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International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 35–54

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev

The role and status of non-governmental (‘daike’) teachers inChina’s rural education

Bernadette Robinsona,�, Wenwu Yib

aUNESCO Centre for Comparative Education Research, School of Education, University of Nottingham, UKbSchool of Education, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, Gansu, People’s Republic of China

Abstract

A key ingredient for countries striving to achieve Education For All is the availability of trained qualified teachers with

favourable working conditions. The goal is an elusive one, even for some developed countries, though progress is being

made toward it. The problem is particularly challenging in poor rural areas of developing countries where qualified

teachers are reluctant to work or employing authorities cannot afford to hire them. This paper examines this situation in

the context of a Western province in China (Gansu). It considers the role, characteristics and status of non-governmental

(‘daike’) teachers and discusses issues that arise from their employment.

r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Basic education; Educational policy; China; Daike teachers; Minban; Rural education; Contract teachers; Paraprofessionals

1. Introduction

The immense task of creating a well-qualifiedteaching force for basic education has been on theeducation policy agenda of China for more thantwo decades:

Building a mighty contingent of qualified anddedicated teachers is a fundamental condition forthe success of compulsory education, and forbetter elementary education (Communist PartyCongress, 1985).

Given that China has 10.36 million primary andsecondary school teachers and wide regional varia-tion in economic and development levels, this is nomean task. During the last two decades, the country

e front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

dudev.2007.02.004

ing author. Tel./fax: +44 01509 852268.

ess: ber_robinson@yahoo.co.uk (B. Robinson).

has made huge progress towards the goal ofproviding a qualified teaching force for an expand-ing school population enrolled in nine years ofcompulsory education. By 2002, the enrolment ratesof primary pupils had risen to 98.6% and of juniorsecondary pupils to 90.0%. Between 1985 and 2002,the percentage of qualified teachers in primary andjunior secondary schools1 increased by 36.79% and62.78%, respectively. By 2002, 97.39% of primaryteachers and 90.28% of junior secondary teachershad teaching qualifications (Zhang and Zhao, 2006)though with some regional variation. In 2005, thequalification rates of teachers in primary and juniorsecondary schools were 98.62% and 95.22%, re-spectively (Ministry of Education, 2006). However,

.

1Primary school consists of Grades 1–6; junior secondary

school, Grades 7–9; and senior secondary school Grades 10–12.

Secondary schools are sometimes referred to as ‘middle’ schools.

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more urban than rural teachers are qualified,especially when the comparison is with poor ruralareas (Chu, 2003; Wen, 2004). Over 80% of primaryschools and 64% of junior secondary schools inChina are in rural areas.

Since 1985, China has adopted several stra-tegies to improve the quality of its huge teachingforce:

(a)

the issuance of regulations phasing out unqua-lified teachers;

(b)

upgrading teacher qualification levels for pri-mary and secondary teachers;

(c)

recognition of alternative routes to teacherqualifications (including self-study and distanceeducation);

(d)

permission for comprehensive universities toprovide teacher education programmes, pre-viously the preserve of normal universities; and

(e)

initiatives emphasizing in-service training andthe professionalisation of teachers.

2Gongban: government-funded and managed teachers. They

are salaried government workers with pensions, housing subsidies

and entitlement to free health and child care in cities. Gongban

teachers hold recognized qualifications for teaching and are

appointed within the approved government-funded staffing quota

for a school.

Yet despite rising levels of teacher qualification,national policy initiatives and regulations and alarge output of qualified teachers from an increasednumber of educational institutions, the problem ofnon-governmental teacher employment persists,mainly in poor rural areas. These teachers, called‘daike’ or temporary teachers, are those who are notpart of the government’s establishment of schoolstaffing and who hold temporary posts. In somecountries, teachers who are not counted as fullprofessionals may be termed ‘paraprofessional’(usually defined as a worker who is not a memberof the profession and who plays a supporting role).This description does not exactly fit daike teachers.Nor does the frequently used term of ‘contract’teachers, since in China daike teachers have nocontract.

Internationally, the term ‘paraprofessional tea-chers’ can refer to several kinds of teachers:‘contract’ or temporary teachers; assistant teachersor teachers’ aides who provide additional classroomsupport to children with special learning needsincluding bilingual education (Morgan et al., 1998;Morgan and Abbott, 2002); unqualified ‘volunteers’sometimes from the local community; and unli-censed teachers (Wise, 1999; Darling-Hammondet al., 1999). The rationale for using these teachersvaries too. They may be appointed because they areseen to have better understanding of the localcommunities they come from or a shared language

and culture with pupils, or to meet teacher shortagesespecially in rural areas (Duthilleul, 2004; Duthil-leul, 2005), or to assist as auxiliaries to regularteachers as a means of improving quality (Wilsonet al., 2002; Muijs, 2003; Department for Educationand Skills (DfES), 2007), or to reduce pupil–teacherratios, or to provide the education system withenough teachers at a lower cost than qualifiedteachers, or to provide employment for unemployedyouth, or to redress gender imbalances in education(UNESCO, 2006; American Institutes for Research,2004). Their roles and conditions of service andgovernment policies on them vary in differentcontexts but in developing countries their employ-ment is mostly a mechanism for coping with teachershortages and inadequate education budgets, espe-cially in rural and remote areas. Some countries, likeIndia, rely heavily on them for providing primaryeducation for all (Ramachandran and Sethi, 2001;Pandy, 2006).

In the case of China, the term ‘daike’ teachersincludes two groups: unqualified teachers employedon a ‘temporary’ basis and qualified teachersemployed on the same terms and conditions asunqualified teachers. The rationale for using themis similar to that of other countries: lack of fund-ing to support sufficient government-funded orgongban2 posts, and a shortage of availableteachers in rural and remote areas. Daike teachersare mainly found in rural areas in the poorerprovinces of China, especially in the west. Bythe end of 2003, 50% of daike teachers were inwestern China, 11.4% of all the rural teachers there(Li, 2005).

This paper examines the phenomenon of daike

teachers in the context of Gansu Province. It beginsby summarising the national policy context in whichdaike teachers exist and reports research conductedby the authors on daike teachers in Gansu: theirnumbers, characteristics, role and status. Thefindings are used to test six widely held assumptionsabout daike teachers within China and by donor-funded projects. The paper concludes with adiscussion of the issues that arise from the employ-ment of daike teachers.

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2. National policy for improving teacher

qualifications and quality

Improving teacher qualifications and quality havebeen strong policy goals in China since DengXiaoping emphasised the important role thatteachers needed to play in modernizing the coun-try’s education:

Teachers hold the key to a school’s success intraining qualified individuals of socialist con-struction and training workers who developmorally, intellectually, and physically, and withboth socialist consciousness and culture (Deng,1983, p. 105).

From this point onwards a large number ofgovernment regulations, guidelines and documentson teacher standards and status, teacher conditionsand teacher education has been issued (see Table 1).The first of these, the Decision on the Reform ofEducation (Central Committee of the CommunistParty of China and State Council, 1985) stated that

To build a sufficient, qualified teaching force isvital in implementing compulsory education. yAll current teachers need to be trained andevaluated. Teacher education and in-serviceteacher training ought to be regarded as astrategic action for educational development.y In a word, within five years or a little longer,most teachers must be qualified for their teachingposition. Thereafter, teachers cannot have ateaching job unless they reach the qualificationlevel or hold an appraisal certificate.

The themes in this statement have been constantlyreiterated in various legislative and official docu-ments since then.

