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Rural teachers work for almost nothing
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MENG Yuqiang sets out at dawn and treks an hour through craggy mountains to the only primary school in his village.
Meng, 55, is the only teacher at Tieshanli Village School in Wudu District, one of the poorest areas in Gansu Province of northwest China.
He has taught there for more than 30 years as a “temporary teacher,” earning 15 yuan (US$2.4) a month. The temporary status means he is not properly trained or employed as a formal teacher and is therefore not on the government payroll.
“If not for him, the school would have been closed many years ago and the 40 students would have to hike at least four hours to the nearest school,” said village chief He Fujun.
This staffing issue is a major focus for the government, which issued a circular last month stressing the need to recruit an army of younger and more qualified teachers for rural schools.
But the circular made no mention of increased pay, and job satisfaction cannot help veteran teachers like Meng out of poverty. The hardships he faces and his paltry diet understandably make it tough for him and other rural teachers like him to do their jobs well.
Meng earns 0.5 yuan a day — not enough even to buy an egg.
His wife, who is ill and illiterate, has never been able to understand why Meng, the most knowledgeable man in the village, has ended up in such a humble situation.
From time to time, villagers, most of whom are Meng’s former students, give the couple some flour and vegetables to help them get by.
Meng is one of 6,816 temporary rural teachers in underdeveloped Gansu. Most of them live on a meager monthly wage of 15 yuan to 50 yuan and have to toil on farms after finishing teaching for the day.
These teachers, most of whom finished only middle school, play a huge role in rural education. They are underpaid because of “a lack of qualification.” However, few qualified, university-educated teachers are willing to take such jobs since the poverty-plagued mountain villages in western China are generally not a place where they can fulfill their dreams and ambitions.
There used to be 55,000 temporary teachers in Gansu in the 1990s, but changes starting in 2003 forced nearly 90 percent to leave.
Teachers under 45 were offered training and chances to gain qualifications and secure steady teaching jobs. But most of the older ones were simply made redundant. Du Zhanke was one of them.
But Du soon returned to his job as the primary school in Sancang Village had only four teachers and could not find a better recruit.
Du became a teacher in 1983, the year he finished senior high school.
“In the first three years I was paid 150 kilograms of grain a year and no cash,” he says. Du found the pay fair, close to an average peasant’s annual harvest.
From 1986, however, he was paid 15 yuan a month, but no grain. In 1990 he was given a raise to 40 yuan a month.
By the end of last year, his 28 years of cash income had added up to 10,640 yuan. His debts totaled 175,000 yuan.
Forever cash-strapped, Du often buys daily necessities on credit, and has borrowed cash from friends and relatives. Most of the money was spent on his two sons’ education. Both have entered university.
His wife often complains about their life and is particularly anguished at their sons having to repay the family’s debts.
But Du hopes at least one of his sons will inherit his teaching job. “They should do something for their hometown,” he says.
‘Unreasonable, inhumane, illegal’
Over the past decade, underpaid rural teachers have voiced their grievances to education authorities and the media, arousing widespread sympathy.
Li Yingxin, a rural education specialist with Northwest Normal University, thinks underpaying rural teachers is “unreasonable, inhumane and illegal.”
Li has written many letters to the Ministry of Education demanding better pay for rural teachers.
In response to these pleas, central authorities have demanded pay rises, or at least some additional allowances. But poor areas like Wudu have difficulty coming up with any extra money.
“We have two options: to increase all teachers’ pay to 1,000 yuan a month, or to dismiss all the temporary teachers and compensate them 1,000 yuan for each year they have taught,” says Huang Keliang, Wudu District’s education chief. “But we cannot afford to pay so many people all at once.”
Wudu has about 800 temporary rural teachers. Last year, locals reported an average annual income of 3,855 yuan, less than the average monthly wage in Beijing.
The hardship in rural teachers’ lives widens the disparity between education in cities and the countryside, according to professor Fang Lehua with East China University of Political Science and Law.
“While rural schools often have poorer facilities, fewer teachers and less access to information, the plight of their teachers makes the situation even worse. This is unfair for rural children, who lag behind their city peers from the very start,” Fang says.
The future of rural areas is at stake over this issue, he adds.
Professor Zhang Xiaode of the Chinese Academy of Governance says the central government should strive for an even distribution of education funding.
“To start with the central treasury should allocate more funds to support rural schools and help them catch up with city standards,” Zhang says.
Meanwhile, the government should encourage more private investors and NGOs to support the rural education sector, Zhang adds.
The State Council’s circular last month promised “capacity building” for rural teachers in the coming five years.
“That’s good news for the children,” says Meng Yuqiang. “Younger, better educated teachers will open up the outside world for them and they will have a better future.”
Meng is hopeful the funding problems will ease soon.
“I hope I can teach for another five years before I retire,” he says. “By then the school will be in better condition and I might have some pension income.”
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