(LI SHIGONG)

Public school teachers in east China's Shandong Province have been forbidden to tutor for payment beginning on January 1, 2010. The decision, which makes Shandong the first area to forbid tuition for payment, was made after two rounds of deliberation.

Education authorities in Zhejiang Province have also forbidden teachers to take part-time jobs at training agencies on workdays and to organize paid tutoring during holidays. If teachers violate the regulations, they could face dismissal. However, the Zhejiang regulations are construed by some as more flexible and different from Shandong's outright ban.

The controversial topic of whether tuition for payment should be banned or allowed has existed for more than a decade.

Opponents to paid tutoring believe that, if teachers are allowed to tutor students out of class, they might deliberately leave out important knowledge that should be imparted in class but provide it in after-school tuition.

Supporters who think tuition for payment should be allowed, however, argue that, although some teachers might take advantage of their work for personal gains, not all teachers will do so. To take a part-time job after eight hours' work is a teacher's freedom and also a legal right. Teachers are not yet civil servants, so they don't need to abide by "special regulations" for civil servants. Their knowledge and teaching capability are their own resource, so no one should restrict them from using it.

To ban it

Shen Yangyou (hlj.rednet.cn): If teachers organize after-school classes to improve education quality, we cannot help asking why they do not make efforts to improve quality in their regular classes. Is it because they have failed to complete the school curriculum? If that is the case, teaching after-school classes is the teachers' responsibility and they shouldn't be charging for it. If some teachers prepare regular lessons poorly, which forces students to learn necessary content in after-school classes, we can say this is a violation of the Compulsory Education Law and codes of ethics of the teaching profession.

It was not long ago that many teachers in China volunteered to tutor their students free of charge in their spare time, simply to fulfill their commitment to not leave any child behind.

In China, teachers are usually compared to "engineers of human souls," which means that ethical standards for the teaching profession are higher than those for other professions. Whether teachers can meet these standards has a great effect on our children's growth.

Banning teachers from making money from tutoring is a significant decision, which can also alleviate students' schoolwork burdens. Since teachers' moonlighting as tutors could undermine children's healthy development and damage the image of teachers, why don't we simply ban it?

Ding Mingli (www.gmw.cn): Many teachers do not prepare for their classes actively and some even intentionally skip key content in classes so they can offer valuable lectures in paid private classes.

These acts have harmed schools' education quality as well as the integrity and reputation of the teaching profession, which is greatly respected in Chinese society.

As a matter of fact, to ensure students' all-around development, teachers' duties are extended beyond formal teaching. As a result, teachers are supposed to become busier since they have to make teaching in classes more efficient—as well as design and supervise extracurricular activities, such as accompanying students on field trips. If they dutifully meet standards of practice for the profession, they probably would not be able to find time to moonlight tutoring for money.

Therefore, professional teachers should be forbidden from taking paid tutoring jobs as it could harm the country's interests in the long run.

Mei Guang (www.xinhuanet.com): Some people who promote teachers' moonlighting as tutors believe that teachers today are underpaid.