China highlights educators' role in empowering modernization drive

BEIJING -- As the Chinese people strive together toward the shared goal of national rejuvenation, teachers are playing a vital role in building a great modern socialist country.

Tuesday marks the 40th Teachers' Day in China, a country with a tradition of respecting teachers and recognizing the importance of education in social development. Confucius, a Chinese educator and thinker who lived about 2,500 years ago, remains a household name in China and is revered around the world, with his teachings influencing generations.

China has set the objective of building itself into a leading country in education by 2035. This goal will bolster China's efforts to build a great country and advance national rejuvenation on all fronts through Chinese modernization.

Regarding education as a cornerstone of social progress and national rejuvenation, Chinese authorities are placing greater emphasis on education to promote high-quality and innovation-driven growth.

This greater emphasis can be seen in a set of guidelines released by the central authorities in late August, aimed at strengthening China's teaching workforce by cultivating more competent and high-caliber professional teachers. To achieve the goal of becoming a leading country in education, the guidelines outlined specific measures, including strengthening professional integrity, conduct and skills of teachers, optimizing education resource allocation, and protecting teachers' rights and interests.

By 2035, teaching is expected to become one of the most respectable and admirable occupations in China, according to the guidelines, which call for lifting teachers' social status, fostering public respect for educators, and encouraging public support for education.

Today, China is home to nearly 19 million full-time teachers -- double the 1985 figure. Highlighting education as a basic, strategic underpinning for Chinese modernization, the country is sparing no effort in its development of a high-quality professional teaching workforce to support the world's largest education system.

Over the years, through persistent and intensified initiatives, teachers in both rural and urban areas of China have garnered greater public support and respect, and their welfare has improved markedly. Education facilities have also seen notable improvements.

The need for further development in education is also driven in part by China's complicated external environment. In recent years, certain Western countries have engaged in technological suppression in an effort to hinder China's development. It is only by achieving high-level sci-tech self-reliance that China can break through the technology blockade.

To this end, cultivating reliable, innovative talent through education is an indispensable process, and a high-caliber professional teaching force will provide a basic guarantee for the effort.