There is a kind of educational connection called 30 years of aid to Tibet
2024-08-17
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There is a kind of educational connection called 30 years of aid to Tibet
Half-monthly reporter Luozhuo Jiacuo Chen Shangcai
Lhasa in summer is shaded by green trees and picturesque. In the classroom of Beijing Experimental Middle School in Lhasa, the melodious music of "Song of the Yangtze River" was heard, and 40 Tibetan students were immersing in the lesson "At the Source of the Yangtze River, Ge La Dan Dong". On the multimedia screen in the classroom, a class of Beijing No. 5 Experimental School was also learning synchronously. Students from two places, more than 3,000 kilometers apart, crossed thousands of mountains and rivers to take the same class.
"You live at the head of the Yangtze River, I live at the tail of the Yangtze River..." This class transcends space and shortens the distance between the southwest corner of the motherland and the capital. This connection has lasted for 30 years between the snowy plateau and various provinces and cities across the country.
Communication: Love "builds" the plateau school
Nagqu City has an average altitude of over 4,500 meters and is the highest prefecture-level city in Tibet. In May 1995, the first batch of aid-to-Tibet cadres from Zhejiang Province came here. They found that the enrollment rate of school-age children in Nagqu was only 22.5% at that time. The harsh environment and weak infrastructure stood in the way of children in the plateau to go to school. Jiang Jun, the then executive deputy county magistrate of Nagqu County, wrote a letter to the leaders of Hangzhou Daily, hoping to gain the support of the people in his hometown and donate money to build a primary school in Nagqu.
On August 25, Jiang Jun's letter for help was published on the front page of Hangzhou Daily. The letter read: "If every Hangzhou citizen saves 1 yuan for popsicles, the money collected can be used to build three or four Hope Primary Schools..."
The call from afar created ripples on the banks of West Lake. After the letter was sent, more than 56,000 citizens and more than 120 enterprises and institutions participated in the donation within just one week, raising a total of 2.25 million yuan. "One day we received 30 kilograms of coins, and a village-run enterprise donated 50,000 yuan. In the end, there were so many donors, far exceeding expectations, that we had to call a halt," recalled Lin Jie, a reporter from Hangzhou Daily. In the end, the donations from Jiangnan built four primary schools in Nagqu City.
These four primary schools have changed the fate of many Nagqu children, and Da Zha Wangdui is one of them. At the opening ceremony of the Nagqu Hope Primary School in Hangzhou, Da Zha Wangdui, then 10 years old, excitedly squeezed among his classmates, and the shutter flashed, leaving behind a precious moment.
Teachers and students took a group photo when the Nagqu Hangzhou Hope Primary School was completed in 1996
"If it weren't for this donation, I don't know how difficult my study would have been." Da Zha Wangdui recalled. In 2003, Da Zha Wangdui was admitted to the Tibet Institute for Nationalities (now Tibet University for Nationalities) with excellent grades. When filling out the application form, he chose the teacher training major without hesitation. Now, he has been engaged in education in Tibet for 19 years and serves as the Party branch secretary of the Fifth Kindergarten in Nagqu City.
The four primary schools built with donations have been renovated many times and are now equipped with various multimedia facilities and extracurricular activity rooms. The educational conditions in Nagqu City are also very different from before. It is understood that the current enrollment rate of school-age children in Nagqu City has reached 100%.
Exchange: Learning together in two cities thousands of miles apart
In order to better play the role of the Tibet aid team, in December 2015, the Ministry of Education and other ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Group-style Education Talent Aid to Tibet Work Implementation Plan", selecting teachers from the counterpart provinces and cities and primary and secondary schools affiliated to universities directly under the Ministry of Education to form a group to assist 21 primary and secondary schools in Tibet. Since the beginning of 2016, 2,076 full-time teachers and management personnel from 17 Tibet aid provinces, cities and units have entered Tibet as scheduled.
Located in Lhasa Education City, Lhasa Beijing Experimental Middle School was built with a full investment of 250 million yuan by the Beijing Municipal Government. As early as the beginning of the school, the school was taught by Beijing teachers in groups, and the tradition continues to this day.
Ma Xiaoya, a Chinese teacher from Fengtai District, Beijing, came to the snowy plateau in August 2023. "The students here are very simple and honest, full of curiosity about the knowledge of the outside world, and I feel a sense of accomplishment," said Ma Xiaoya.