What these initiatives and directives show, over asustained period of time, is a drive by centralgovernment to achieve a fully qualified teachingforce through upgrading teacher qualifications,improving working conditions and pay, and in-creasing in-service professional development. How-ever, in a large country like China, centralgovernment policies can be difficult to implementnation-wide because of the wide differences betweenmore and less developed regions and between urbanand rural areas. Some flexibility has existed for lessdeveloped provinces in implementing central direc-tives though poorer regions have struggled tocomply because of resource constraints. Despitepolicies for their elimination, there are still un-

qualified teachers working in rural schools and now,a more recent phenomenon, qualified teachersworking with the pay levels and conditions ofunqualified teachers. These teachers are seen as alimitation on the achievement of good quality inachieving Education for All (EFA). As a Chineseresearcher writes:

We are facing another major problem withregard to the quality of teachers or the capacitybuilding and professional development requiredfor teachers in rural schools for quality EFA. Thepercentage of qualified teachers in rural schoolsin poor areas has remained lower than thepercentage in both economically advanced ruralschools and city schools. y because of limitededucational resources, some counties with lessfinancial income would rather select more un-registered teachers than recruit qualified teachersgraduating from teacher education institutions,because the salaries of the former will be less thanthe latter. Allowing unregistered teachers toteach slows the rate of improvement of qualifiedteachers in rural areas for EFA implementation(Zhao, 2005, p. 39).

This problem has its roots in China’s use ofminban teachers from the 1950s onwards (describedin the next section) and in the financing of gongban

teaching posts.

3. From minban to daike teachers

3.1. The rise and fall of minban teachers

Minban (community funded and managed) tea-chers have played an important role in China’sprogress towards universal basic education in ruralareas. They have usually served poor rural andremote communities in places where better qualifiedgongban (government employed and managed)teachers were reluctant to live and work or wherefunds for employing them were inadequate. Minban

teachers first appeared in the mid-1940s whenminban schools were established by rural commu-nities to provide access to literacy and education forthe masses at Mao Zedong’s urging. Minban schoolsexisted alongside gongban schools and were set upby peasants, a dual provision which was strength-ened by the educational policy (1957) of ‘walking ontwo legs’ (the efforts of state and the localcommunity in providing education). As a result ofthis dual provision, primary school enrolment

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Table 1

Government policy initiatives on teacher education and teaching

Government policy initiatives on teacher

education

Key recommendations relating to teacher education and teaching

The Decision on the Reform of Education Improvement of pre-service teacher education and increased government support

to teacher preparationCCCPC and State Council (1985)

Provision of in-service training through radio and television, correspondence

courses. Teachers encouraged to learn from each other and engage in professional

lifelong learning (zhong shen xuexi)

Improvement in teachers’ living conditions, social status

Aims of ‘producing a qualified and stable force with an adequate number of

teachers’ with the majority of teachers qualified within 5 years. Improvement and

modernisation of teaching methods

The Compulsory Education Act The development of a trained teaching force to support nationwide compulsory 9-

year basic educationNational People’s Congress (1986)

Teachers to achieve, step-by-step, appropriate qualifications for their level of

school (primary school teachers to be qualified from normal schools, junior

secondary teachers to have qualifications from colleges)

Government to improve teachers’ social status and conditions. Teachers’ legal

rights to be guaranteed by state

Call for government to establish a teacher evaluation system and to issue teacher

certificates to qualified teachers. Excellent teachers to be rewarded

Suggestion on Strengthening and Developing Definition of the missions of teacher training institutions (normal schools,

teacher’s colleges, normal universities).Teacher Education

State Education Commission (1986) Approval of alternative training approaches for junior secondary teachers

(including an Adult Self-Study Examination)

Reform of admission requirements to initial teacher training in order to recruit

more students into teaching

Provision by government of favourable conditions for students on teacher

education programmes (free housing, free tuition, living allowance)

Revision of teacher education programmes and expansion of higher education

institutions for teacher education

National Programmes for Educational Reform

and Development

Government at all levels urged to increase their financial input to improve teacher

education and to conduct in-service training

Central Committee of the Communist Party of

China and State Council (1993)

Higher requirements for teachers: call for better demonstration of professional

ethics, subject knowledge and teaching competence

Statement that by 2000, 95% of primary teachers should have teaching

qualifications at normal school diploma level and 80% of junior secondary

teachers at college of education level

Requirement for schools and local government to establish strict assessment and

reward systems for teachers

Request to schools to encourage the best secondary school graduates to enter

teacher training institutions

Call for improvement of teachers’ salaries, living conditions and prompt payment

of salaries

The Teachers Law First official recognition of teaching as a profession

National People’s Congress (1993) Teacher certification system approved. Requirement for teachers to hold the

required qualifications or to pass the national teacher certification examination and

also demonstrate teaching competence

The average teacher salary to be equivalent to the average salary of government

employees. Teachers to benefit from similar medical insurance as government

employees

Payment of allowances, with additional for teachers in ethnic minority and poorer

remote regions and assistance with housing for teachers

Education Act The government to implement a teacher certification system, to develop

recruitment systems and to improve teachers’ working and living conditionsNational People’s Congress (1995)

B. Robinson, W. Yi / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 35–5438

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Table 1 (continued )

Government policy initiatives on teacher

education

Key recommendations relating to teacher education and teaching

Emphasis on the need to increase the quality of the teaching force through initial

training, in-service training and appraisal and reward systems

Regulations of Teacher Certification The minimum requirement for teaching in schools to be a teacher’s certificate

issued by the government (not by academic institutions). The minimum

requirements of the certificates to be uniform nationally and the certificates to be

issued by education authorities at different levels of government

State Council (1995)

The teachers’ certificates to be of 7 kinds for teachers at different levels:

kindergarten, primary, junior secondary, senior secondary, vocational, polytechnic

and higher education

Action Plan to Revitalise Education for the 21st

Century, submitted by the Ministry of Education,

December 1998 and approved by the State

Council (1999) January

By 2000, the whole country to have achieved universal 9-year compulsory

education

‘Project Gardener Crossing into the New Century’, 1 of 3 projects, to improve the

quality of the entire teaching force, ‘with particular stress laid on developing

teachers’ professional ethics’, through in-service training for teachers within 3

years. The Action Plan allocated 100 million RMB (about 12 million USD) to train

100,000 ‘backbone’ (gugan) teachers to provide a strong professional core in

schools. Among these, 10,000 to be selected for training directly by the Ministry of

Education. Each teacher to receive at least 240 hours of training over 3 years, but

in poor areas, at least 40 of these to be through face-to-face training

Proposed upgrading of primary teachers’ minimum standard of qualification to

college diplomas and junior secondary teachers to normal university degree level

by 2010

A contract system proposed for all teachers and an emphasis on teacher evaluation

Newly trained teachers encouraged to teach in rural schools in poor areas for a

period

Decisions on Deepening the Educational Reform

and Improve Quality-Oriented Education in an

All-Round Way.

Emphasis on the need for an increasingly qualified teaching force in order to

implement ‘quality-oriented’ education (the coherent integration of moral,

intellectual, physical and aesthetic education)

State Council (1999) Called for the reform of teacher education, encouraging comprehensive universities

(zong he da xue) to set up teacher education programmes

Emphasis on in-service teacher training and computer training

Requirement for the implementation of a Teacher Certification system

Suggestion on Restructuring the Teacher

Education Institutions

Recommended the restructuring of institutions to improve the quality of teacher

education, expanding the number of higher education institutions for teacher

education, and reducing the number of normal schools or changing their roles.

