CHINA> National
Nation pours out affection, thanks ahead of Teacher's Day
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-09-09 21:13

According to an online poll, jointly sponsored by China Youth Daily and Chinese news website QQ.com, 78 percent of the 91,000 people surveyed agreed teaching was still the most respected profession, but 85 percent of the respondents thought it was one of the toughest jobs.

The poll also covered more than 51,000 teachers, 80 percent of whom work more than eight hours a day, with 26.2 percent working more than 10 hours.

Nearly all the teachers surveyed said they worked under pressure, which mainly comes from the students' report cards and long working hours. Some also complained of a comparatively low income, as in many Chinese cities, the teachers' income is lower than ordinary office workers.

But all the city teachers stopped complaining when the Nanfang Weekend based in Guangzhou devoted full pages early this year to a marginalized group of about 450,000 people who are half teachers and half peasant farmers in China's impoverished rural areas.

In the northwestern Gansu Province, some of these rural teachers are paid less than 100 yuan (US$14) a month because they were never trained as teachers and are not formal employees, though nearly all are devoted to the job and some are even the only teacher in schools in sparsely populated villages.

Li Zixi has taught in a mountain village of southwestern Guizhou Province for 13 years. Until two years ago, his annual income was 182 kilograms of maize the villagers collected for him because the makeshift school in Jinxiang Village of Luodian County even had no classroom, let alone cash to cover his salary.

For 11 years, Li taught in a small room at the village official's home, writing with twigs on the ground and walking 90 minutes on the zigzagging mountain roads to carry drinking water for his students.

In 2005, Li and his wife sold the only pig in their sty to buy textbooks and stationery for the students. That year, his story was told across the province and the local government finally included him in the payroll. He now gets 600 yuan a month and promises to stay at the job for life.

"I owe a lot to my teacher. He's the backbone of our mountain village," said Bai Xuewu, Li's former student and now a senior high at the county's best school. "I'd never had a chance to go to school if not for him. Now I'll work hard and get into a university."