Students dress up in traditional Mongolian attire to practice group dance.

Jirog often earned the highest exam scores in her class, but she said her biggest goal is to enter Inner Mongolia University, the top university in Inner Mongolia. She did not dare to aspire to study in Beijing because the enrollment quota for Mongolian language students is low in colleges outside the autonomous region.

"It's so hard for us, and I think I don't do well in English and math," she says modestly.

"It's easier to overcome the hardware gap between schools in our small place and those in big cities," sighs Hudagool, the head teacher of the twins' class. "But you can imagine how difficult it is to catch up with others in some fields, like English learning, where our students barely have the chance to speak."

Though all four Mongolian-language high schools in Bayannur provide up to 150,000-yuan annual salary, three times higher than local civil servants' average income, to attract top-tier teachers from more educationally developed places, Baoyu admits the endeavor still fails to satisfy everyone. He estimates 20 percent of those accepting Mongolian education in Bayannur will move to the autonomous region's capital city of Hohhot after junior high school.

"Many colleges will enroll students with arts or sports expertise. Mongolians never lack talent in morin khuur (Mongolian bowed stringed instrument) or bokh (Mongolian wrestling). Although only a few Mongolian-language high school graduates in Bayannur can enter universities outside Inner Mongolia every year through this program, they at least have more chances."

To attract more Mongolian students who prefer to learn in their mother tongue, a successful trial program in Urad Rear Banner running since 2007 provides jobs after college graduation for each local Mongolian student who accepts Mongolian language elementary education.

Bayinbileg, 25, graduated as a math major from Chifeng College in the east of Inner Mongolia in 2012, and later became a teacher in his alma mater in Urad Rear Banner thanks to the policy.

"My college students really envy me because they have to face the tense job market," says Bayinbileg with a smile. "The infrastructure in the high school has become much better since I left in 2008. The most advanced multimedia device in a class then was a projector. We didn't know much about computers."

Though he got an offer from a logistics company in the nearby rich city of Ordos that would have paid him 3,000 yuan per month after graduation, he chose to return home with a lower salary, knowing it would take two years to increase to 3,000 yuan.

"At least, this job is stable enough for you to do something more meaningful: helping students learn in their mother tongue and telling them how important it is to stick to their Mongolian roots."