Normal schools in ethnic minority and rural areas to be retained

Ministry of Education and State Council

(1999a,b)

Proposal that all new teachers would have at least a college-level diploma by 2010

Suggestions on Teacher Education Reform and

Development, for the 10th Five-Year Plan

Emphasis on the further restructuring of teacher education institutions

Call for improvement of research capacity in normal universities. Permission for

good teachers’ colleges to become normal universitiesMinistry of Education (2002)

Call for an increased number of highly qualified teacher educators. In higher

education institutions, teacher educators to have Master’s degree or senior

academic title. In teacher training institutes and normal schools, teacher educators

to have university Bachelor’s degree as a minimum

Request for schools to encourage the best senior secondary students to enter

teacher education programmes

Establishment of accreditation and evaluation systems and the reform of teacher

education programmes

The New Action Plan to Revitalise Education,

2003–2007. Submitted by the Ministry of

Education, February 2004 and approved by State

Council and Ministry of Education (2004)

Emphasis on the need for qood-quality teacher education; provision of an in-

service training plan. Pre-service and in-service education to be linked and

continuous

Goal of promoting quality education through the new national curriculum

Prepared the way for draughting of documents on the ‘Regulation of Teacher

Education’, ‘Accreditation Standards of Teacher Education Institutions’,

B. Robinson, W. Yi / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 35–54 39

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Table 1 (continued )

Government policy initiatives on teacher

education

Key recommendations relating to teacher education and teaching

‘Standards of Curriculum’ and ‘Quality Standards of Teacher Education’,

currently in preparation (2006)

New round to be started of further ‘advanced seminar’ training for backbone

(gugan) teachers

Rural school personnel management to be strengthened and full contract system

for teachers to be implemented

Urban teachers and other staff with teaching certificates to be encouraged to work

in rural schools for a limited period before returning to urban school posts

Revision of the Compulsory Education Act.

National People’s Congress (2005)

All teachers required to have recognised teaching qualifications. Central

government designation of titles for primary and secondary teachers (primary and

junior secondary teachers, i.e. those in compulsory education, to have the same

professional title, not separate as before)

For implementation from 1 September 2006

Average salary of teachers to be no lower than local civil servants’ average salary

Encouragement of graduates from comprehensive universities to work as

volunteers in rural schools

Sources: The original government documents (in Chinese); and Zhou and Reed (2005).

B. Robinson, W. Yi / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 35–5440

increased significantly though state expenditure onprimary education decreased by nearly a third overthe next decade (Herschede, 1976). Eventually,minban schools were phased out but minban teacherscontinued to work in gongban schools in order tomeet the demand for teachers.

Minban teachers were generally drawn from thefew literate peasants in a village who had completedprimary or secondary school. They taught in villageand township primary or junior secondary schoolsand at ‘teaching points’ (1–2 teacher schools inremoter rural areas). They were paid a small salary(at the beginning, they were paid in work points,like other members of rural communes) and had asmall allocation of land to farm (smaller than otherfarmers). The number of minban teachers expandedhugely in the 1950s as rising pupil enrolmentoutstripped qualified teacher supply. From 1955 to1988, the percentage of qualified primary teachersincreased from 57% to 63%, and of qualified juniorsecondary teachers from 20% to 28% (Buley-Meissner, 1991), still leaving a need for minban

teachers. In 1985, there were 5.3 million primaryteachers of whom 2.8 million were minban teachers(51.3% of the total) and 2 million junior secondaryteachers, of whom 413,500 were minban (19.08% ofthe total). Altogether, there were 3.2 million minban

teachers (42.0% of all teachers in 9-year compulsoryeducation). By the mid-1990s, 40% of all primaryteachers and 50% of teachers in rural areas werenon-governmental appointments (that is, not part of

the government’s establishment or quota andknown as ‘daike’ teachers).

At the outset, there was little difference in thepay, conditions and socio-economic status ofminban and gongban teachers but gradually thischanged to the disadvantage of minban teachers. Inthe 1970s, Deng’s drive for the ‘four modernisa-tions’ (in industry, agriculture, national defence,and science and technology) emphasized the needfor gongban teachers, that is, professionally edu-cated teachers who were qualified and trained inteacher training institutions: normal schools (zhong-

deng shifan xuexiao), normal colleges (shifan daz-

huan) and normal universities (shifan daxue). Thisaccelerated a continuing decline in the status andconditions of minban teachers into the 1980s. Theeducational decentralization programmes of themid-1980s gave local communities the responsibilityfor employing and paying minban teachers. As aresult, minban teachers’ salaries fell further behindthose of gongban teachers and their paymentbecame highly unreliable. Minban teachers’ socio-economic status fell further as the educationalreforms took hold leading Wang (2002, p. 113) todescribe them as ‘the group most seriously victi-mized by the economic and educational reforms’.Their conditions compared unfavourably withgongban teachers who had higher salaries, pensions,housing subsidies, free health and child care andmore access to professional development (Ma andXu, 1996).

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3The term ‘daike teacher’ first appeared in 1987.4The administrative system consists of the following levels:

provincial, prefectural, county, district, township and village.

B. Robinson, W. Yi / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 35–54 41

3.2. The elimination of minban teachers

The government’s policy for a fully qualifiedteaching force required the elimination of minban

teachers. At the same time as assigning decision-making about teacher employment to local autho-rities as part of its decentralization policy (CentralCommittee of the Communist Party of China andState Council, 1985), the central government issuedguidelines on the elimination of minban teachers andthe label of ‘minban’ teacher was officially discon-tinued (though it lived on in some documents). TheState Education Commission (August 1992) pro-posed five strategies for eliminating minban tea-chers: ‘guan’ (stopping recruitment); ‘zhao’(transforming minban into gongban teachersthrough selection by examinations and evaluations);‘zhuan’ (transfer to other occupations), ‘ci’ (dis-missal); and ‘tui’ (retirement of older minban

teachers). Provinces set their own deadlines foreliminating minban teachers (in Gansu Province’scase, this was 2000).

However, the elimination of community-paid(minban) teachers proved difficult (Ministry ofEducation, 1992). In 1992, there were 2.4 million,26% of all primary and secondary school teachers.At the National Education Conference in 1994, theCentral Committee of the Communist Party ofChina and the State Council stated their aim was to‘solve the problem of minban teachers by 2000’ sincethey were seen as unsuitable for a socialist marketeconomy. The strategies for this were re-iterated as‘reducing numbers, raising quality, improving treat-ment, and reinforcing administration’ and throughthe ‘five-words policy’ of ‘stopping, transferring,enrolling, firing and retiring.’ In 1997, the StandingOffice of the State Council issued the ‘Announce-ment on Solving the Problem of Minban Teachers’in an effort to improve the quality of teachers forEFA implementation (Standing Office of the StateCouncil, 1997). However, by 2000, there were stillmore than one million community-paid or non-governmental teachers known as ‘daike’ teachers(Li, 2000).

3.3. The emergence of daike teachers

Though minban teachers were officially elimi-nated at a policy level in the 1980s the need for themwas not, especially in rural and less-developed areas.The replacement of minban with qualified teachersdid not keep pace with the need. The practice of

assigning teachers to posts was being discontinuedas the command economy changed, and many goodteachers exercised choice and left poor areas forbetter prospects (Meng and Ma, 2000). Thecontinued shortages of teachers in rural villagesand townships soon led to the employment of daike

(‘temporary’ or ‘substitute’3). Daike teachers, likeminban, were generally hired by township or villageschools and communities at a much lower salarythan gongban teachers and without the additionalbenefits and subsidies that accompanied gongban

status. More recently, with a change in governmentregulations, responsibility for teacher payment hasshifted from the township to county4 level. Manycounty authorities now also pay the salaries of daike

teachers, usually out of non-education budgets inrecognition of the unavoidable need for them inrural and remote areas. Wang (2003) estimated thatin 2001 there were 705,000 daike teachers in ruralprimary and junior secondary schools, 6.6% ofall teachers.

