Mianyang: Children who escaped quake go to tent school

Source: shanghaidaily.com | 05-20-2008 19:15

(By Yan Zhen and Xia Ruirui)

A total of 2,485 children who survived the Sichuan earthquake resumed their studies in a special tent school in Mianyang City, Sichuan Province, yesterday.

Students of Mianyang study in tent

Covering 700 square meters in an open field beside the Jiuzhou Gymnasium, the biggest shelter for earthquake victims in Mianyang, the two tents will offer education to more than 3,000 children whose families are living in the gymnasium.

With a 140,000-yuan donation from the Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute, the Mianyang Education Bureau spent two days setting up the two tents to help resume education for the children.

Each tent can accommodate 300 students, offering primary school and junior middle school courses. Mianyang Middle School and Mianyang Foreign Language School will supply the facilities to the Jiuzhou Tent School.

"It's a special school established at a special time," said Yao Ding, vice director of the education bureau, yesterday.

"Though facilities are simple, we promise to send the best teachers to give children best education we can."

Children in the primary school tent played games and sang together.

After a collective mourning yesterday afternoon, children in the primary school tent played games and sang together while students in the junior middle school tent received psychological help from a mental health-care teacher.

"Currently our courses mainly focus on popular science, health knowledge and psychological guidance," said Yao, adding that resuming education as soon as possible would greatly help relieve children's pain and the pressures caused by the disaster.