One school, one child: Young boy is the ONLY pupil in rural Chinese school after most villagers have moved to cities for work

  
Daily mail online |
For some children in China, they have to share their classroom with around fourty other students. 

But for Liu Jiankang, he’s the only student at his school Taohuagou Teaching Academy in rural Hubei province.

The school used to be bustling with over 300 students but now there is just one left as families move to find better job prospects.  

been reported by Chinese media that the school was originally filled with around 300 students but over the years numbers declined as parents moved to find better work prospects. 

There were also 30 teachers at one point, however 58-year-old Liu Zhaoming is the only remaining teacher. He has been teaching at the school for around 38 years. 

He even has lunch with Liu Jiankang.  

The teacher says that with increasing numbers of parents moving to bigger cities for work, numbers of students have decreased.

This is the case for Liu Jiankang whose parents work in a bigger city far away. Because of this, he is left behind and looked after by his grandparents. 

Left behind children is a phrase used in China to refer to children who have been left with grandparents in rural areas while they move to bigger cities to earn money for the family. 

Currently more than 61 million children in China grow up without their parents. The figure is around one fifth of the child population in the whole country.

Some of these children will not see their parents throughout most of their childhood.  

February 14, China’s State Council released a guideline on the protection of ‘left-behind children.’

According to a CCTV report, the guideline states that local governments should keep themselves well informed of left-behind children to ensure they are fully cared for in the absence of their parents.

Each child should be individually checked and visited regularly by local officials. No child under the age of 16 can live entirely by themselves.

These guidelines have come into play after many problems that occurred with left-behind children grabbed the attention of the public eye and made international headlines.

One example happened last year when four children in Guizhou province were found dead in an apparent suicide.

The young siblings had been living on their own without any help after their parents left 

them to work in the city.