At 6:30 a.m. every school day, Zhuang Guigan would wake up the 83 boarding students at the Xijin primary school. Zhuang, 64, was used to being greeted by the children’s delightful laughter in the morning. “As the children returned after the Spring Festival holiday, the school came back to life,” said Zhuang, the school principal, who has been an educator for 47 years.

The school in Shitun township, Zhenghe County of east China’s Fujian Province, has 167 students. Among them, 86 are left-behind children, 83 of whom are boarders.

“Some students are from poverty-stricken families. Many of their parents have to work far to earn their livelihood, so we are not only responsible for teaching but also need to give them as much care as possible,” Zhuang said.

As head of the only village elementary boarding school in the mountainous region of northern Fujian, Zhuang is also a “nanny.” He manages the boarders’ daily lives.

“Living in the school feels like being at home. Grandma Liang cooks dumplings for us on weekends and takes good care of us. It heals my homesickness, “said Ye Enhui, a full-day boarder at the school.

The “Grandma Liang” in Ye’s words refers to Zhuang’s wife, Liang Chun’ai, who was also a teacher before retirement.

Zhuang transformed the school into a boarding school in 2003 to take better care of the left-behind children. His wife joined the school to help after retirement in 2004.

News about the couple’s good deeds traveled fast, and people around the town continued to send their children there, expanding the group of boarders from a dozen to more than 80.

“They are just like my own children, and I am pleased to see their happy faces. Taking care of them requires plenty of hard work, but it is worthwhile,” said Liang with tears in her eyes.

The couple’s unconditional and unsparing love for the children is widely recognized by the students’ families and many other people across the county.

March 5 marks “Lei Feng Day” in China. People across China observe this day by showing goodwill and helping others to remember the cultural icon Lei Feng, a soldier who led a life of virtue but died young in the 1960s.

In the eyes of Zhenghe County residents, Zhuang is a living Lei Feng.

“Zhuang and his wife are very much devoted to the children here. Every weekend when my grandson comes back home, he talks about the joyful moments in the school. I feel relieved hearing his huge doses of happiness,” said Yu Fuqiang, the grandfather of a 9-year-old boarder in the school.

Over the past four decades, Zhuang has helped more than 2,000 children finish school. Some students have now become teachers, civil servants and entrepreneurs. Many of them come back to the school frequently and donate money to support education.

Reducing poverty must begin with reducing illiteracy. Therefore, China has been making painstaking efforts to improve education for poverty-stricken and left-behind children in rural areas. Education is the best way to stop poverty from being passed on through generations.

“I wish to give better support to these children and make them feel at home at the school so that they can become more capable and go out to see a larger world with what they have learned in the school,” Zhuang said.

(SD-Agencies)