Yesterday, members of the Postgraduate Voluntary Teaching Corps of Tsinghua University spent a special Children's Day with their students who are residing in impoverished areas. They are taking a special gap year to help children through education.

“I worship no celebrity, but you are my role model.”

When Zhao Yue, a student from the Department of Hydraulic Engineering who is teaching at a middle school in Nanjian County, Yunnan Province this year, heard these words from a girl in her class, it instantly tugged on her heartstrings. Determined to keep her composure, she lowered her head to clean the laboratory table, resisting an impulse to cry.

She, along with 21 other Tsinghua students from different departments and schools, inspired by the long-standing tradition of social commitment in Tsinghua, joined the Postgraduate Voluntary Teaching Corps to serve as a volunteer teacher. 

The outbreak of COVID-19 further increased the challenges faced by the volunteer teachers.

To ensure that students remain on task and that learning has not ground to a complete halt, they moved their conventional classes online and kept on communicating with them to track their progress.

“A year in exchange for a lifelong memory.”

This is not just a slogan of the Postgraduate Voluntary Teaching Corps of Tsinghua, but also the aspiration of all of its participants for the past two decades.

During the program, while the volunteer teachers worked tirelessly to guide their students with patience and knowledge, their hearts were also captured by the gentle acts of their students. 

Founded in 1998, the Postgraduate Voluntary Teaching Corps of Tsinghua has attracted over 340 Tsinghua graduates who would later go on to postgraduate programs to serve as volunteer teachers in rural China, with more than 750,000 accumulated hours of service during the past two decades, and is committed to pass down the torch to enlighten more students.