Daike teachers are different from minban teachersin at least one respect. Whereas almost all minban

teachers lacked appropriate qualifications and manyhad very low educational levels, some daike teachersare as well qualified as their gongban colleagues. Sosome teachers are daike as a direct result of budgetlimitations rather than through lack of qualifica-tions. Though the number of daike teachers hasreduced greatly since the mid-1990s, they areproving difficult to eliminate completely fromcountry schools. This leads to concerns about alack of equity between rural and urban schools andthe quality of teaching in rural schools. It also raisesissues about the professionalisation of teaching asa career.

Section 4 examines the origins, current deploy-ment and status of daike teachers in one province,Gansu. While there are a (very) few small andsporadic studies of daike teachers in Gansu there islittle systematic information on them yet theyconstitute about 10% of the province’s teachingforce in 9-year compulsory education. The re-search reported in this paper was undertakento help remedy this lack and to provide evidence-based information for decision-makers. There is ingeneral a lack of research on daike teachers acrossChina.

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4. Minban and daike teachers in Gansu province

4.1. The context of Gansu

Gansu is a poor province in northwestern China,with a semi-arid and mountainous landscape and apopulation of 26 million. The provincial capital ofLanzhou ranks 27th in economic terms out ofChina’s 33 provincial capitals. Gansu has 86counties (administrative divisions), 41 of which areofficially designated as poor. About 70% of thepopulation is rural with main ethnic minoritygroups of Tibetan, Hui and Mongolian amongothers. The annual average income in 2005 was 1840RMB Yuan (about 230 USD) but many farmersearn much less. The national per capita income in2005 was the equivalent of 1700 USD.

Gansu has made good progress in educationaldevelopment in recent years. By 2003, 59 of its 86counties had achieved 9-year compulsory basiceducation and the elimination of illiteracy. In2004, Gansu had 16,253 primary and secondaryschools, with 5.16 million pupils and 240,147gongban (government appointed) teachers (GansuProvincial Education Department Statistics,2004–2005). About 75% of its primary and juniorsecondary schools (Grades 1–9) are located in ruralareas (townships and villages). There are also‘teaching point’ schools (1–2 teacher schools forGrades 1–3 only) in the more remote areas.

4.2. From minban to daike teachers in Gansu

In 1984, there were 77,047 minban teachers inGansu (9415 in primary and 48,476 in secondaryschools) and Gansu’s provincial government insti-tuted a policy for the phasing them out.5 Followingnational directives, the provincial governmenttransferred a large number to gongban status aftera process of selection. This involved writtenexamination (60% of final grade) and assessmentof teaching performance (40%, based on observa-tion of lessons by county education officials). Afurther quota of 3000 transfers was issued by GansuGovernment on 30th August 1984 (Gansu Educa-tion Department, 1986). Essentially, the best ofminban teachers became gongban. Five million

5The label of ‘minban’ or ‘daike’ depends on the teacher’s start-

of-employment date as a teacher. In Gansu Province, all

community-paid teachers who registered before the end of 1984

were titled ‘minban’, after this date, ‘daike’. Minban and daike

teachers therefore co-existed for a period of time.

RMB Yuan were spent by Gansu ProvincialGovernment on subsidizing the newly designatedgongban teachers and further appointment of newminban teachers was not allowed. In terms of thefive elimination strategies proposed by centralgovernment, transfer to gongban status accountedfor the largest proportion in Gansu while movementinto other occupations was the smallest because ofthe lack of employment and re-training opportu-nities. However, daike teachers began to play anincreasing role in rural schools as Gansu strived toachieve compulsory 9-year education targets. Daike

teachers in Gansu increased from 4996 (2.65%) in1990 to 25,043 (10.15%) in 2004 (see Table 2). In2001, they had reached a peak of 30,727 (13.2%) asthe school population expanded and local autho-rities struggled to staff schools adequately withgongban teachers.

Daike teachers’ rate of increase has differed inprimary and junior secondary schools as Table 2shows. While the percentage of daike secondaryschool teachers in Gansu shows only a smallpercentage increase (0.5%) since 1990 the actualnumbers have risen from 1899 to 3493, an increaseof 83.94% since 1990. Over the same period, thegongban contingent has increased by 36.43%, from59,137 to 93,024. At the same time, the number ofdaike primary teachers rose considerably more.There were nearly seven times as many daike

primary teachers in Gansu in 2004 as in 1990,growing from 3097 to 21,550 (a percentage increaseof 695%) while gongban primary teachers increasedby only 3.37%. This trend goes in the oppositedirection to national policy goals.

Trends in the employment of daike and gongban

teachers are illustrated in Fig. 1. This shows thecomplementarity of daike/gongban teacher employ-ment. As the gongban teacher percentages fell, thedaike teacher percentages rose to meet the shortfall.

The number of daike teachers in each county,school district and school varies. Some countyauthorities have been more successful than othersin employing gongban rather than daike teachers.One of the more successful poor counties is Huiningwhich has a reputation for higher educationalachievement levels than its economic conditionswarrant. The school population of Huining rosefrom 41,429 in 1991 to 91,283 in 2001. In 1980,its 3327 minban teachers constituted 71.5% ofits teaching force. By 1990, Huining County hadreduced its community-supported teachers to 45.1%(2145 daike teachers and 2622 gongban). By 2006,

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Table 2

Gongban and daike teachers in Gansu, 1990–2004

Year Primary Secondary (junior and senior) Total daike

Gongban Daike Total % daike Gongban Daike Total % daike N %

1990 124,522 3097 127,601 2.42 59,137 1899 61,036 3.11 4996 2.65

1991 126,070 3408 129,478 2.63 61,466 1401 62,867 2.22 4809 2.50

1992 126,073 5063 131,136 3.86 62,307 1731 64,038 2.70 6794 3.48

1993 127,579 4707 132,286 3.55 62,083 1568 63,651 2.46 6275 3.20

1994 128,594 5835 134,429 4.34 62,074 1609 63,683 2.52 7444 3.76

1995 130,032 5862 135,894 4.31 62,669 1684 64,353 2.61 7546 3.77

1996 129,823 7920 137,743 5.74 63,912 1781 65,693 2.71 9701 4.77

1997 130,628 10,538 141,166 7.46 66,124 1871 67,995 2.75 12,409 5.93

1998 131,473 12,816 144,289 8.88 67,774 1822 69,596 2.61 14,638 6.84

1999 128,839 18,330 147,169 12.45 70,711 2131 72,842 2.92 20,461 9.30

2000 125,172 25,424 150,596 16.88 74,082 2726 76,808 3.54 28,150 12.38

2001 122,038 27,095 149,133 18.16 78,439 3632 82,071 4.42 30,727 13.29

2002 124,017 24,015 148,032 16.22 82,709 3667 86,376 4.24 27,682 11.81

2003 126,740 22,883 149,623 15.29 87,753 3555 91,308 3.89 26,438 10.97

2004 128,725 21,550 150,275 14.34 93,024 3493 96,517 3.61 25,043 10.15

Source: Gansu Provincial Education Department Statistics.

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Year

% T

ea

ch

ers

% gongban primary

% daike primary

% gongban secondary

% daike secondary

Trends in gongban and daike teacher employment in Gansu

Fig. 1. Trends in gongban and daike teacher employment in Gansu.

