Shown here are seven young teachers who returned to their home county to teach at Longjiacun Primary School and improve education in the underdeveloped village. [Photo by Hu Yongqi/China Daily]

The State Council, or the Cabinet, recently announced a five-year plan that includes raising the wages of teachers in rural regions and bestowing honors, which is aimed at solving the problem that rural primary and middle schools lack teaching staff. Comments:

Domestic compulsory education is mainly supported by local instead of central finance. As a result, counties that are poor often fail to invest enough in local education, the majority of which goes to urban schools; rural schools often get only a very small percentage. In order to support rural education, the central government needs to provide more funding, and pay the money to rural teachers directly instead of through local governments, because the local officials may very possibly misappropriate the money for other purposes or embezzle it.

Xiong Bingqi, vice-president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, June 9

Primary school teachers are supposed to be paid by the State, but the education authorities give most of the funds to urban schools, leaving only a very small percentage for the rural ones. If rural schools hire additional teachers they need to find a way to pay them, which brings an extra financial burden; thus most simply give up the idea and just operate without enough teachers. This problem must be solved.

Li Sifeng, an education official in Cili, Hunan province, June 9

Many teachers refuse to find a job in rural schools because their chances of promotion are low. Data show that those working in rural regions spend longer terms than their urban colleagues in a post. The plan makes giant progress on this point by opening a green channel for rural teachers; we hope it will attract more teachers to work in rural schools.

Guangzhou Daily, June 9