Deficiencies in the Focus: Rural Teacher Policy Evolution Analysis—Reflections on the Ten-Year Implementation of the Outline of China’s National Plan for Medium- and Long-Term Education Reform and Development (2010–2020)

Abstract

Rural teachers are a weak part of China’s teacher team. Over ten years, China has been continuously making up deficiencies in its policy, with the focus first on rural teachers, teachers of village schools and teaching sites, then further on the rural teachers in the contiguous poverty-stricken areas, national-level poor counties, and finally on teachers of areas of extreme poverty like the “three regions” and “three prefectures.” The construction of the rural teacher policy system has been continuously strengthened by refining supplement, enhancing security, optimizing management, and improving quality, which has effectively helped with the problem of “teachers are unwilling to teach, to stay, or to teach well in rural areas,” and laid a solid foundation for improving the quality of rural teachers and narrowing the gap between urban and rural education. However, there are still deficiencies in the policies concerning rural teachers. Further investigation and monitoring are needed to consolidate the foundation for policy improvement research and reflect the rural point of view in policy making.

Keywords

rural teacher policy, construction of teacher policy system, rural teacher team

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