In 2024, Beijing will implement "dual-teacher classrooms" in both the aid-receiving and aid-receiving cities, using technology to allow students in Beijing and Lhasa to take the same class at the same time. Teachers from both sides prepare lessons together and explain together, allowing students to experience the different teaching characteristics of the two classrooms. Ma Xiaoya's junior high school Chinese is one of them. Both sides selected the lesson "At the Source of the Yangtze River, Ge La Dan Dong" to allow students from both places to communicate and feel each other.
In the classroom, teachers from both sides specially arranged nearly half an hour of free communication, asking each student to write a short article about his or her hometown and share it with "classmates" from afar. Xiangba Dunzhu from Qamdo wrote about the magnificent scenery of the Nujiang River, allowing students in Beijing to experience the majesty of the eastern Tibetan canyon. Students far away in Beijing also shared the stories of the Yongding River and Beihai Park with students from the plateau. Students from both places learned a lot of knowledge beyond textbooks.
In the past 10 years, a total of 206 teachers have entered Tibet to form a group to provide assistance to the Beijing Experimental Middle School in Lhasa. In 2023, the school's rate of admission to key undergraduate programs in the college entrance examination was close to 80%.
Fusion: Pomegranate flowers bloom on the plateau
For the cadres who are assisting Tibet, every vacation back to Tibet is a rare "replenishment moment". Gifts from home and relatives are brought to the plateau, filling up the luggage. But Yang Fengming, a teacher from Wuhan who is assisting Tibet, is different. When he took his first vacation, the gift he brought back to Tibet was a teaching aid - an electrical experiment box for demonstration.
"After I arrived at the Nadong District Middle School in Shannan City, I found that the students' experimental conditions were indeed very limited, so I contacted the resources in Wuhan myself, hoping to help the students in Tibet." Yang Fengming said. Under his contact, the 9th batch of Wuhan City's Tibet Aid Team and Wuhan Optics Valley Experimental Middle School worked together to donate 376 sets of student electrical experiment boxes to Tibet, which completely changed the electrical experiment conditions of Nadong District Middle School.
From 2018 to 2021, for more than three consecutive years, Yang Fengming actively provided free tutoring to children from farmers and herdsmen's families. Some of his classmates live far away and it takes about one or two hours to get home. Considering that it will take more than an hour for the children to get home after tutoring, he always buys some food for the students after tutoring. He often buys 10 trays of steamed dumplings at a time. The owner teased him: "You are helping Tibet and solving the children's food problem at the same time."
In addition to caring for Tibetan students, Yang Fengming also carefully guides the local teaching team and improves the local teaching staff. The young physics teacher Yang Zhen, whom he mentored, has won first place in teaching and research competitions at all levels. The "School-based Physics Textbook for Nadong District, Shannan City" compiled by him has also become an important aid for local students to prepare for exams and teachers to grow. Local teachers affectionately call him "Master Yang".
Yang Fengming said: "My body and soul will always belong to the plateau. Being recognized by my colleagues on the plateau is the highest affirmation of my work in Tibet." Now, Yang Fengming, who has ended his aid to Tibet, organizes Shannan students to study in Wuhan every year.
From donating to build schools to online classes, from group aid to individual contributions, from knowledge transfer to cultural integration, over the past 30 years, educational aid to Tibet has left a deep mark in various parts of the plateau. Since 2020, the Second Senior High School in Shannan City, Tibet, has been taught Huangmei Opera excerpts by teachers who have helped Tibet. Now the Tibetan version of Huangmei Opera here has become a featured program. Ma Dan, a teacher who helped Tibet from Wuhan, learned more than a dozen Tibetan songs and dances on the plateau. After bringing them back to Wuhan, they were welcomed by Wuhan students.
"As of the end of 2023, the preschool enrollment rate in our region has reached 90.43%, the consolidation rate of nine-year compulsory education is 97.78%, the gross enrollment rate in high school is 91.22%, and the gross enrollment rate in higher education is 57.62%." Cai Shoukuan, deputy director of the Education Department of the Tibet Autonomous Region, said that since the "group-style" education talent aid work has been carried out in Tibet, the classroom teaching, management methods, and educational concepts of Tibet's primary and secondary schools have undergone profound changes, and the quality of students in all aspects has been significantly improved.
Participating in the interview and writing: Chen Xiaoxi
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
