Furthermore, teaching is a very specialized job and teaching skills cannot be assessed through an examination. Some teachers may not do well in the tests, but they have high teaching skills while some other teachers might have good performance in the examination but are not good at teaching. This is a well-known fact in education.

More importantly, to take exams together with students might damage the dignity of teachers. When the exam result is made known to the public, teachers who perform worse than their students will then be under a lot of mental stress.

Some schools make it a rule that the examination result is to be connected with teaching quality assessment and this makes teachers see the examination room as hell. So while the new system shows consideration for students, it shows the opposite for teachers.

Song Guifang (hlj.rednet.cn): Teachers are already undergoing all kinds of tests and assessments in their profession. It's not that teachers can't take part in examinations together with students, but it's unreasonable to test teachers with the standard used on students.

With the examination-oriented education for students regularly and severely criticized, why do we bring the teachers under the gun? The new measure fails to show any consideration toward teachers, especially as the exam result is to be connected with teaching appraisals.

The purpose of education is to help students acquire certain knowledge, capabilities and skills so that they can better cope with future life, but teachers are not expected to have the same qualities as their students. China's current basic education does not lack assessment tools, but it lacks an inspiring and encouraging education mechanism.

Wang Yuchu (www.zjol.com.cn): In the competition with their students while doing the same examination, I believe most teachers will fare well. In the modern era teachers are not necessarily expected to have a much bigger reserve of knowledge than their students, but they need to keep their knowledge current.

If the new measure is designed to let teachers feel the heavy burden of schoolwork, then it may be a good thing. However, under the current education system, teachers have no choice but to load up their students with schoolwork. If students don't need to take part in high/middle school and college entrance examinations, teachers would be more than willing to lessen the workload. Given the current situation, if teachers cut examinations and their students fail in the two important exams, schools and education authorities and most importantly, parents, would not be happy. On the contrary, teachers might emphasize examination-oriented education more than ever before once they themselves are asked to take exams.

Yin Jianguang (www.enorth.co.cn): To ask teachers to take exams with their students will make them nervous and it's also a waste of time and energy.

A big problem in the current education system is pointing a finger at the teachers whenever the subject of education quality is raised. Actually, to improve the education quality is not only a matter of the teachers, but it depends on the quality improvement of all those who are involved in the education system. Teachers are not supposed to take on all the responsibilities by themselves. They are already burdened with heavy teaching load, so it's inappropriate to saddle them with even more. With society trying to push for quality-oriented education, it's unreasonable to force teachers to take school exams.

Furthermore, if teachers are all busy preparing for their own examinations, how can we expect them to spend enough time on teaching? As adults, maybe teachers are more sensitive to the examination result than their students do. If they are psychologically influenced by bad results, their teaching performance might fail too. I think getting teachers to take these exams is not acceptable.

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Editor: Yao Bin