On September 1st, the first day of the autumn semester, a parent in Guanyang County, Guilin, Guangxi Province, released a video saying that in the first-grade classroom of Dongliu Village Teaching Point (Dongliu Elementary School), there was only one student, their own child. It is reported that the school has a total of 9 students and 4 teachers.
On the morning of the 2nd, a reporter from “Vision News” contacted the blogger who posted the video. She said that the person in the video is her 6-year-old son. She took her child to Dongliu Village Elementary School for the first day of school and was surprised to find that there was only her child in the entire first grade. She felt it was very unusual, so she recorded a video and shared it online.
The parent said that she runs a paint business in a neighboring province and commutes to work from early morning until late evening. She has four children, with the oldest in high school. Due to the distance of the central school from their home and the lack of lunchtime care, it was inconvenient to drop off and pick up the child at noon, so she chose to have her child attend the local village school.
Principal Jiang of the school explained to the media that Dongliu Elementary School exists as a teaching point. This fall, the school only enrolled 1 new student in the first grade, 3 in the second grade, and 5 in the third grade, totaling 9 students in grades one to three, all of whom are day students. After completing the third grade, students move on to a boarding central primary school in town.
As the principal for several years, Principal Jiang encountered a situation for the first time this year where only one student was enrolled in the first grade.
He mentioned that the entire teaching point, including himself, has 4 teachers who will be assigned to teach the students consecutively, with classes mostly in a one-on-one or even a few students per teacher mode. The school had considered merging different grades for classes, but it would significantly increase the workload for teachers and was not feasible. Ultimately, they decided to have a separate class for the individual student.
Regarding the phenomenon of “only one new student enrolled in the entire first grade,” Principal Jiang explained that besides most children being taken by their parents to study in the city, the number of students at the school has decreased in recent years, with only about a dozen new students last year.
This phenomenon immediately drew widespread attention online.
Netizens commented, “If fewer and fewer students enroll in many remote schools, shouldn’t there be mergers or reallocations? Is this really beneficial for a child’s growth?” “Even with one-on-one teaching, children without classmates for companionship are not conducive to their overall development. Hopefully, the education department will take this seriously.”
“Nowadays, there are still more than 12 million people born in 2018 and 2019 who will enter primary school, but by the time the number of new first graders drops to less than 8 million by September 2032, it will be even more alarming.”
“The 80s saw village schools, the 90s to 2010s had town schools, with the declining population, village and town schools are closing. Now, children attend schools in districts and counties. Eventually, won’t district and county schools disappear too?”
“Many rural schools have been closed for many years, even some schools in towns face closure. This is a very serious issue. In the 80s and 90s, every village had schools up to sixth grade with thirty students in a class. Nowadays, surviving rural schools are rare.”
“This is a significant social phenomenon. Urban development has caused a drain on rural areas, concentrating all resources in cities. Some farmers cannot move to cities. While it may seem that schools have teachers, a class with one or a few students no longer holds the true essence of a school. Along with this, there is loneliness, giving a sense of abandonment. The state should reflect on the underlying reasons behind this phenomenon.”