OPINION> FROM THE CHINESE PRESS
Clarify teachers' professional ethics
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-11 07:46

If the authorities want to make professional ethics part of the assessment criteria for teachers' performance-based pay, they should first clarify what teachers' professional ethics is and how would they would evaluate it, says an article in Oriental Morning Post. Excerpt:

The education department of Jiangsu province announced recently that professional ethics would be one of the criteria to judge teachers' performance, and their pay would depend on the appraisal, sparking a heated public debate.

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But the document fails to give a clear definition of teachers' professional ethics. It only gives the minimum standards required of teachers, and tells them about the "kind of things (they) are forbidden to do" such as corporal punishment and private tuitions for money.

Some requirements are ambitious but difficult to assess such as "teachers should not harm the interests of students" and can have different explanations in different situations.

Teachers enjoy high respect among the public, so their professional ethics should also be above the average. Acts such as discrimination against, and humiliation and corporal punishment of students are not tolerated by any society, and no teacher should ever take recourse to them.

The document actually lowers the level of teachers' professional ethics. It says that in every school an appraisal committee, headed by the school president, will be formed to assess the performance of its teachers. Shouldn't students, rather than administrative officials, evaluate their teachers' professional ethics?

(China Daily 09/11/2009 page9)