A One-teacher School

One teacher, six pupils and one classroom make up the Mengcun Primary School in the Yao Autonomic County of Jinxiang, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Mengcun Primary School is a branch of the local Jintian Primary School. Tao Suzhi, the only teacher in this school, has been teaching here for 23 years. The parents of some pupils today were her students in the past. Teacher Tao said the number of students of the school ran to 15 in the peak year. But in the past few years, with implementation of family planning measures, the number of grade 1-3 pupils has never exceeded 10. Now, all the courses for the six students from grade one to grade three are taught by Teacher Tao alone and her office is set up in the classroom. Everyday, pupils of the three grades have classes in the same classroom. It is really a hard job for her to teach lessons of three grades.

Small though it is, the school has courses of all varieties available. Besides teaching the Chinese language, mathematics and other main subjects, Teacher Tao has to guide the children in singing and playing. To her regret, the school has thus far lacked a playground for physical education, but she is busy making preparation to settle the problem now.


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