Chinese middle and primary schools are now using a new method of employing teachers.

Sources from the Chinese Ministry of Education disclosed today that some Chinese middle and primary schools have begun hiring new teachers by having them sign labor agreements.

Beginning this year, middle and primary schools in eight districts of Beijing's suburbs have started recruiting new teachers this way.

At the same time, teachers in the city of Qingdao in east China's Shandong Province are entering the "personnel market," and the 1,000 teachers' college graduates in the city this year will enter the personnel market. The teaching profession will no longer be anassured lifelong profession for them.

For a long time, to be a teacher in China meant having an "iron rice bowl," that is, a lifelong job, because the schools themselves did not have the right to hire or fire teachers. For over five decades, teachers and schools had not signed a single labor agreement.

Gong Zhenxing, president of the Beijing No. 8 Middle School, expressed his agreement with this new measure, saying "this will be good for ensuring the quality of teachers." At present, the teachers and workers at his school still have their "iron rice bowl," and although students there have performed very well in the entrance exam for senior high school and university, the teachers are still underpaid. At present, he cannot awarding the good teachers or fire the unqualified ones.

Educators say that schools should have the right to hire and fire teaching staff to ensure the quality of teaching.

Middle and primary schools in Beijing will try a system combining permanent and temporary employment contracts when hiring teachers. The temporary employment quota will account for over 15 percent of the total teaching staff in these Beijing schools, and the schools will have the right to fire unqualified teachers, and so a new way of recruiting teachers.

Officials of the Beijing Municipal Education Bureau said that Beijing will push forward the contract recruitment system step by step throughout the city according to the principle of fair competition.

They predict that by the end of this year, over 10 percent of the middle and primary schools in the city will adopt the employment contract system.

These schools will also try to reduce the number of administrators, and see that the number of teachers in each schoolis at least half that of other staff members. Educators say that the ideal proportion of students to teachers is 14 to 1 in middle and primary schools.

Educators also point out that the adoption of the employment contract system is just the first step toward the reform of primary and middle schools, and the ultimate goal is to stimulate teachers' enthusiasm and improve the quality of the teaching staff.

China's famous educator, the late Tao Xingzhi, once said: "Primary education is the base of a nation's education, and so the quality of primary teachers can decide a nation's future." China has already announced that in the near future all primary teachers will be required to have a university diploma. (Xinhua)