Add male teachers to salvage masculinity in schools

This year's Teachers' Day, which falls on Thursday, will once again be a time for people to discuss issues related to teachers and education, ranging from whether parents should give festival gifts to their children' teachers to how their kids can get the best education possible.

But there is another and more significant issue the whole of society should not ignore. That is the gaping gender imbalances among teachers in primary and middle schools nationwide. If the authorities continue to fail to make changes, such a phenomenon may affect the cultivation of male students' masculinity during their critical period of growth.

According to a report published by the Beijing Normal University in September 2012, the gender imbalance among primary and middle school teachers in urban schools was astonishing, with female teachers in urban areas accounting for 79.39 percent of the teachers in primary schools and 64.4 percent in middle schools. The proportions in rural areas were not that high. In Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou female teachers accounted for 74.4 percent, 74.21 percent and 61.74 percent respectively at the time of the report's publication. Worse, not only are male teachers a small proportion of newly recruited teachers, but some of the existing male teachers show growing aspirations to quit.