'Peanuts teacher' among 12 outstanding educators

Nong Jiagui, a village teacher in Guangnan county, Yunnan province, for 38 years, has helped more than 100 rural students learn about the world outside of their isolated homes.

In 1986, the 20-year-old became the first teacher in the "leprosy village", which was once an isolated treatment center for more than 180 leprosy patients and their families in the 1950s.

Nong said he was welcomed by the anxious faces at the health center when he first arrived in the village.

"At that moment, all I wanted to do was turn around and run. But when I saw the helplessness and disappointed faces of the elderly and the eager eyes of the children yearning for knowledge, I hesitated to leave," he recalled.

With mixed feelings, he decided to stay.

During the first class, the parents stood far away after sending their children to make the only teacher in the village feel comfortable, he said.

Nong named the village Luosongdi, which means "peanuts" in the ethnic Zhuang language, the dominant crop of the village, so that the students could write down their families' addresses without anyone making a connection with leprosy when they registered at new schools.

All school-age children were enrolled in the primary school after Nong came, and the village has become more open to the outside world. "As long as one child in the village needs me, I will keep on teaching," he said.

The 58-year-old rural teacher was named one of the 2024 National Role Models for Teaching and Educating People along with 11 other outstanding educators ahead of this year's Teachers' Day, which falls on Sept 10 every year.

China released new guidelines on advocating the spirit of educators and strengthening the building of a high-quality professional teaching workforce late last month, highlighting the cultivation of more high-quality professionals, especially in rural and less-developed areas.

Multiple projects have been carried out over the past few years to promote the quality of the teaching workforce, including advancing tuition-free normal student education and drafting retired teachers to support western regions lacking educators.

Vice-Minister of Education Wang Jiayi said the guidelines will ensure about 18.92 million teachers at all levels in the country become competent educators to further support the largest educational system in the world.

Currently, China has 498,300 schools with 291 million students enrolled in formal education programs, and about 11 million students graduate from higher education institutes every year.

The overall development of educational modernization in China is now ranked among the upper-middle tier of countries worldwide, according to the ministry.

Another awardee Zhao Dongyuan, dean and a professor at the School of Chemistry and Materials Science at Fudan University in Shanghai, has dedicated more than 20 years of his career to creating a mesoporous polymer and carbon material.

Mesoporous materials are widely used as adsorbents and catalysts in oil refineries, as well as the medical, biotech and other industries.

Zhao's fundamental research has contributed to China's economic development through technological innovation and application.

Meanwhile, the scientist continues to teach two regular chemistry courses a week to undergraduate students.

A photo of him went viral online when he rushed to teach an undergraduate class, carrying a cloth bag, after receiving the first prize of the National Natural Science Award at the Great Hall of the People in 2021.

Education Minister Huai Jinpeng said China has been promoting talent training programs in fundamental disciplines and implementing reforms in nurturing top talent to serve national strategy and socioeconomic development in recent years.

Universities led the way in the National Science and Technology Awards last year, securing 75.5 percent of the National Natural Science Awards, 75.6 percent of the Technological Invention Awards and 56.5 percent of the Science and Technology Progress Awards, he said.

In recent years, universities have achieved a series of major scientific and technological breakthroughs such as the reprogramming of human cells induced by small chemical molecules and the commercial operation of the world's first fourth-generation nuclear power plant.

Since late 2018, nearly 70 million students have graduated from secondary and higher vocational institutions in China and contributed major projects such as the Shenzhou space missions and Beidou satellite network, according to the ministry.

A total of 1,394 programs of the country's vocational education system trained talent for different sectors of the national economy, strongly supporting a full range of industrial categories, it added.

China has so far established 33 Luban Workshops in 28 countries to help cultivate more professionals by integrating the education of Chinese language and vocational skills.

More than 180 countries and regions are offering Chinese language courses, with 85 countries integrating Chinese into their national education systems, the ministry said.

In addition, the establishment of the UNESCO International Institute for STEM Education in Shanghai and deeper engagement in high-level educational collaborations with world-class institutions have accelerated China's development into a major global education hub, it added.