"Seeing these students is like seeing myself back then. These children are so lucky." Mr. Xue stood in the distance, stroking his beard and looking at these children with a smile.
A few years ago, these ordinary Guizhou children, unless they were lucky enough to be valued by the nobles and selected as reading companions for their own children, would not have had the opportunity to get access to education. Now everyone has the opportunity to read and write.
This is something that has never happened in ancient times.
Duke Xue does not have the sense of crisis of the nobility. He does not care whether these children will threaten the status of the nobility when they grow up. He only hopes that he can live to see the day when the prosperous age comes.
Li Fu was not as optimistic as Xue Gong. Instead, he put his hands behind his back, frowned, and a vague pressure radiated from his body.
Duke Xue looked at Li Fu with some envy. He also had the opportunity to give birth to a talent back then. However, the political affairs of the Zhao Kingdom were dark and the monarchs were not as good as the previous generations. When he was disappointed with the Zhao Kingdom, he also began to give up on himself and wandered in the wine market.
, and finally wasted half of his life.
"Are these the only students?" Li Fu walked up to the dean and asked in a deep voice.
The dean raised his head. Although he did not recognize Li Fu, he could tell from the aura on his body that he was definitely not an ordinary person. He was probably a high-ranking official who liked to visit privately incognito. He did not dare to show any indifference and quickly stood up and saluted, "Your Excellency, as of now
So far, there are only these students."
"I understand, you did a good job." Li Fu nodded, turned around and left, boarding the carriage, "Go to the next college."
"Governor, is there any problem?" Mr. Xue asked strangely. He didn't feel there was any problem.
Li Fu shook his head and said nothing.
Duke Xue had no choice but to suppress the doubts in his heart and followed Li Fu into the carriage.
Not long after, the two arrived at a nearby village. Looking at the children in the college, the gloomy look on Lifu's face deepened, "Notify all colleges to immediately hand over the list of enrolled students, in three copies.
Give it to the local county guard, give one to me, and submit the other to Handan." Li Fu said quickly, "There is no need to go to the next college, go back to Jiuyuan."
The governor's palace was located in Jiuyuan, where transportation is convenient. You can reach Shuofang and Helan to the west and south, Yunzhong to the east, and Monan to the north, making it easy for orders to be quickly conveyed to every place.
A few days later, the lists of students admitted by various colleges were finally submitted.
"Sure enough, this is true everywhere." Li Fu looked at the list in his hand and said in a deep voice.
The number of students enrolled in colleges is too few. Colleges in counties and counties can still receive nearly a hundred students, and as many as about two hundred.
However, most Xiaxiang colleges only have one to twenty students, and some colleges even receive only single digits of students.
Although there are only more than 100,000 households in the entire Loop, not every household has school-age children, and not all parents value education and are willing to send their children to school. Some parents want to keep their children at home to work. After all, seven
An eight-year-old child can be used as half an adult.
But this is the first class. Anyone under the age of fifteen can enroll. Even so, some colleges have only received less than ten students. In the future, there will only be one or two students every year, or even none?
According to statistical results, the enrollment rate of school-age boys in the Hetao area is only about 30%, and the enrollment rate of girls is even lower, less than 5%.
In other words, even if the State of Zhao built schools for everyone and provided free tuition, meals, and books without paying a penny, only 15% of school-age children would be able to go to school.
Not everyone knows the importance of reading. In this era, there are not a few people who think reading is useless, and there are also a lot of people who think it doesn't matter.
This proportion will even decrease in the future, because some people will give up studying due to various reasons such as trouble, feeling that studying is useless, children not wanting to go to school, etc.
Of course, as time goes by, this ratio will gradually pick up and then continue to increase, but the process will never be too fast.
This is a Loop. Many people moved their families here because they heard that their children could learn to read and write. The enrollment rate is only about 15%. Isn’t it even lower nationwide?
Maybe not even 10%?
Under such circumstances, what could Zhao Guo do to popularize education?
No matter how rich Zhao Guo is, he still has to calculate the cost. If a teacher teaches several or even one student, Zhao Guo will lose money. It is absolutely impossible to do this.
Li Fu knew very well that universal education was a century-old plan of Zhao State, and the Hetao was just a pilot project.
The reason why Hetao was originally chosen was, on the one hand, to compensate the people who migrated here.
On the other hand, it is also because all the people in Hetao were resettled by Zhao Guo personally, and the distance between them is not too far. The distance and population density can barely support the college.
In addition, the power of Zhao's official government can truly extend to every village in the Hetao area, which is something that no other country can achieve except Qin.
If it cannot be maintained in Hetao, it will definitely not be extended to the entire Zhao State.
As a result, the number of students now has dropped by more than half out of thin air...
For Zhao Guo, the cost of teaching twenty students at the same time and teaching ten students at the same time is only slightly less than the former, but the return is nearly half less.
Zhao Guo could not afford the losses here.
Zhao State chose to popularize education, to put it bluntly, in order to obtain sufficient returns and enhance Zhao State's national strength.
If the money invested is not proportional to the return received.
The same money can be put in other places to get more returns. It is very likely that Zhao will dismantle the college, and this century-old plan is likely to be stillborn.
This will be a heavy blow to the entire Zhao Kingdom, and may even be the first time Zhao Kuo has broken trust with the people since he ascended the throne.
It is easy to break the trust of the people, but it is extremely difficult to win back the people's trust little by little.
For Li Fu, it is also an unbearable loss.
There is no shortage of money.
Quan, chestnut belly is not lacking.
There is no shortage of land, family education, and chestnut belly.
What he is pursuing is an opportunity that will last forever.
Just like Ximen Leopard governs Ye.
He controlled the Loop, built a college, and took a solid step towards popularizing education in Zhao State. Isn’t it an exaggeration to say that he will be famous for generations to come?
But if this thing fails, it is very likely that the name will be stigmatized throughout the ages, and Li Fu will never allow this to happen.
"Send this letter to Handan, thousands of miles away." Li Fu quickly wrote down the whole thing and his thoughts, stuffed it into the envelope, sealed it, and handed it to the guard.
The guard took the letter with both hands and walked outside quickly without wasting any time.