The night was deep. In the teaching building of Sanhe High School that was only completed last year, the lights were still on.

The students who were about to take the college entrance exam after the New Year were still attending the evening self-study session.

This evening, Han Yu did not indulge in a feast as Old Ge had thought. After finishing the branch meeting at the police substation,

and discussing the division of tasks among the leadership team, he had dinner at the substation's canteen before heading to the temporarily established

Linghai Port Engineering Construction Command at the old party school for a meeting.

The heads of the Waterway Bureau and Marine Engineering Bureau responsible for undertaking the Linghai Port Engineering had already left,

but Deputy Mayor Shen still stood at the gate of the party school, gazing at Sanhe High School diagonally across from him.

Han Yu walked up to him and whispered, "Mayor Shen, Mayor Shen…"

"Oh, sorry, I was lost in thought." Deputy Mayor Shen turned around and asked with a smile, "What about Director Miao and the others?"

"Director Miao and the others went back after seeing you talking to Master Lv."

"Do you return to the police substation or to Bailong Port?"

The municipal leader before Han Yu had moved his bedding to Sanhe to set an example, making the unit his home.

Han Yu was embarrassed to say that he was going back to Bailong Port, so he bravely replied, "Back to the substation."

Deputy Mayor Shen patted his shoulder. "That's right in the way, let's walk together."

The market in Sanhe Town was very small, consisting of just a single street.

As soon as the sun set, the shops along the street would close one after another,

and only a few dim streetlights could be seen with hardly any pedestrians around, leaving the whole street desolate and nowhere as lively as Four Factory.

Seeing the leader look back at Sanhe High School a couple of times as they walked, Han Yu sighed, "Mayor Shen, the biggest regret in my life

is that I never attended high school or took the college entrance exam. I really envy university students like you."

"It's not the greatest regret of your life; how old are you this year? As long as you want to attend university, there will definitely be an opportunity in the future."

"I've been working for eight years already and I even have children."

"So what if you have children; you can still go to university for further education. There are fewer party and government officials who re-educate themselves,

but there are more medical workers who do so. You can go back and ask your mother-in-law, your aunt, and your uncle-in-law. I'm sure there are colleagues in their units

who have taken postgraduate exams or gone for advanced studies at medical colleges."

Deputy Mayor Shen chuckled and then suddenly shifted the topic, "As for attending high school and taking the college entrance exam,

there is really nothing to envy. It's like crossing a single-log bridge with an army of thousands, and except for the geniuses,

ordinary people like me who have experienced it once would never want to go through it a second time."

Han Yu asked curiously, "Is it that tough, hard to pass?"

"Do you know how many years I repeated a year and how many times I took the exam?"

"I don't know."

"I repeated for three years and took the exam four times before I barely managed to get into a university."

"It's that difficult!"

"You are smarter than me. Otherwise, you wouldn't have achieved sixth place in the county during the middle school exams.

If you had chosen to go to high school back then, instead of a technical secondary school, you would have been able to pass it one go,

and you could have gotten into a prestigious university."

Han Yu did not dare to claim he was smarter than his superior and quickly said, "Mayor Shen, I'm not as smart as you think.

Besides, performing well in elementary school doesn't mean that one will perform well in middle school, and good grades in middle school

don't necessarily mean one will do well in high school."

Seeing the children attending evening self-study and reflecting on the work he had to do next, Shen Fan felt a flood of emotions.

And thinking about how among the members of the Port District Party Working Committee, only Salted Fish was not a child of farmers and had never worked in a town,

Deputy Mayor Shen felt it was necessary to give Salted Fish an extra lesson.

"What you're saying does indeed happen; there are people with great talent, but without serious and diligent study, they still can't get into good schools."

Deputy Mayor Shen paused, then continued, "Besides talent and personal effort, having a good learning environment and access to competent teaching staff

are also important factors in determining whether one can achieve success in their studies.

For example, me, although not as smart as you, I'm not dumb either.

I was born in the most remote village in Yungang City, and my family was very poor when I was a kid; we couldn't even afford enough food.

The village primary school was even more dilapidated, and the highest educational attainment of the teachers was middle school graduation,

with several teachers only having finished primary school, so you can imagine the quality of teaching."

Han Yu did not expect him to say this and was momentarily stunned.

"My grades in primary school were also at the top, but when I got to middle school, I was in the lower-middle ranks of the class.

I truly couldn't keep up at first. I tried to work hard, and eventually, my grades caught up. But although my middle school exam results were quite high in our village,

I couldn't get into the key high school in the county."

"The teachers weren't good enough at teaching."

"Actually, the teachers were quite good, it's just that they themselves didn't know much of the knowledge, so how could they teach the students?"

Deputy Mayor Shen stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Sanhe High School again, "This is the disparity in teaching quality,

but the gap wasn't much different from ours back then; at least it could be made up for by personal effort. Now it's not the same; the gap is getting wider and wider.

If we don't strive to improve ourselves in our positions and develop the economy of the district, then this gap will become even greater.

In just a few years, it will become very difficult for children from humble backgrounds to rise in life.

The children from Sanhe, Jiangbin, and Tianbu will find it very hard to change their fate through hard study like we did in the past."

Han Yu was confused and asked, "Mayor Shen, what does education have to do with the economic development of the district? Besides, we Linghai people value education the most

and are willing to invest in our children's education!"

"Parents are of course willing, but education can't rely solely on parents' investment. Without good teachers, or if the teachers are not dedicated to teaching,

no matter how much parents value education or how hard the children try, it's useless."

"Mayor Shen, you're saying the government also needs to invest."

"Salted Fish, do you know what the biggest expenditure in each township is?"

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