B. Robinson, W. Yi / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 35–54 43

only 10.1% (741) of all teachers (8200 in total) weredaike. To achieve this reduction, Huining CountyEducation Bureau carried out a tough policy ofdismissing teachers who were unqualified or wholacked a teaching licence though they had otherqualifications, and appointing more newly qualified

graduates within the gongban teacher quota, some-how finding enough funds to pay them. However,Huining still struggles to remove the remaining10.1%. Not all counties, especially the poorer ones,have achieved similar reductions and are morereliant on daike teachers.

ARTICLE IN PRESSB. Robinson, W. Yi / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 35–5444

Schools and districts vary in the number of daike

teachers they have. Many rural schools have at leastone or two, but in some areas it is more:

In our district, the proportion of daike teachers ishigher than gongban teachers. Four out of the sixteachers in Kong Jiaping primary school, fourout of the eight teachers in Gu Jiping primaryschool and five out of the seven teachers in NanChawan primary school are daike teachers. Theyare all the pillars of the schools. The schools relyon them. If they went, the schools would stoprunning (Liu Xiaoping, Director of LianfengTownship Education Committee, Gansu Daily,28 July 2005, translated).

A further study of three counties (Kangle,Hezheng and Guenge) in Linxia Prefecture, Gansu,reported that half of the teachers (51.9%) wereunqualified (Jiao, 2005).

5. Daike teachers in Gansu in 2006

This section reports findings from a surveycarried out by the authors in Gansu in January–-February 2006. The purpose of the survey was togather and analyse evidence on daike teachers inprimary and junior secondary schools in theprovince’s 41 poorest counties in order to make anevidence-based assessment of the current situation.The survey used two non-probability samples: aquota sample of 3–4% of daike teachers in each of41 poor counties (1000 teachers), and a conveniencesample of 500 gongban teachers (from the same 41counties) who were participating in in-service work-shops at Lanzhou Teachers’ College. The question-naire consisted of 60 items of closed and openquestions, aimed at gathering demographic data,information about the daike teachers’ role and theirperceptions of their identity, work, pay and status.Of the 1000 questionnaires distributed to daike

teachers through the agency of county educationadministrators, 830 (83.0%) were returned to theresearchers and 753 (75.3%) of these were judged tobe valid. Of the 500 questionnaires distributed togongban teachers, 410 (82.0%) were returned to theresearchers and 371 (74.2%) were judged to bevalid. In addition to the survey, interviews anddiscussions took place between the authors of thispaper and daike teachers, gongban teachers, head-teachers, county education administrators, districteducation directors and local government officersover 12 months in 2005 and 2006, in the course of

field visits and workshops on the European Union–China Gansu Basic Education Project.

One aim of the research was to test six commonassumptions about daike teachers that often appearin policy debates, discussions on teacher quality anddonor-funded project plans. The six assumptionsare that daike teachers:

(1)

are unqualified, with low levels of education; (2) are largely the older left-over remains of minban

teachers;

(3) act as assistant teachers in schools, sometimes

part-time;

(4) are short-term temporary appointments, gradu-

ally being replaced over time by newly qualifiedteachers;

(5)

cost less to employ than gongban teachers; and (6) are employed because qualified teachers are

unavailable.

As the findings from this study show, only someof these assumptions are borne out by the evidence.

5.1. Gender, age and working location of daike and

gongban teachers

The majority of daike teachers was female(N ¼ 449; 59.6%) and of gongban teachers wasmale (N ¼ 247; 66.7%). Reasons for the lowerproportion of male daike teachers include low pay,lack of job security and poor promotion prospectstogether with the practice of countryside malesleaving home to seek work in more developed partsof China.

The daike teachers tended to be slightly youngerthan gongban and many began teaching at an earlierage (18 years). The age group with the largestnumber (the mode) for both gongban and daike was21–25 years. Nearly half of all teachers (48.5%) wasunder 30 years of age. Three-quarters of daike

teachers were aged 18–35 and a similar proportionof gongban were 20–40 years old. A smallerproportion of daike teachers was over 40 years ofage: 6.8% compared to 23.36% gongban. The bulkof daike teachers are not in the older age group.

Most teachers (81.3% daike and 66.7% gongban)worked in village schools. Similar proportions ofgongban (5.2%) and daike teachers (5.7%) workedat county centre schools but a smaller proportion ofdaike teachers worked at township level (12.1%compared to 27.6% of gongban). Village schoolsand teaching points tend to have less well-qualified

ARTICLE IN PRESSB. Robinson, W. Yi / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 35–54 45

teachers, since career advancement often involvesmoving out of village schools. Many young teachersaspire to work in townships, county centres or citiesunless they have strong local ties. Some youngfemale teachers are reluctant to work in isolatedvillages because the choice of young men andpotential marriage partners there is too limited forthem. Many better-qualified, more ambitious tea-chers seek work outside villages, in more populousand urbanised places.

5.2. Years of teaching experience

The numbers of years of teaching experience ofdaike and gongban teachers are compared in Fig. 2. Asthis shows, many daike teachers are recent appoint-ments. A large proportion of daike teachers (N ¼ 287;42.4%) were in their first three years of teachingcompared to 19.5% (N ¼ 62) of gongban teachers;26.73% of daike were in their first year compared to3.10% of gongban. So despite national and provincialpolicies and county efforts to eliminate daike teachers,they continue to be appointed. In fact, in this sample,the trend shows a recent increase (see Fig. 3). Despitethe title of ‘temporary’ teachers, more than a third ofdaike teachers (N ¼ 246; 36.33%) had been teachingfor more than ten years and almost a fifth (N ¼ 128;19.05%) for over 15. During their teaching lives, daike

teachers have had more limited access to professional

Years of tea

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1-5 6-10 11-15 16

Number

% teachers

Fig. 2. Years of teach

development because they are not included inprovincial level (high quality) in-service trainingthough they may be included in county and townshiplevel, if not always fully. In addition, because they arenot eligible to be backbone (gugan) or leadingteachers, they cannot participate in any specialtraining provided for these groups. Because of theirexclusion from some of the inservice provision, theprofessional levels of daike teachers are more likely tofall behind those of gongban teachers over time.

Daike teachers live in a state of uncertainty aboutthe continuance of their appointments and experiencedifferent professional lives to their gongban colleagueswho have a more secure career ladder and moreprofessional recognition and rewards. Given the largenumber of young qualified teachers who are daike

appointments, the question of their future is a keyone. It is not clear how, if at all, this trained humanresource is viewed or valued by policy-makers andmanagers or what future is envisaged for them. Theteachers themselves live in hope of gongban appoint-ments but the experience of some of their older daike

colleagues illustrates that their hopes may be in vain ifthe present situation continues.

5.3. Teachers’ qualifications

Nearly two-thirds (64.6%) of the daike teachers inthis sample were qualified to work as teachers, with

ching experience

-20 21-25 26-30 31 and over

of years

% Daike

% Gongban

ing experience.

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Appointment of daike teachers 2002-2006

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Year

% t

ea

ch

ers

% Daike

% Gongban

Fig. 3. Appointment of daike teachers 2002–2006.

B. Robinson, W. Yi / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 35–5446

qualifications gained through various routes. Halfthe daike teachers (51.5%) held qualifications fromteacher training institutions compared to 85.9% ofgongban teachers. Five daike teachers (0.7%) had adegree from a normal university, 30.5% haddiplomas from teachers’ colleges and 21.1% haddiplomas from normal teacher training schools. Ofthe gongban teachers, 7.3% held degrees from anormal university, 39.4% had diplomas fromteachers’ colleges, and 35.6% had qualificationsfrom normal teacher training schools.

