Opening a brighter, innovative chapter in rural education

On Sept 10, when China celebrates its 42nd Teachers' Day, a new generation of young teachers is stepping into classrooms across the country's vast interior. From Guizhou's mountains and Yunnan's valleys to Inner Mongolia's grasslands, these graduates are not passing through, but returning home to make a lasting impact.

For decades, talent flowed almost always from the rural regions in the west to wealthy cities in the east. Remote rural schools struggled to recruit or retain qualified teachers and ensure consistent quality.

The urban-rural education gap is essentially a teacher gap, especially in subjects like English, science and music. Many rural schools had to rely on minimally trained substitutes, and those who did arrive often left after a few years.

In 2006, China launched the special post-teacher program, sending over a million educators to rural schools. This was followed by tuition-waived normal programs that offered free higher education in exchange for a commitment to teaching in one's home region. While these initiatives provided some relief, the deeper question remained: How could rural teaching become a sustainable career?

Policymakers realized that the solution lay in recruiting from the communities they would serve. Locally-rooted teachers share dialects, cultural references, and personal stakes in their communities' futures. Research shows that they have a stronger and more lasting impact and are more likely to continue in their positions.

Thus began a project to recruit top students from central and western provinces and prepare them as quality teachers for China's 832 counties that had been lifted out of poverty.

In 2021, Beijing Normal University launched the "Project to Strengthen Teaching Force", offering full scholarships for a six-year commitment to teaching in underdeveloped counties from their home provinces. The mantra was simple: Recruit from the neediest areas and train them for their future classrooms.

Yet, recruitment alone is not enough. This initiative evolved into a comprehensive system built upon six flagship components: pre-service cultivation, targeted placement, in-service support, honorary incentives, diagnostic monitoring and collaborative quality enhancement.

Together, these form a closed-loop system exemplifying UNESCO's "holistic teacher policy".

Xiong Guojin, one of the first graduates of the "Project to Strengthen Teaching Force", grew up as a "left-behind child" in rural Guizhou. He was just three months old when his parents left him with relatives and moved to work in eastern cities. What kept him going were his teachers. "Education changed my destiny," he says. "It took me out of the mountains. But I always knew I wanted to come back — not as a visitor, but as a teacher."

Today, Xiong teaches geography at Cengong No. 1 High School, integrating local landscapes into lessons. "I want my students to see their origins as a foundation to build upon," he says. Through the Qihang Plan, he received mentorship and professional development, while the Teacher Capacity Enhancement Plan provided training in practical strategies tailored for resource-limited classrooms. "Passion alone is not enough," he says. "The system gives me the tools to turn passion into lasting impact."

In Kashgar, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Dou Zhuojun has committed to teach middle school English in his home county of Yecheng. Before graduating from Beijing Normal University, he interned at a top Beijing middle school, then spent two weeks in a rural school to understand his future students' conditions.

Leading a research team, he compared impoverished Kashgar counties with urban schools. "The disparities were eye-opening," Dou says, "but they gave me a sense of purpose." Through the framework, he benefits from ongoing mentorship. "There is a whole system behind me."

Despite the strong recruitment efforts, one challenge persists: ensuring remote teachers continue to grow professionally. Without sustained support, even the most committed teachers can burn out. Technology is playing a transformative role in addressing this issue.

For Wang Yiying, a geography teacher in Inner Mongolia autonomous region's Siziwang Banner, Ulaanqab, the hardest part was staying effective without the professional community urban teachers take for granted. She needed mentorship and fresh ideas.

In 2022, a digital platform was launched to address this need. The "Strengthening Teaching Force" online platform now serves over 630,000 teachers nationwide, offering free courses developed by more than 40 institutions. It blends online learning with in-person workshops. Wang now accesses mentors who review lesson plans, recorded lectures, and a supportive community of remote teachers. "It means I'm no longer fighting alone." What once felt isolated now feels connected.

Behind teachers like Xiong, Dou, and Wang is the larger institutional support. In 2022, the Ministry of Education established 10 regional university clusters led by top normal universities to build lasting capacity in western teacher-training colleges.

The goal was to strengthen local institutions to train and support their own teachers.

The partnership between Beijing Normal University and Qinghai Normal University illustrates this: over five years since 2022, they have exchanged faculty, trained students, and developed regionally tailored programs. The strategy is simple: teach local institutions how to fish rather than simply giving them fish.

The urban-rural education gap has not been bridged, and disparities remain. But the trend has changed. From emergency recruitment in 2006 to a comprehensive career-spanning support system now, the evolution of policy reflects a growing recognition that sustainable change requires building systems that recruit, train, support, and retain teachers over the long term.

On this Teachers' Day, the shift is visible across western China — in the confidence of young teachers returning out of conviction, and in students who see a future that includes their hometowns. Behind every rural teacher stands a robust national framework designed to reach every corner.

The teacher gap that once seemed insurmountable is slowly and steadily being bridged.

Liu Tianyi is program coordinator; and Zhao Yuchi is executive director at the UNESCO International Research and Training Center for Rural Education and associate research fellow at the China Institute of Education and Social Development, Beijing Normal University.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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