China to recruit more graduates to teach in rural areas

BEIJING - China will recruit another 10,000 college graduates to teach in primary and middle schools in rural areas this year, an official with China's Ministry of Education (MOE) said Friday.

The recruitment aims to relieve the shortage of teachers in areas in deep poverty, in Tibet autonomous region as well as Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, said Zheng Fuzhi, assistant minister of education.

"Despite the increasing input in impoverished areas, some areas, especially those stricken by deep poverty, are still short of education resources," said Zheng.

"Generally, there are not enough teachers in rural areas and the proportion of different kinds of teachers is not appropriate," Zheng said.

The MOE has helped recruit 24,000 college graduates to teach in minority areas and trained 500,000 teachers in such areas in 2017.

The ministry will further increase investment in education and launch more favorable policies to benefit poverty-stricken areas along with other governmental departments.

It will also make efforts to ensure the average income of teachers in primary and middle schools should not be lower than that of civil servants in the same areas.