The central government will budget to recruit more than 100,000 teachers in the coming five years for primary and junior high schools in poor western counties.

The central government will pay about 15,000 yuan (US$1,875) a year for each teacher while local governments will subsidize their housing and social security expenditure.

This is the latest step in a slew of government initiatives to promote education in the western regions, where lower economic levels have rocked the local educational foundation as some poor students cannot pay for tuition and many teaching staff have gone east.

By next year, students receiving nine-year compulsory education will no longer have to pay for their tuition as it will be covered by the public fund. Poor students will be offered subsidies to cover their boarding and other daily expenses.

The government will also make efforts to put an end to willful and unjustified charges by some greedy schools.

With this new initiative, the country has taken a step further in its implementation of assistance programs to the west put forward during the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-05). It has come to realize that the ultimate way out for the west lies in a forward-looking solution that tackles the long-term and sustainable development potential of the region.

For years, we have put much of the emphasis on economic rejuvenation of the region, drafting favorable investment policies and putting in more money to build facilities, paving the way for smooth economic growth.

But the region will not be truly rejuvenated in the long run without making some fundamental changes to its educational landscape.

Education makes a significant difference to individual as well as regional development. But the huge gap in education resources between eastern and western China has held back the western regions. Low pay and poor working conditions have led to a serious exodus of qualified teachers to the more prosperous eastern cities.

The shortage of qualified teachers in western China's primary and junior high schools is up to 111,000, according to the Ministry of Education. If students' inability to pay for their tuition has been the major problem of western education, after their tuition is cancelled, the lack of teaching staff would become the No1 bottleneck.

A large number of temporary teachers without teaching certificates now work at schools in the rural west. They contribute to local education and receive low pay and the quality of teaching can barely be guaranteed.

The current recruitment program will hopefully make up for the shortage of teachers in the western regions.

(China Daily May 22, 2006)