The first year welcomed 96 students, many of whom were poorly educated before entering the school.

"If girls from the mountainous area want to leave, we just offer a hand, to help them fly out to see a wider world," Zhang told China Global Television Network.

Since the school's establishment, more than 2,000 students have flown to the outside world and changed their lives, and the school has surged to be one of the best high schools in Lijiang.

Besides her work at the school, Zhang also serves as dean of the children's welfare home in Huaping, where she usually visits and cares for orphans.

Over the years, Zhang has reached almost every corner of Lijiang, and changed the destiny of many families. She is alone without any children, but she has become the mother of many orphans.

Zhang has devoted herself to the cause of education without caring much about her declining health. She has rheumatoid arthritis, lung fibrosis and severe stomach problems, but she insists on working.

"For the last decade, our Party and government have tried hard to make every child able to attend school. Today we've achieved this goal," she said after hearing the report to the congress on Sunday delivered by Xi Jinping on behalf of the 19th CPC Central Committee.

In the future, she said, she hopes to lead children from the mountains to the track of modernization. "This requires knowledge and teachers' capability, and we teachers have to improve ourselves while we teach students. But whatever it takes, we need to achieve it and not drag down our country's modernization."

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