An English saying goes, "Jack of all trades and master of none", but in rural China, there are many teachers who have to be Jacks of all trades and are the only masters of their students' education.
When Shen Dezhi started work as a physical education teacher at a middle school in central China's Henan province in 2008, he never expected to be teaching subjects like Chinese, math, music and art.
Shen transferred to a village primary school in mountainous Checun county in 2011 and became school principal, not because he had outstanding teaching skills, but because he was the only teacher willing to move there. One year later, English teacher Li Juanjuan, Shen's former colleague, and now his wife, arrived to join him at the chalkface.
The 25 students had never had English lessons before, simply because there was no English teacher and the village children found it hard to catch up with their peers when they went to middle school.
The couple now takes care of all subjects and extra-curricular activities, an extraordinary workload. They barely have time left for themselves and their young family.
Ma Dexiu, a member of the Chinese people's political consultative conference told Xinhua that there are more than 40 million rural primary and middle school students and over 2.8 million rural teachers. In remote and poor rural areas, these teachers, through persistence and hard work, help students to realize their dreams.
Rural teachers, said Ma, former party secretary of Shanghai Jiaotong University, should be praised for their work, but they do not get the credit they deserve, increasing the education gap between the cities and the countryside.
Some teachers are forced to leave their positions because of the pressure. Zhao Lei used to work in a kindergarten in a remote village in Hunan province and left due to the low salary. He was the only one among 40 classmates in teacher training school who chose to work in a village school after graduation. He is now a migrant worker in Changsha, the provincial capital.
Working in Cili, a provincial poverty-stricken country, he was paid a little more than 1,000 yuan (162 U.S. dollars) per month without any extras, which made it hard for him to make ends meet.
Zhao, with other four teachers, had to take care of 132 children, most of whom are "left-behind children", those whose parents are migrant workers in bigger cities.
It is increasingly difficult to attract, retain and deploy teachers, especially in rural areas, said a former principal of a key middle school in Hunan. He told Xinhua how one of his students was determined to be a rural teacher, but to support his family he had to work carrying bricks in the evening after school.
According to UNESCO, more than 60 percent of China's schools and more than half of teachers are in the countryside. Working and living conditions are particularly challenging in rural areas, especially mountainous and border areas.
Education authorities are well aware of the situation. According to a statement issued after the 11th meeting of the central leading group for deepening overall reform on Wednesday, education in remote and poor areas in central and western regions is the weakest link in the modernization of education.
It is crucial that every child receives an equal education to stop poverty spreading to the next generation, said the statement.
Increasing the number of good teachers in poor areas requires improving teachers' political and moral awareness, increasing their incomes and incentivizing urban teachers to work in rural schools.
Shen and his wife have always had a wish, but under current conditions, it remains a distant dream.
"Most of these kids have never been out of the mountains. We wish they could see how wonderful the outside world is through their own eyes," said Shen.
