning a monthly salary of over 1,000 yuan (about 145 U.S. dollars), while Shi can only make less than two hundred yuan a month.

"It was hard for me to raise my own child with what I earned as the village teacher. But who's going to teach my students if I leave," said Shi.

"There were other teachers who came to the school, but they all left in less than a year," said Luo Zhongwen, a friend of Shi and the principal of a school in Xiyan Town.

Lan Zongzhi, deputy director of the local education department, said that the local government has invested more than 1 million yuan in Diaowang School to renovate classrooms and improve teaching facilities under Shi's efforts.

"The boat was also upgraded from the wooden model to an electric motor-powered one in 2010, reducing the time of a single voyage from half an hour to just 10 minutes," said Shi.

"The most gratifying thing for me is that more and more of my students have entered university," said Shi.

Shi therefore named his vessel "boat of hope," as on the river of life, he would like to be the ferryman as his students set sail toward their dreams.