E. China county boosts distinctive-feature education to cultivate talents

Xing Qingqian, a teacher at Songxiaotun Primary School in Fanzhai town, Guanxian county in western Shandong province in East China, fell seriously ill on August 2022.

To help her recover and provide regular psychological counseling, Schoolmaster Lei Li paid her a timely visit eventually helping Xing, the teacher, to overcome her illness.

"I have felt the warmth of the school's extended family," said Xing, noting the town's goal of "cultivating happy students, empowering happy teachers, and building happy families" has sowed good results, amid its bid to cultivate more talents to help boost the progress of the town with its 35,700-odd residents.

Lei said by adhering to the educational tenet of "putting people first and cultivating moral characters," the town has closely boosted its moral and happy education, embarking on a path of high-quality educational development with distinctive features.

Me Guangpu, a local resident, noted that they are proud with the town's arrangement to "create a happy campus with culture as its foundation" and "achieve happy education with humanistic care."

He said that in order to better inspire students and teachers to strive for excellence and form correct educational views, Fanzhai town has set up a Happy Education Leadership Group, with the town's school principals serving as group leaders while the related teaching researchers, elementary schoolmasters and kindergarten principals as its members.

Through solid and effective educational work, the teachers have helped to cultivate such excellent qualities in students as righteousness, patriotism, filial piety and civility, fostering a positive and harmonious atmosphere in schools, he said.

Meanwhile, by fully tapping internal and external resources, all the schools in the town have leveraged teachers' professional expertise, offering diverse courses such as classics recitation, English oral expression, choir, chess, painting, basketball, football, table tennis, hula hoop and skipping rope.

Dai Jiarong, mother of a student at the town's central primary school, said, "Through physical exercises at the school, my child's physical indicators have significantly improved, showing a healthy and lively spirit."

Chen Guodong, another resident in the town, said currently, five teachers in the town have received provincial-level excellent course awards, over 20 got city-level teaching awards, and more than 80 won county-level teaching awards, in addition to the town's central primary school being awarded a title of "the Third Provincial Civilized Campus."