Discipline rules to improve education quality

Editor's note: A growing number of teachers hesitate to discipline students for bad behavior in the classroom, fearing it could be construed as physical abuse. In the education guidelines it issued on July 9, the State Council, China's Cabinet, said detailed regulations would be worked out to ensure teachers can discipline disobedient, unruly students. Two experts share their views on the issue with China Daily's Yao Yuxin. Excerpts follow:

Chastise students to make them better human beings

After officials in a middle school in Shangluo, Shaanxi province, failed to take any action against a mathematics teacher despite a 13-year-old girl presenting a 20-hour recording of the verbal abuse she was subjected to by the teacher, the district education bureau launched an investigation, following which it fired the teacher.

A teacher in Rizhao, Shandong province, too, was fired for beating two students with a textbook for skipping her class in April.

Yet many wonder whether the punishment meted out to the two teachers by the local education authorities was disproportional and harsh.

The lack of a clear guideline on the extent and type of punishment a student can receive is a problem for teachers, as well as students and their parents. Due to the hazy boundary between discipline and physical abuse, many teachers are reluctant to chastise the students even for serious wrongdoings lest they be accused of physical abuse.

The reluctance of teachers to correct students' misbehavior is not conducive to the healthy development of the students. Just like a car needs both an accelerator and brake to run safely on the road, children need both praise and criticism to be able to differentiate between right and wrong and grow up into righteous adults. Therefore, it is important that the authorities issue clear guidelines on discipline so that teachers know the extent of punishment a student can receive for a specific wrongdoing.

Yet a discipline procedure can be established only after teachers, students and their parents reach a consensus on it. More important, it is very important for teachers and school officials to understand that the ultimate goal of disciplining students is to make them better human beings, not to give teachers a free hand to deal with unruly students.

It is also important that every school establish a grievance cell to review the complaints of teachers and students.

Chu Zhaohui, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences

Teachers' salaries and benefits must be raised

The call to give teachers the authority to discipline students for bad behavior is not new. In fact, it has been included in some local education regulations.

Yet many teachers are still reluctant to punish students, because the regulation is vague. There is no specific guideline for teachers to follow because China uses professional ethics rather than specific rules to regulate teachers' conduct, which broadly means teachers should not physically abuse students in the name of discipline. However, the Teachers Law, enacted in 1994, also says teachers' earnings should not be less than the average salary of local civil servants, which has not been fully implemented across the nation.

The ethical code－that teachers remain committed to teaching regardless of their income－is usually overemphasized. The call for teachers to dedicate themselves to teaching obscures the fact that some local governments have not invested enough funds in the education sector and therefore the salary of teachers is still relatively low.

These factors may be preventing many teachers from disciplining students while others might have lost interest in performing their duties due to their low pay. There is a need, as the State Council said in the education guidelines on July 9, to strengthen teachers' teaching fundamentals and work ethics, as well as increase their salaries and benefits.

Once the authorities issue the detailed rules to ensure teachers can use discipline to cultivate good students, the quality of the nine-year compulsory education is expected to improve.

Still, it should be kept in mind that the purpose of basic education is to respect the individualities and dignity of the students, instead of forcing them to just secure higher grades.

Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute

The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.