【Yaar Pyaar Gaddar (2024) EP 5-7 Hindi Web Series】

You wouldn't typically picture a school being this empty,Yaar Pyaar Gaddar (2024) EP 5-7 Hindi Web Series but this one in rural Youyang County, near Chongqing in inland China, is so empty it only has two students and one teacher.

The teacher in charge, 53-year-old Yang Jinhua, has taught for nearly 35 years in the village elementary school since he was 18.

Despite the tiny attendance, the school has remained opened in part because of Yang's dedication to it, according to the Chongqing Morning Post. Yang has refused jobs from principals in other counties, town centers and even corporations.

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Yang is both the school's cook, nanny and teacher; he even sends the two children home every day.

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"Whenever I see the kids' smiling faces, the curiosity of the children, I feel even more responsible (for them)," he said.

Yang worries that if he leaves and the school closes, the younger kids who can't make the journey to the next nearest elementary school 4 km (2.5 miles) away would not be able to go to school.

The rapid urbanisation of China's cities - and the mass migration of parents seeking work in urban China -- has led to increasingly empty schools that used to be the center of China's villages.

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His drive to keep the rural school open has been lauded by Weibo users:

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ATimeForDeepFeelings says: "Youyang is a very rural area -- the poverty and hardship is unimaginable for us city kids. To be a teacher there for 35 years is very noble."

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AhBuTongXue adds: "Hope these kids don't let their teachers down and earn great achievements."

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6002ChenGe jokes: "Two kids...if you don't listen in class, you can get caught very easily."

Yang's school is getting more common across rural China, nicknamed "sparrow schools," where a lack of resources, combined with a declining student population, has made it hard for the schools to survive. Teachers have to multitask, often teaching more than three subjects.

In 2015, a school with only one student and one teacher in Gaoyang, also near Chongqing, was featured on China Daily.

In the early-2000s, the Chinese central government started trying to close down remote village schools like Yang's, shifting focus to centralised counties and towns.

Plans to shutter rural schools were halted in 2012, but around 30,000 schools from 2010 to 2015 were shut by local authorities, according to Caixin. Remote village schools have survived mainly because they were in thinly populated remote mountain areas that lack a proper road network.

Yet, schools like Yang's still lack the budget to improve school facilities. Yang's earnest hope is for his school's exercise grounds to be paved with cement, so it does not get muddy when it rains.

The school's enrolment is finally seeing an uptick, however, as four more children have enrolled in Yang's school next year. As he told the Chongqing Morning Post: "Even if there's one kid here, I'm still going to stay."

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