Temporary teachers in China's vast rural area, even in the most prosperous southern province of Guangdong, are confronting with a worsening income prospect, Phoenix TV reported Monday on its website.

The 50,000 temporary teachers in Guangdong, mostly serving at primary and middle schools in remote mountainous areas, are set to be dismissed by the end of the this year, as the province's latest education policy shifted and required to employ contracted teachers to replace temporary staff.

Temporary teachers, an outcome during the difficult period after New China was founded, have been actually working full-time rather than substitutes of formally engaged teachers, though their salaries were often half, or even lower, of those of the latter.

As Phoenix reported, most of the Guangdong temporary teachers are paid 300 yuan ($40) monthly, even lower than the province's legitimate minimum wage of 450 yuan, with no medical insurance or other social welfare regardless of their working age which differs from months to decades.

The teachers, in order to earn a living, have to work other labors as farmers or motorcycle drivers. Their only chance of changing living status is an annual test by local educational authority of enrolling regular teachers. However, the chance is marginal. A county is currently picking up 80 people out of 1,400 applicants.

In western and northern part of Guangdong's villages, temporary teachers are widely hired in an easy expense. They account more than half of employee in some primary schools in mountainous areas.

Premier Wen pledged in his 2007 governmental report to beef up investment into educational sectors, by means of slashing or abolishing major items of fees paid by students, but didn't referred specifically to improving temporary teachers' income.