China cracks down on gifts for teachers
Xinhua, December 8, 2015
Chinese teachers taking backhanders and profiting from after-school lessons is a barely concealed secret, and it's got so close to the surface that education authorities are cracking down.
While some parents like to give teachers gifts to buy attention for their children, others hate the practice and accuse teachers of greed.
According to a report by the Ministry of Education yesterday, China's 31 provincial-level regions have come up with rules on teachers' conduct and more than 95 percent of schools responded to a survey that they weigh morality heavily in their staff evaluation.
Teachers are banned from demanding gifts and money from parents, receiving money for extra lessons, forcing pupils to buy additional learning materials or introducing them to other education institutions.
While it's a chicken-and-egg question as to which side first sowed the bribery seed, many teachers in elementary and middle schools have long held extra lessons unpaid to prepare their students for college entrance exams.
"Many parents urge us to hold extra lessons for their children, but I also want to make some money myself," a Beijing teacher said on condition of anonymity.
In some rural areas where official supervision is slack, parents have to routinely pay elementary school teachers just to have their children seated at the front of class.
In September, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences released results of a poll of 3,000 parents and 15,000 pupils showing that 7 percent of the former and 10 percent of the latter held negative views on the morality of teachers.
"There are often students around when parents offer gifts to us. It can be really embarrassing," said the vice principal of an elementary school in the eastern city of Nanjing.
Jin Zhongming, a professor at East China Normal University, said regulating teachers must be done at the same time as protecting their interests.
"On one hand, a scientific system should be set up to certificate and dismiss teachers. On the other, we should take more steps to make them feel happier and respected, so they voluntarily follow rules and teach better," Jin said.