In addition to the 51.5% of daike teachers whowere trained and qualified teachers, 13.1% heldqualifications which entitled them to teach but whichlacked pedagogical training; 10.8% of gongban

teachers also held these. Just over a third of daike

teachers (35.0%) and 6.8% of gongban teachers heldno qualification which entitled them to teach andtheir highest level of education was senior secondaryschool completion or lower (Table 3).

5.4. Teachers’ salaries

The mean monthly salary of gongban teacherswas nearly five times that of daike: 962.64 RMBYuan6 for gongban compared to 205.01 RMB Yuan

6Approximately 8.2 RMB Yuan ¼ 1 USD at 2005 rates, and

8.0 RMB Yuan ¼ 1 USD at 2006 rates.

for daike (see Table 4). Teachers’ salaries variedaccording to the level of school they taught in.

Daike teachers’ salaries ranged from 40 RMBYuan to 1000 RMB Yuan per month. Gongbanteachers’ salaries ranged from 40 RMB Yuan (forjust two of the teachers in the sample) to 2050 RMBYuan per month. Nearly half of daike teachers(46.0%) earned 100–200 RMB Yuan per month and20.5% earned less than 100 RMB Yuan. Themajority of daike teachers (84.0%) earned less than300 RMB Yuan per month (3600 RMB Yuan,around 450 USD, per year). Only seven daike

teachers earned more and no daike teacher earnedmore than 1000 RMB Yuan. The pay levels showedonly small gender differences, with a greaterproportion of male daike teachers (6.9%) earningless than 200 RMB Yuan per month. Daike teacherscost less than gongban in two ways: salary paid andlack of the benefits provided for gongban teachers.The difference in daike and gongban salaries isillustrated in Fig. 4.

5.5. Daike teachers’ role and status

Daike teachers have a similar teaching role andworkload to gongban teachers, except that theycannot be backbone (gugan) teachers or subjectleaders. Both daike and gongban teachers in smallervillage schools, teaching points and at primary level

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Table 3

Teachers’ qualifications (highest level of education)

Highest level of education completed Daike teachers Gongban teachers

Female Total Female Total

N % N % N % N %

Normal university 1 0.22 5 0.13 10 8.13 27 7.29

Teachers’ college 124 27.74 230 30.70 44 35.77 146 39.45

Normal school 108 24.16 151 21.16 40 32.52 132 35.67

Comprehensive university (not providing teacher training) 1 0.22 1 0.13 1 0.81 1 0.27

College not providing teacher training 11 2.46 21 2.80 0 0.00 1 0.27

Training school not providing teacher training 53 11.85 77 10.28 24 19.51 38 10.27

Senior secondary school 128 28.63 232 30.97 4 3.25 24 6.48

Junior secondary school 21 4.69 31 4.13 0 0.00 1 0.27

Primary school 0 0.00 1 0.13 0 0.00 0 0.0

Total 447 100.00 749 100.00 123 100.00 370 100.00

Table 4

Mean and standard deviation of teachers’ salaries

Location of school Mean monthly salary (RMB Yuan) Respondents Standard deviation

Daike Gongban Daike Gongban Daike Gongban

County centre 365.38 1193.17 39 (5.25%) 18 (5.18%) 202.01 227.71

Township 218.77 1004.19 91 (12.24%) 98 (28.24%) 79.94 296.10

Village 193.56 927.05 603 (81.16%) 231 (66.58%) 92.48 237.30

Total 205.01 962.64 743 (100.00%) 347 (100.00%) 106.72 262.03

B. Robinson, W. Yi / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 35–54 47

usually have more teaching-contact hours thanteachers in larger schools and junior-secondaryschools. None of the daike teachers acted as classassistants to gongban teachers but taught fulltimetables of their own. The average class sizetaught by daike teachers in village and townshipschools was similar to that of gongban teachersthough slightly larger in county centre schools (seeTable 5). Although the national and provincialnorms for pupil–teacher ratios are much smallerthan the class sizes reported here, these classsizes are typical because of the way schools organisetheir teaching work and the limitations of class-room accommodation (if large classes were to besplit into two, there are insufficient classrooms tohouse them).

Perceptions about daike teachers varied. In thecourse of interviews, daike teachers were variouslyreferred to by different stakeholders as ‘hiddenheroes,’ ‘an underclass,’ ‘an embarrassment,’ ‘thepillars of the schools,’ ‘a sensitive issue,’ ‘anecessity.’ From the perspective of the daike

teachers, they see their work as essential and equal

to that of gongban teachers and many complainedabout the lack of equal pay and benefits for equalwork: ‘the principle of equal pay for equal work hasgone.’ Some of the typical frustrations of olderdaike teachers are expressed in this extract from aletter from a daike teacher with 18 years experienceof teaching:

I started working in a primary school in 1988. Ihave been dedicated to my teaching but my workin school cannot be recognised by society. I wantto enter my name in the high-level ‘excellentlesson’ competition but the condition of entry isthat you should have an official academic title,such as gongban teacher or backbone (gugan)teacher. But no matter how high a level myprofessional work is, due to my daike teacheridentity, I can’t qualify for the competition andcan’t be accepted by the education authorities asa proper teacher y I want to be treated as ahuman being and I want to get equal pay withothers (Tian Jinrui, daike teacher at Xi ShangPrimary School, Yangle Township, Wushan

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Daike and gongban teachers' pay

0

5

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15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

40-1

00

101-

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201-

300

301-

400

401-

500

501-

600

601-

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701-

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901-

1,00

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1,00

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600

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800

1,80

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900

1,90

1-2,

000

2,00

1-2,

050

Pay levels (RMB Yuan)

% te

ach

ers

Daike%

Gongban%

Fig. 4. Pay levels of daike and gongban teachers.

Table 5

Size of classes taught by daike and gongban teachers

Location of school Mean of class size Respondents (N and %) Standard deviation

Daike Gongban Daike Gongban Daike Gongban

County centre 65.25 56.70 38 (5.09%) 20 (5.52%) 5.72 14.12

Township 59.36 53.15 89 (11.91%) 99 (27.35%) 12.00 13.90

Village 42.22 45.13 610 (81.66%) 243 (67.13%) 13.35 14.05

Total 45.22 47.96 747 (100.00%) 362 (100.00%) 15.01 14.57

B. Robinson, W. Yi / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 35–5448

County, Gansu, written on 16 March 2006 to theresearchers, translated).

In interviews and discussions, the hard work andhigh levels of commitment of daike teachers werefrequently remarked on by their colleagues andothers. The motivation for this appeared to be two-fold. Daike teachers often work hard so that theymay have a chance of gongban appointment if a postbecomes available, and those who come from thelocal community express strong feelings of commit-ment to their community and a wish to contributeto its development. At the same time, unqualifieddaike teachers are sometimes seen by their gongban

colleagues, managers and teacher trainers as havingtoo low an educational level to be in post.

The attitudes and perceptions of daike teachersabout their situation varied. Older daike teacherswere more satisfied than younger daike teacherswith their status in the community. Older daike

teachers were satisfied with their political status asindicated by invitations to join in political meetingsor award of the title of ‘model communist partymember’ at different levels (po0.01, 2-tailed). Astatistically significant correlation (po0.01, 2-tailed)was also indicated between daike teachers’ age andsatisfaction with their social status (their percep-tions of the respect they received from theircommunities and other teachers and their self-esteem). There was a less strong statistical correla-tion (po0.05, 2-tailed) between age and economicstatus (their salary, total income from all sources

ARTICLE IN PRESSB. Robinson, W. Yi / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 35–54 49

and other material benefits). At the same time, olderdaike teachers were less satisfied with their workconditions than younger daike teachers (po0.01, 2-tailed). There were also differences relating toeducational levels. The higher their educationallevel, the less satisfied the daike teachers were withtheir political status (po0.01, 2-tailed) though therewere no significant correlations with social oreconomic status. The satisfaction of daike teachersalso varied according to the level of school wherethey taught. Teachers in county centre schools weresignificantly less satisfied with their work (po 0.01,2-tailed) than teachers in village schools, perhapsbecause there are greater demands on them andbecause class size was larger (a mean size of 65.25compared to 42.2 in village schools). As might beexpected, older daike teachers were more concernedabout their economic futures (social welfare bene-fits, healthcare, lack of pensions) than the youngerdaike teachers whose main concern was careeradvancement.

