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Letters and Blogs
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-10 08:35 Purify Teacher's Day practices Teacher's Day has been an opportunity, in line with Chinese tradition, to show our esteem for teachers. In recent years, however, the solemn day has been stained because many students as well as their parents capitalized on this occasion to hand over gifts, usually precious ones, to teachers. Hence, some commentators are outraged by the fact and called for abolishing Teacher's Day. It is not appropriate to abolish Teacher's Day, since the key to the problem is quasi-bribery gifts to teachers rather than the day per se. Even if Teacher's Day is abolished, students and their parents could still find other opportunities to give gifts. We need an occasion like Teacher's Day to pay tribute to teachers, whose dedication is important for the country's future, and, therefore, we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. What we need to address is the growing practice of giving expensive gifts to teachers. Many parents fear that teachers would not have taken good care of their children, had they not given expensive presents to them. When the gifts to teachers are becoming more expensive, the parents have to shoulder a heavier burden. It may not be necessary to totally ban giving of gifts to teachers, as long as they are inexpensive and represent sincere tokens of appreciation from the students. For example, the Republic of Korea allows students to give small gifts, such as handkerchiefs and socks, and the teachers have to offer gifts such as stationery in return. To rein in the trend of costly gifts to teachers, we should investigate and regulate the issue. Receiving gifts that are worth more than a stipulated value could be seen as bribes, and the teachers who accepted these should be penalized according to the law. Xia Yucai http://xiayucai.blog.sohu.com/131292940.html (China Daily 09/10/2009 page8) |
