GANGJIN COUNTY, SOUTH KOREA - Every morning on her way to school, first-grader Hwang Wol-geum rides the same yellow bus as three of her family members: One is a kindergartener, another a third grader, and the other a fifth grader.Illiterate all her life, she remembers hiding behind a tree and weeping as she saw her friends trot off to school six decades ago.
Like other rural schools, Daegu Elementary in Madam Hwang's district has seen its pupils dwindle. When Madam Hwang's youngest son, Mr Chae Kyong-deok, 42, attended it in the 1980s, it had 90 pupils in each grade. For younger people who want to stay in the area, the future of their town depended on keeping the school alive.
Inside the two-storey school building, children and grandmothers changed into slippers and walked hallways decorated with locally produced jade-green celadon vases. Madam Hwang's county, Gangjin, here on the southwestern tip of South Korea's coast, is typical of the rural areas left behind in South Korea's rapid industrialisation.
"My memory, hand and tongue don't work like I wish," Madam Park said."But I am going to learn to write before I die. You don't know how I feel when I go to a government office, they ask me to fill out a form and the only thing I know how to write is my name."
Good onya grannies. It is a far reaching problem and if the Ed Dept accepts them it is a good win for the kids keeping their school and having the influence of their Hamas in class, as well as stimulating the minds of the gmas. A truly win win result