Society

Teachers forced to give away salaries to charity

By Shang Ban (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-10 07:11

SHANGHAI: More than 2,000 teachers in Taizhou, east China's Jiangsu province, were allegedly forced to "donate" about 4,000 yuan ($586) each to a charity fund launched by the local government in a move the authorities claimed would help the poor.

The teachers were forced to sign an agreement late last month which authorized the local educational bureau to take 4,000 yuan from their pay for a charity fund defined as "helping the poor".

However, the authorities did not specify where the money would go, Yangtze Evening Post reported yesterday.

The 4,000-yuan donation came from an eight-month salary differential that teachers in Hailing district are expected to receive after a pay rise launched last September.

The local educational bureau had decided teachers in the district would receive the difference between their new and old salaries from January to August last year.

"I was told to sign an agreement to donate what equals a two month salary differential. It is either you donate it or there is no money at all," a teacher with Taizhou Second Vocational Middle School was quoted as saying.

"I do not know where the money is going and I did not get a receipt," the teacher said. "The total amount of money could be huge given the large number of teachers in the district."

Authorities with the local educational bureau said the teachers had not been forced to make the donations and that 98 percent of the 2,000-odd teachers in the district voluntarily signed the agreement.

"It is obvious that we did not force donations since there are still 2 percent, or 45 people, who did not donate. If they were forced to do so, they all would have donated," said an official surnamed Jiang with Hailing's educational bureau.

According to Jiang, some of the 45 teachers who did not donate to the fund were experiencing financial difficulties and some of the others refused to do so despite "repeated requests from authorities".

Jiang said this was not the first time the local government encouraged donations from public institutions. When civil servants in the district received a pay rise in 2008, they were also advised to donate two months of their salary differential to charity funds.

"The teachers are better paid than many of the other people in our district, so I think they should help the poor. The donation is organized and each school will finally receive a collective receipt instead of giving a receipt to every donor," he added.

(China Daily 02/10/2010 page6)