Students move their desks to classrooms at the No 1 Primary School in Tianquan county, Sichuan province, on Wednesday. ZHANG XIAOLI / FOR CHINA DAILY |
Tianquan county's No 1 Primary School, the county's largest with 2,502 students from six grades, resumed classes on Thursday morning.
The school is 35 km from the quake epicenter in Longmen township, Lushan county. Its three classrooms, two office buildings and two dormitories were destroyed. No students were injured, as the quake struck on a Saturday and the students were not at school, said headmaster Yang Demin.
Volunteers from the Hunan Youth Development Foundation donated 2 million yuan ($325,000) and helped the school set up 34 classrooms, nine offices and two toilets.
The students received psychological counseling on Thursday morning, as some of them are still frightened, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Luo Qiong, deputy head of the Hunan provincial committee of the Communist Youth League, said the volunteers will provide financial support and psychological aid in coming days to help students restart their studies.
Le Pinghai, headmaster of Chenyang Hope School in Longmen township, said all of the school's 912 students from nine grades resumed classes on Thursday morning.
About 200 students from some neighboring primary and middle schools also went to this school to study, as their classes have not restarted due to various reasons, Le said.
Classes were quite crowded, with 68 ninth-grade students studying in a 50-square-meter classroom, the headmaster said.
"I hope the media pays more attention to the mental pressure faced by the teachers," he added. "Most of them have been working under a lot of pressure."
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