英语阅读：Higher pay for mountain top teachers
It was apparently a case of "absence from duty" - 23 teachers from a highschool in Chongqing suspended classes for three days early this month to take a
trip to Hainan, a subtropical tourist attraction.
After media reported the event last week, however, the audience - mostly
netizens - refrained from panning the teachers as they normally would public
servants touring courtesy of the public purse.
Instead, they expressed sympathy for the teachers from the Gaoxie Middle
School of Dushi, the most remote rural township in mountainous Jiangjin county
of Chongqing municipality. Some even said they were "moved to tears" by the
report.
I was, too.
In fact, the teachers did not spend a single cent of public money. They
paid for the plane tickets - amounting to their salaries of three months.
Accommodation and most of the meals were paid by an alumnus who had graduated
from the school 21 years ago.
The alumnus now owns a tourism company in Hainan province.
Being so impoverished, the teachers previously had not traveled to any
place outside the mountainous region. Zhang, in his 60s, had never seen the sea
even though he had taught geography for 39 years.
After returning to the school, the teachers shared their experiences with
their students. None owns a camera, so they relied on vivid descriptions of
beaches, coconut trees and the sea of clouds they saw through the planes'
windows to broaden their students' imaginations. They also brought coconuts back
and gave each student a morsel of the alien fruit's fresh juice.
The pupils, their parents and local officials in charge of education all
expressed their understanding and support for the teachers' "learning trip".
This piece of news filled me with mixed emotions: respect, sympathy and
sorrow. In China, a large number of teachers work in rural, mountainous and
remote regions. The working conditions are poor and the pay is low. But most of
them work diligently out of a strong sense of responsibility to the younger
generation.
In recent years, many urbanites have gone sightseeing in remote mountains
on holidays. Some of them have posted photos of "mountain top schools" on the
Internet. One of them shows young pupils walking along a path gouged into the
edge of a cliff. Anyone who saw the picture would admire Mr. Shen Qijun, the
only teacher of the primary school in the Gulu Village over the Dadu River
Canyon in Sichuan province.
Shen, 45, has been teaching at the school for 26 years and is greatly loved
by students and villagers. But he has never been admitted as a formal teacher,
because he does not have an official education.
These teachers merit our respect and deserve a better livelihood and work
environment. Over the years there have been calls for higher salaries and better
working conditions for such mentors. The central and local governments have done
a lot to improve the situation. But the effort seems far from enough. The
remuneration they get does not match their contribution to the nation.
I do not know if the issue is on the agenda of the ongoing session of the
National People's Congress (NPC). But I hope the income of teachers in remote
mountainous areas will be included in the agenda and be settled some time in the
not too distant future.
I used to be one of them 30 years ago.
E-mail: liushinan@chinadaily.com.cn
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