Wang Jingli wangjingli0715@163.com AMID sunshine after Typhoon Saola’s fury had subsided, Shenzhen students returned to school yesterday to kick off the new semester. Welcoming rituals Many students stepping into their campuses were greeted by special rituals. Futian Foreign Language Primary School welcomed some 270 new first-grade students and prepared each student with a seed pencil. With a capsule containing a seed at the end, a plant will grow once the pencil is used out, planted in the soil and watered. The pencils were given out in a mystery box so that kids will not know what the plant is until they grow it. This idea is closely tied with the school’s efforts in cultivating students’ labor skills. A large area covered with green leaves comes into view after going to the top of the school’s teaching building. Under the leaves, one can find crops like peanuts, eggplants and corn. The area is the school’s hydroponic base, where students can plant seeds and harvest them. According to the school, access to the area used to be forbidden. Later, the school increased the height of railings and renovated the area to ensure safety before opening the base. Students can bring the fruits and vegetables they harvested back home to share with their family members. While the size and taste of the crops may not be comparable to those available in the market, the joy that students experience while picking them is priceless, according to Xu Wanxing, principal of the school. At the Kindergarten Affiliated to Liyuan Education Group in Futian District, children cosplayed as princesses, princes and monsters on the first day of the school. Mini-hurdles were also set up at the campus entrance with slogans such as “元氣滿滿” (“Full of Vitality”) and “所向披靡” (“Invincible”). Children needed to clear all hurdles to officially kick off the new semester. New starting point As the new semester begins, a teacher surnamed Chen at Shenzhen Zhili School in Longhua District urged students to empty the cup of their minds to mark a new start. “Ignoring past failures and successes. To truly engage, we have to clear our minds of thoughts. After this, the most important thing is to sum up and learn from previous experience,” Chen said. Also, Chen brought a green plant and placed it at her class podium to mark the new semester. This is the first year for Zhili School to enroll students. A superintendent from Zhili School said that although not every service is fully available at the moment as the new school was just put into use, he can feel that students and teachers are motivated in the new term. Hu Xiyue, a Grade 2 student from Shenzhen Longhua School Affiliated to East China Normal University, hoped to study hard and achieve progress every day. More new schools Shenzhen has continued to pour efforts to improve the quality of its basic education. This year, Shenzhen will build, renovate or expand 188 schools to add 200,000 seats. Construction on over 100 schools were scheduled to be completed by this month to add some 130,000 admissions. According to a plan released by the city’s education authority in June, by 2025, a batch of high-quality and resource-efficient basic education schools will be built to provide 2.7 million basic education seats. By 2035, the number of basic education seats will reach 3.64 million. As of the end of last year, Shenzhen had established 2,809 basic education schools with 2.37 million students, leading the country in terms of enrollment and meeting needs of the school-age population in this densely populated immigrant city, according to the plan. | 