Today is China's 23rd Teacher's Day. The China Youth Daily received 1,089 reader responses from a nationwide survey. Results indicated that the teaching profession is still a respectable occupation; 91.6 percent voted that they wanted the most outstanding people to be teachers.

"The profession of teacher should be the most respectable occupation in our society. The group should consist of the most outstanding people, or our nation's development will be affected," a respondent stated in the poll.

Asked about which kind of teachers are the most outstanding ones, some readers answered: "Not all talented teachers are outstanding in their fields. An excellent teacher ought to be first of all a person of high morals, since teachers educate young people."

Even more interesting, 76.3 percent of the respondents said that a teacher is someone who influenced them the most. But people's views toward what kind of teachers are good teachers have changed. Another survey conducted also by the China Youth Daily this June showed that 81.6 percent of the people admired knowledgeable teachers, 67.6 percent liked teachers who made their classes easy and interesting, and 51.9 percent preferred teachers with a good sense of humor. In short, being knowledgeable is the first and most important aspect of being a teacher, and on this basis, students clearly prefer lively and witty teachers.

The bad news: recent years have seen the rapid reduction of normal universities and colleges. Many have been upgraded to comprehensive universities by name changes and mergers. Education experts worry that this kind of development will harm teacher training because these courses were conducted in those types of universities or colleges.

The good news: Premier Wen Jiabao stated in his government work report, delivered at the annual session of the National People's Congress in March, that the country would provide free education for students attending teacher training universities. The policy has become a reality as a total of 11,000 students enrolled in six teacher-training universities have now begun enjoying free education as of last week. These students began registration respectively at the six universities based in Beijing, Shanghai, Changchun, Wuhan, Xi'an and Chongqing on September 4.

Seventy three percent of the readers who responded to the survey believed that the free education policy signals that the country is paying greater attention to education and teachers. 60.1 percent of the respondents said that the policy should be popularized and extended to more normal universities and colleges.

Of those polled, the majority (55.6 percent) said that they wanted to be university or college teachers, because of the "high salary and low pressure, good working environment and non-fixed office hours," "Some teachers even have their own research program." 29.5 percent wanted to be middle school teachers, 13.4 percent wanted to be kindergarten teachers, and 8.2 percent say they didn't want to teach at all.

Some respondents said that the salary of rural teachers in central and western areas should be increased. If not, even those students who enjoy free education in normal universities and love their teaching jobs will still face the ultimate question: choose their dream job or find something better to make ends meet?

(China.org.cn by Zhang Yunxing, September 10, 2007)