There
are four professional titles for primary and secondary
school teachers in China: Senior Teacher, Grade-1 Teacher,
Grade-2 Teacher and Grade-3 Teacher. Professional titles
in institutions of higher learning are: professor, associate
professor, lecturer and teaching assistant.
In the 1950s
and 1960s, being a teacher is a glorious profession aspired
to by the Chinese people. Primary and secondary school
teachers were generally graduates of secondary schools
and institutions of higher learning; and teachers at institutions
of higher learning were college (university) graduates,
those having completed graduate studies abroad and returned
Chinese students.
During the "cultural
revolution" (1966-1976), with the prevalence of "knowledge
is useless" way of thinking, teachers were treated
unfairly and most normal schools were forced to close
down. A result is that, for quite a long period of time
following the end of the "cultural revolution"
(1966-76), there was a shortage of teachers in China.
Furthermore, one out of every three primary and secondary
school teachers was not up to standard in terms of formal
schooling. In areas with backward educational conditions,
there was even the phenomenon of primary school graduates
teaching primary school |
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 pupils
and secondary school graduates teaching secondary school
students. And teachers' income was comparatively low.
After the
"cultural revolution" (1966-76), the first
person to remind people of the need to respect teachers
was the then state leader Deng Xiaoping. Speaking on
one occasion, he said: "The entire society should
respect teachers." Afterward, the government took
a variety of measures to raise teachers' social status
and increase their incomes. In 1981, the government
raised pay for government-hired primary and secondary
school teachers and staff members and increased subsidies
for community-hired teachers (or village-hired teachers).
In January 1985, the Standing Committee of the National
People's Congress, the top legislature of the country,
adopted a decision on designating September 10 as Teacher's
Day. In 1986, professional titles of teachers of various
schools were included in the specialized technical profession
series. Institutions of higher learning restored the
practice of evaluating, and conferring
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