6. Testing the six assumptions

Of the six assumption listed earlier, the first threewere not borne out by the evidence from this study.Only one assumption (about pay) was fully con-firmed and the remaining two partly so.

(1)

Daike teachers are unqualified, with low levelsof education.Nearly two-thirds of the daike teachers werequalified to be teachers. Half of them heldqualifications from teacher training institutionsequivalent to those of gongban teachers. A thirdof the daike teachers had low levels of education,well below those needed to become a qualifiedteacher. The low level would preclude themfrom entering a teacher training programmeeven if they applied, since they would not reachadmission standards, so upgrading their quali-fications to meet required standards is not anoption for most of the unqualified daike

teachers.

(2) Daike teachers are largely the left-over remains

of minban teachers.While a proportion of daike teachers are olderwith limited years left as a teacher, most areyoung and are recent appointments. Only 5.7%of the daike teachers were over the age of 40while 41.7% were under the age of 25 years. Thelargest proportion of daike teachers (42.37%)

was appointed within the previous three years(2002–2005) compared to only 17.49% of thegongban teachers. Daike teachers are not agroup which is phasing out with age or beingquickly replaced by better-qualified teachers butrather a group being replenished in the youngerage bands.

(3)

Daike teachers act as assistant teachers inschools, sometimes part-time.Daike teachers have similar full-time workloadsand teaching roles as gongban teachers, exceptfor the work done by backbone (gugan) teachersand heads of subject departments in schools.They do not act as assistants to other teachers.They do equal work but not for equal pay.

(4)

Daike teachers are short-term temporary ap-pointments, gradually being replaced over timeby newly qualified teachers.The replacement of daike teachers is proceedingmore slowly than many assume. The overalltrends in fact indicate a rise between 1990 and2004 in the numbers and percentage of daike

teachers, especially in primary education,though within that overall trend can be foundexamples of local reductions such as HuiningCounty. While daike teacher appointments maybe temporary, the practice of appointing daike

teachers is not necessarily a passing one. Morethan a quarter (26.73%) of daike teachers in thesample was in their first year of teaching,compared to 3.10% of gongban. So wheregongban staffing quotas are inadequate to schoolneeds or where education budgets are severelyconstrained, daike teachers continue to beappointed as teachers. For some individualteachers, the ‘temporary’ status has become apermanent condition. Over a third (36.33%) ofthe daike teachers in this sample had taught formore than ten years, and nearly a fifth (19.0%)for more than 15.

(5)

Daike teachers cost less to employ than gongban

teachers.Daike teachers were paid considerably less thangongban teachers. The mean salary for gongban

teachers was nearly five times that of daike

teachers, 962.64 RMB Yuan for gongban com-pared to 205.01 RMB Yuan for daike. This,together with lack of other gongban socialwelfare benefits, made them far less costlyto employ, so in a sense, the daike teachersare subsidising the basic education system tosome extent.

ARTICLE IN PRESSB. Robinson, W. Yi / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 35–5450

(6)

Daike teachers are employed because qualifiedteachers are unavailable.The reasons for employing daike teachers wereonly partly the lack of qualified teachers forrural schools. It is indeed difficult to get well-qualified teachers to work in schools in the moreremote, rural and mountainous areas. However,where qualified teachers were available, theywere sometimes appointed as daike because thestaffing quota allocated to schools did not allowgongban appointments or because gongban postswere left unfilled to save money or through lackof funds. In these cases, the only solution was toappoint teachers as daike, if they were willing toaccept this. Many teachers accepted in the hopeand expectation that eventually a gongban

position would become available to them andbecause of growing competition for posts inurban areas. In the same school, it is notuncommon to find equally qualified daike andgongban teachers working for very differentrates of pay.

7. Issues

7.1. Policy goals and rural realities

While some countries, for example India, Cam-bodia, Nicaragua and several West African coun-tries (Duthilleul, 2005) have policies in favour of theemployment of paraprofessional teachers, Chinahas consistently sought to implement a policy for afully professionally teaching force and the elimina-tion of non-governmental teachers (minban anddaike). Unfortunately, this policy goal has not beenpossible to implement fully in the face of ruralrealities. The experience of Gansu is in many waystypical of other poor provinces or rural areas inChina, for example Yunnan (Li, 1998) and Hubei(Yuan, 2002).

It is difficult to get well-qualified teachers to workin village and township schools given the harshconditions, lack of facilities in poorer rural areas,absence of incentives, poor school conditions andteachers’ perceptions of the posts as a professionalbackwater. It has sometimes been the practice topost unsatisfactory teachers to rural schools as apunishment. The percentage of qualified teachers inrural schools in poor areas has remained lower thanthat in both economically advanced rural and cityschools (Chu, 2003; Wen, 2004). The change in the

new market economy from a system of assigningposts to newly qualified teachers to one where newteachers seek their own employment has worked tothe disadvantage of rural areas. Urban teachers earnmore than rural teachers because they can addincome from private tutoring which is in demand inurban centres. Although there is a unified pay scalefor teachers across China, rural authorities struggleto adhere to it (it is generally the case in Gansu that90–95% of a rural county’s annual educationbudget is already spent on teachers’ pay). The ruralcommunities have limited disposable income tocontribute to educational improvement and untilthe recent abolition of school fees for rural families,were often hard-pressed to keep their children inschool, let alone contribute to teachers’ pay.

7.2. Financing teachers

Gongban and daike teachers’ salaries come fromdifferent sources. Gongban teachers’ salary is madeup of two parts:

(a)

provincial government funding, fixed bands ofpay according to a teacher’s qualification levelsand length of service;

(b)

funding from the school in the form of smalladditional allowances based on workload.

Until recently, daike, teachers’ pay came from thelocal district and community. However, since 2005,many counties have taken on the responsibility forpaying daike teachers out of non-education budgets(not out of the already over-stretched countyeducation budgets). This was done to solve pro-blems of late or non-payment of salaries to all ruralteachers and because government subsidy hasreplaced the charges of ‘miscellaneous’ fees paidby rural families to schools. The basis for daike

teachers’ pay varies. For example, in Wei YuanCounty, payment is determined by a teacher’squalification and the type of school he or she worksin:

If a daike teacher has a college diploma or higherand works in a secondary school, the pay level is80 RMB Yuan per month. If the daike teacherhas a college diploma and works in a primaryschool, the pay is 45 RMB Yuan a month. Andif the teacher has a normal school diplomaand teachers in a primary school, he or sheis paid 40 RMB Yuan per month (Lin Yinxin,

ARTICLE IN PRESSB. Robinson, W. Yi / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 35–54 51

Vice-Governor of WeiYuan County, GansuDaily, 28 July 2005, translated).

Gongban status is determined by the staffingquotas allocated by the provincial government to aparticular school. These are arrived at throughagreement and close cooperation of three separateprovincial government departments: Finance, Per-sonnel Management and Education. The staffingquota is controlled by the Personnel ManagementDepartment (en shi ting). If more gongban staff(teaching and non-teaching) are needed for a school,the counties report their needs each year to theProvincial Education Department which considersthem in consultation with the Personnel Depart-ment, then the proposed plan is negotiated with theDepartment of Finance which agrees to finance thenumber of posts it can afford from its budget.Agreed sums of money are then paid from theProvincial Department of Finance to the county-level Department of Finance where its use iscontrolled by the Finance Department and theEducation Bureau.

