"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 children in Guizhou, 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 before.
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. , after all, half of his life was wasted.
"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 didn't know 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 didn't 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?" Xue Gong 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 of them arrived at a nearby village. Looking at the children in the college, the gloomy look on Li Fu's face deepened, "Notify all colleges to immediately submit the list of enrolled students, in three copies. Give it to the local county guard, give one to me, and deliver 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 by Li Fu. The transportation here 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 recruited from 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.
Colleges enroll too few students. Colleges in counties and counties can still receive nearly a hundred students, and as many as about two hundred.
However, most Xiaxian 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 Hetao, 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 Zhao Guo 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 many people who think reading is useless, and there are also many 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, or their children not wanting to go to school.
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 and read. The enrollment rate is only about 15%. Isn’t it even lower nationwide?
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Maybe not even ten percent?
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. It is absolutely impossible for Zhao Guoguo to suffer a loss if one teacher teaches several or even one student.
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. The distance between them is not too far, and 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 country except Qin can achieve.
If it cannot be maintained in Hetao, it will certainly 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 was only slightly less than the former, but the return was nearly half less.
Zhao Guo could not afford the losses here.
Zhao State chose to popularize education. To put it bluntly, it was 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 withdraw from the college. 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 hearts a little bit.
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 pursues is an opportunity that will last forever.
Just like Ximen Bao governs Ye.
He controlled the Loop, built a college, and took a solid step towards popularizing education in Zhao State. Isn’t it too much to say that he will be remembered forever?
But if this thing fails, it is very likely that the name will be stigmatized throughout the ages, and Lifu 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.
