Temporary teachers should be handled correctly

By Fu Zhiyong (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-09-30 14:31

"If the salary is not enough, we can raise a donation for you," people told him. Wu refused for he knew how much his fellow villagers earned.

Wu Yiwei and his students have a flag raising ceremony every Monday.

During the summer and winter vacations, Wu would go into town to work as a temporary laborer, which earned him about 800 yuan a month. However, this summer he didn't go to town. Instead, he stayed to organize the villagers to build a new classroom.

Wu is still in debt to the tune of 20,000 yuan; his wife has been diagnosed with kidney stones but cannot afford to go to hospital; his daughter performed very well in middle school but Wu could not afford to send her to high school.

According to Shi Shaohai, principle of Heku School, Fenghuang county, Jiulongzhai School is an extension teaching point of Heku School. There are nine such extension points, all under one temporary teacher.

Government policy dictates that such extension teaching points should be canceled and students collected to study in formal schools, but because of transport difficulties, many students in remote areas cannot go to schools that are far from their homes, and formally-trained teachers are not willing to go to their villages.

Long Jiujin teaches students in his home. He uses a newer, bigger house for classes, and the smaller one as a clinic. He and his family still live in the old house.

Sometimes, temporary teachers want to leave the school to find better-paid jobs and Shi often has to persuade them to stay. During festivals, he always sends them some gifts.

"The gifts are very small. I often play on their emotions to get them to stay," says Shi.

In Lianglin township, Fenghuang, 34-year-old temporary teacher Long Jiujin is also the only teacher in the Chahe Primary School. Besides being a teacher, Long is also a doctor.

By day, he is a teacher; by night a doctor and at the weekends, a farmer.

Long became a temporary teacher in 1990 after he graduated from middle school. Two years later, the school's classroom collapsed, and he began to teach students in his home.

Looking at the poor medical facilities in the village, Long began to study medicine, first with his uncle, and then from books and doctors in nearby villages. In 2001, he became a part-time village doctor.

At that time, his old house couldn't hold the increasing number of students and Long decided to build a bigger classroom for the students. He built a new house with 10,000 yuan that he borrowed from relatives and more than 10 volunteer laborers from the village.

Long uses the bigger room to teach students, and the smaller one as a clinic. He and his family still live in the old house.

Long has accumulated much experience as a doctor and can cure most common diseases. The villagers trust him greatly and often come to him, though he is strict about the "no treatment during class hours" principle.

Some people have suggested that he give up teaching to become a full-time doctor, so that he can earn more money. "I don't care too much about money. I feel happy with children, and I'm used to being with them. If I don't teach my students, I feel that something is missing," Long says.

He maintains an account book, in which he records the tuition fees and extras that his students owe him.

"Every year there are students who can't pay the tuition fees and extras, and I help them, giving some money from my own savings and some from relatives. We are never in arrears with the school district," Long says.

In the spring semester of 2002, there were nine students who owed Long a total of 1,080 yuan, or a whole year's income for him.

In the past 18 years, Long has taught more than 130 students, none of whom dropped out of school. Four of them went on to college, which realized for him his own dream of a college education.

The Education Department of Hunan province is now training students from some of the poverty-stricken counties for pre-assigned teaching posts in their hometowns.

According to the China Education Almanac, there used to be more than one million temporary teachers in China in the 1990s. Since 2001, the Ministry of Education has been gradually doing away with temporary teachers. In 2006, the Ministry of Education announced that the remaining 450,000 temporary teachers would also soon be relieved of their posts.

Wang Jiayi, deputy president of Northwestern Normal University, says the issue of temporary teachers should be looked at in accordance with the particular situation: Qualified temporary teachers should be promoted as formal teachers; long-time temporary teachers who are going to be dismissed should be compensated; and in remote areas where formal teachers cannot be found, temporary teachers who are familiar with the local situation will still need to be recruited.

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