A majority of Chinese students in impoverished villages have little or no access to basic education in music, physical training and fine arts due to the lack of resources, Beijing News reported on Thursday.

The conclusion comes from a?report released by the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA) covering 47 schools in western and central China, with 2,066 students and 47 principals surveyed.

An overwhelming majority of the students do not have the basic hardware for music, physical education and art: 43 percent of them lack fine arts-related tools and 80 percent lack musical instruments.

In the surveyed schools, most art lessons are conducted by teachers painting a sample on the blackboard and students simply copying it. Music classes are converted into how-to-sing-a-pop-song time. In the PE class, the main work for students is group running and doing simple gymnastic exercises.

The lack of education investment in poor villages is blamed for the situation. Some schools' spending on music, physical training and fine arts education is as low as 0.5 yuan (8 cents) per student in one semester.

To address the problem, CFPA launched a project in 2009 aimed at providing free hardware for music, physical training and fine arts education, which has raised 234 million yuan.