Ten provincial-level regions nationwide have been put under a pilot reform program that raises the threshold of becoming a teacher, the Ministry of Education said on September 3.
Under the program, all teachers could be subject to taking a unified national exam and graduates from teachers' training schools or colleges will no longer be acknowledged straight away as qualified for teaching after graduation.
In addition, life tenure will be scrapped in order to get rid of the safety net allowing under-performing teachers to stay in the education system, and all teachers have to register to stay active educational practitioners every five years.
Initiated in 2011, the program will be expanded to all 31 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland by 2015, according to the ministry.
China had about 25 million registered teachers at the end of 2012. |