A MAN WITH A VISION: Tang Min, Executive Vice Chairman of the China Social Entrepreneur Foundation, initiated the Youcheng Evergreen Voluntary Teaching Program to recruit retired urban teachers to help improve the quality of rural education (CFP)

With its vast mountainous areas and underdeveloped economy, Bama Yao Autonomous County in southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is hardly an ideal venue for young teachers fresh out of university. That's where Youcheng Evergreen Voluntary Teaching Program comes into play, beckoning urban teachers out of retirement to train a new generation of rural counterparts. Jiagu Junior Middle School in Bama's Jiagu Township has benefited immensely since the arrival of teachers from the Evergreen program more than two years ago.

The Education Development Research Center under the Ministry of Education evaluated the program in Jiagu Junior Middle School in May 2011, which said that the school achieved a turnaround over the year in terms of number of graduates enrolled in senior high school, student performance and teachers' skills and knowledge.

Active service

The Evergreen program, aimed at bridging the urban-rural educational gap with a pool of dedicated educators in their golden years, is the brain child of a class reunion of renowned economist Tang Min, who led rural development projects during his seven-year tenure as chief economist of the Asian Development Bank Resident Mission in China. It sends retired educators from urban schools to train teachers and administrators of rural schools and has made great progress in the three years since its inception.

Tang was enrolled in a training program in a teachers college in Nanning, capital city of Guangxi, in the early 1970s. During a college reunion in 2009, Tang found that many of the 200 alumni were at or near retirement age. In China, primary and secondary school teachers retire at 55 for women and 60 for men. "They are experienced educators in good health. But after retirement they have nothing to do but to dance and sing in parks to kill time, it's a big waste," Tang told the magazine China Newsweek.

When Tang told his fellow alumni his idea of recruiting retired urban teachers to help rural schools, it received an enthusiastic response. Jin Hongbin is one of Tang's supporters. "We have deep bond with farmers and the countryside since we all had labored in the farm fields for years in the 1960s and 70s," said Jin, who before retirement taught at Tiantao Experimental School in Nanning, one of the city's top schools, and was among the first group of volunteers in the Evergreen program.

The Evergreen program was launched on a trial basis in Jiagu Junior Middle School in March 2010, with 57 retired teachers and administrators from junior middle schools in large cities volunteering.

During the first year of their voluntary service, Jin and his wife Chen Ning, also a retired teacher, traveled to Jiagu Junior Middle School, which has been cited for its unsatisfactory performance more than 10 times.

After conducting a vision screening of all 600 students in the school, Chen immediately went to the principal's office with the results and called for urgent action. "About 20 percent of students are shortsighted. We need to respond now," she said. The school immediately changed the lamps in classrooms and enforced a daily routine of eye exercises.

After observing some classes, Lu Ka, a retired English teacher, found that students were learning poor pronunciation from their local English teachers. She asked for help from the Evergreen program's local office, which sent cassette decks and tapes within days to complement their English textbooks.

The volunteers consulted with teachers on everything from curriculum and syllabus planning to auditing classes and critically evaluating pedagogic techniques.

"Compared with urban schools, teaching activities in rural schools fail to meet the standards for today's education. We feel ashamed about the situation as educators. Local teachers said that we should have come earlier," Jin said.

These veteran teachers also trained teachers and administrators on handling student behavioral problems, such as sleeping during class sessions and skipping classes to play online games.