China Marks Teachers' Day

The Chinese government celebrated Teachers' Day Monday with an appeal for positive changes in the work and living conditions of the country's 10 million-odd teachers.

Addressing a gathering held by the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Personnel and the Beijing Municipal government, Chinese Vice-premier Li Lanqing extended cheery congratulations to the country's teachers on behalf of the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the central government.

The vice-premier recalled the progress China has made in reform and development of the education sector over the past few years, saying China realized its goal of making nine-year compulsory education available to almost all the children of school age and eradicating illiteracy among the young and middle- aged citizens.

Li also talked about China's increased capacity to provide higher-learning education for the country's youth and growing investment in education by governments at all levels.

Li called on governments at all levels to give priority to education, strive for a better environment for building the ranks of teachers, safeguard the legitimate interests and rights of teachers, and further raise the social status of teachers.

China created Teachers' Day in the mid-1980s as a way of encouraging the society to respect teachers, who were then severely underpaid.

Macao Teachers Celebrate Their Own Festival

More than 1,300 teachers in Macao gathered Monday night to celebrate the Teachers' Day.

Forty-three of them who have been engaged in teaching for 20 years or more were given awards by the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR).

Education is of increasingly significance as knowledge economy has become the driving force for the development of the whole world, Vong Fong Va, director of the Chinese Education Association of Macao, said at the gathering.

Vong encouraged the teachers to keep on acquiring new knowledge and dedicate themselves to education so as to better live up to the expectations of society as well as the parents of students.

Macao's teachers began celebrating the festival together with teachers in China's inland in 1985, when local government announced that teachers in non-profit schools would receive government allowances.



September 10 is the Teacher's Daily of People's Republic of China. In the year 1984, Wang Zishen, former president of Beijing Normal University, suggested to establish a festivial day for the Chinese teachers. On January 21, 1985, the ninth session of the Sixth NPC Standing Committee formally decided to fix the September 10 of every year as the Teacher's Day of the country.





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