Opponents

Yu Jinhui (Beijing Evening News): To be frank, I don't think the qualification renewal policy will do a lot to improve China's current education quality and the quality of teachers. It is worried that when their job is no longer so stable, teachers will not be able to concentrate on teaching, and thus worsen teaching in primary and middle schools.

Teaching is a special profession. Teachers are responsible for imparting knowledge to students and helping them set up proper values in life. Therefore, it's improper to impose guidance or restriction on this profession according to common professional rules. Teaching is a kind of long-term and lasting work. Generally speaking, the more time they spend on teaching, the more experienced they'll be in teaching and training students, just as doctors do. However, to interrupt continued instruction with qualification exams will do great damage. More importantly, if most of them feel uncertain about how long they can keep their jobs, how many of them will be able to concentrate?

Yu Wenjun (wenming.cn): Young students are the future of our nation, and teachers are to a large extent responsible for their healthy and successful growth. The quality of teachers is directly linked to the quality of their students. The qualification renewal policy means to ensure students get the best teachers. This is a good reform in the education arena. However, while praising this new policy, there are still many questions that must be paid attention to.

Young teachers may find the renewal requirement easy to cope with and this is not a too big burden, but relatively older teachers may find it quite a heavy burden. These teachers may have to devote some of their limited time and energy in preparations for the qualification exam. Therefore, is it possible to adopt more human way of testing these teachers? Say, young teachers are tested with new methods while old teachers are checked with methods more suitable to their ages?

Besides, there must be a mechanism to make some arrangement for teachers who are eliminated from schools. What do you expect the eliminated teachers to do after they leave school? Still, they are not supposed to be deprived of basic living insurance. We have to notice that, according to the current standard, many teachers in rural schools will not be able to pass the qualification renewal exam. Once they are swept out of rural schools, who will come to take their positions and what do you expect these teachers to do outside schools?

Another point is that, nowadays, the evaluation of college teachers is based on how many theses they have published, which distracts them from normal teaching duties. The same thing might happen to teachers from primary and middle schools when it comes to the renewal of their teaching qualification. Teachers' major job is to teach students well, not to pass this or that exam.

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