Educational equity and reform in China were high on the agenda of a press conference organized by the State Council Information Office in Beijing on Wednesday.
Six teachers shared their experiences and views on the development of education policies in front of journalists from China and abroad.
The Chinese government has been tackling urban-rural disparities in the field of education for years now, trying to bring accessible and quality educational services to its rural population.
The country's work to promote educational fairness has gone hand in hand with its poverty alleviation efforts especially in far-flung areas.
From building educational facilities and providing relevant resources to enforcing compulsory education for students in villages and reducing drop-out rates, the divide has been narrowing.
A total of 17.9 billion yuan (2.63 billion US dollars) in living allowances have been given to 16.04 million students from poor families in 2017, of which 90 percent was earmarked for those in less-developed central and western regions, Chinese Minister of Education Chen Baosheng announced last month.
However, chronic issues persist.
"Teacher resources are the biggest educational gap between urban and rural areas in China," said Xue Fagen, the principal of a primary school in east China's Jiangsu Province at Monday's press conference.
A total of 170,000 university graduates will be selected to work in the rural schools from 2017 to 2018 according to official data. How to satisfy their needs as well as that of other teachers working in rural facilities is an important task for the government.
Xue believed there are three ways of doing that.
First, rural teachers should be given career opportunities to fulfill their ambitions. Second, they should be offered well-being support.
"We have a practice involving administrative staff members visiting every teacher at our school and listening to their needs," Xue said, noting that the third way is to further improve the treatment of teachers in rural areas.
Reforms in tertiary education have also been tackled during the conference.
Tao Wenquan from Xi'an Jiaotong University said, "I have the honor to witness 40 years of graduate education reform. We strive to explore how to produce high-quality graduate students, and our country established a three-level degree system consisting of bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees. It is one of the biggest changes in the 40 years since the reform and opening-up."