One limitation in the system is that it uses old,out-of-date norms for school staffing. Another isthat it is slow to respond to changes in pupilpopulations and school needs partly because ofmismatches in the timing of information flows withdecision-making cycles for budgets. There is also noeffective mechanism for predicting and matchingteacher demand to supply in the short and long termand a shortage of baseline research and planningmodels.

7.3. Improving rural teacher quality

Solving the daike teacher problem is 1 part of thebroader task of improving the quality of ruralteachers. Various strategies, listed below, have beenproposed or planned or tried by the centralgovernment, provinces, counties, academics andinternational donor projects.

(a)

Increase the staffing quota of schools, fundingmore gongban posts as needed through in-creased financial allocation from central gov-ernment.

(b)

7The amount of government finance allocated to Shanghai for

compulsory education in 2005 was 50 times that allocated to the

Establish more effective planning mechanismsat provincial level for matching teacher supplyto demand and training institutions’ output.

countryside in Henan Province. (People’s Daily Online, 26

(c) February 2006).

Encourage strong liaison between rural andurban schools, and rural schools and teaching

training institutions, to form supportive part-nerships.

(d)

Create a career ladder for all teachers whichincorporates a period of teaching in ruralschools.

(e)

Provide incentives (financial and other) forwell-qualified teachers to work in rural schools.

(f)

Include extended internships in rural schoolsfor all students on initial teacher trainingprogrammes.

(g)

Remove unqualified teachers within a definedperiod of time, perhaps giving them a lump sumin compensation.

(h)

Raise the qualification levels of unqualifiedteachers through special upgrading pro-grammes.

(i)

Regulate daike teacher appointment morestrictly and manage their work more effectively.

(j)

Train and appoint more ‘home grown’ teachers,who are drawn from the local community andwilling to return to it.

(k)

Improve professional development provisionfor rural teachers (including daike teachers)through increasing access and quality.

(l)

Re-balance the allocation of resources to urbanand rural schools, giving rural schools a higherpriority than they get at present (some of theimbalances are huge7).

(m)

Promote more research on rural educationthrough special funding, to give a betterevidence-base for decision-makers.

(n)

Create improved terms and conditions for daike

teachers, reconceptualising their roles and titlesand redistributing work in schools through newjob roles.

As can be seen from this list, the actions neededfor the various items lie at different levels of theeducation system (national, provincial and county)and some require whole system, not piecemeal,solutions to be effective. Some of the items proposelong-term solutions, others more short-term orstop-gap ones. Many involve additional resourcesand the resource issue constantly recurs in thisdebate. Despite China’s economic boom, thecountry still allocates a smaller proportion ofgovernment funds to education than some of its

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neighbours and until recent years, the priority infunding has been higher education. The 11th FiveYear Plan aims to increase the proportion ofgovernment education expenditure, from 3.41% in2002 to 4% by 2010. More recently (in 2005 and2006) special allocations of funding have been madefor improving basic education in the provinces ofwestern China.

One recent initiative (2006) to improve the qualityof rural school staffing has been issued in a jointdocument from the three central ministries (Educa-tion, Finance and Personnel) involved in teacherstaffing and financing (China Daily, 22 May 2006).This proposes to add 100,000 special teaching postsover a period of five years for primary and juniorsecondary rural schools in poor counties in westernChina. New graduates and young teachers fromnormal schools, colleges and universities would fillthese posts for a time-limited contract (three years)at an enhanced salary (15,000 RMB Yuan per year,approximately USD 1875) plus government sub-sidised housing and social security benefits. Afterthis period the teachers can leave and return to a(more or less guaranteed) urban post and bereplaced by another similar teacher. The aims ofthis appear to be the elimination of daike teachers aswell as providing rural schools with well-qualifiedstaff. The proposal clearly recognises that addi-tional funding is needed if rural teacher quality is tobe improved. However it is not clear how thesignificant proportion of currently employed well-qualified daike teachers will fare in this arrange-ment, or how the better paid incomers will beviewed by existing teachers, or how the stability ofrural school staffing will be affected, or how urbanposts for returning teachers will be guaranteed giventhe growing oversupply of teachers in urban centres.It is also not clear if this strategy will address someof the system weaknesses or whether it is seen as ashort-term injection of funding to solve immediateproblems. Though current statistical projectionsconclude that fewer teachers will be needed in thefuture in China, this is not the case in the short-term, especially in rural areas and if qualityimprovements are to be made.

8. Conclusions

The use of paraprofessional, contract or non-establishment teachers as a solution to problems ofteacher shortages in poor rural areas has demon-strated some short-term benefits such as increasing

access to education and stretching limited educationfinances to cover more schools and children. It alsoprovides more flexibility in the staffing of schools(as well as less stability, perhaps). For manycountries, including China, this strategy has beena stepping stone to universal primary education.Protagonists of the strategy ask ‘How much does itmatter that some teachers are in a different categoryof employment so long as schools and classes haveenough teachers? Aren’t local variation and choice anecessary part of decentralised education systemsanyway? Isn’t dealing with present realities andsmall budgets in this way better than trying toapply ideal unworkable standards requiring morefunding?’

However, the use of daike teachers inescapablyraises concerns about quality, equity and theprofessionalisation of a teaching force tasked withthe provision of good quality teaching for allschools and pupils, urban and rural alike. Theseconcerns apply particularly to areas where thepractice of appointing temporary or contractteachers has become a regular and accepted featureof rural school staffing. There are several reasonsfor the persistence of daike teachers—the scarcity ofteachers in rural and mountainous areas, the failureto fill empty gongban posts because of financialconstraints or competing demands on local fundsand the view that it is cheaper to employ equallyqualified but less expensive daike teachers in aschool—so a single solution is unlikely to solve theproblem.

The practice also has implications for the longer-term future of teaching as a profession and thequality of entrants attracted to it. An internationalstudy of teacher quality and management in 10developing countries concludes:

Determining qualification requirements and re-cruiting teachers is generally controlled bynational/state governments. But, due to theinability to find qualified personnel, in somecases, and more often as a cost-saving measure,governments have allowed local bodies to per-form these tasks in a selective fashion. We findthe emergence of a dual-track approach toaddressing these tasks. While recruitment to themainstream teacher cadre, according to nation-ally prescribed qualification norms, is retained bycentral authorities, local bodies are being giventhe freedom to recruit teachers on short-termcontracts from their local areas, who often do not

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possess the specified qualifications, according tothe national norms, and who invariably receiveonly a fraction of a regular teacher’s salary(UNESCO, 2005:58)

For understandable reasons, the dual-track prac-tice has persisted in rural China, despite greatprogress in professionalizing the teaching force.However the characteristics of the non-governmen-tal teachers have changed over time. Whereas in thepast, minban teachers were mainly characterised bylow levels of education and a lack of a teachingqualifications, this is much less true of daike

teachers at present, many of whom are as qualifiedas their gongban colleagues. Daike teachers as agroup have more varied characteristics than theirpredecessor minban teachers as this study shows.Any policy solutions need to take account of thesein planning for the future as well as recognising thatthe daike teacher problem requires a combination ofsolutions with adequate financing for them. There islittle available research evidence on how differencesin teacher contracts and conditions of service affectstudent performance but what there is (for example,de Laat and Vegas, 2003) indicates that thedifferences can affect student achievement.

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