108 5 Rural Teacher Issues
volatility and uneven deployment. In Sikai the ratio in the central school has been
falling during the 2000s from 41:1 to about 30:1 as the number of children has
declined. This remains above the national guidelines. The junior middle school has
seen wide fluctuations from as little as 6:1 to 24:1 with a most recent value about
13:1. This arises partly from the difficulty of retaining in teachers. Bier junior sec-
ondary school also has the same problem with low ratios and high volatility. There
are not enough students transferring to secondary schools in Zhaojue which means
that facilities and premises are under utilized. When participation rates are univer-
salized the situation should change.
5.6.2 The Teachers’ Workload
Teachers’ workload varies and is often highest in incomplete primary schools
and village schools than in central primary schools. This for example there are 8
periods of lessons everyday for Grade 1 to Grade 5 in Huaziping Central Primary
School of Ansai, 39 periods of lessons weekly and 38 periods of lessons for
Grade 6. There are 64 teaching staff who teach 10 periods of lessons on average
per week, 2 periods of lessons every day which is quite a light load. However,
in Chengmao primary school and Yangjiagou primary schools, both of which
are incomplete schools, the student-teacher ratio is low but the teachers’ work-
load is much heavier than that for central primary school. In Chengmao primary
school, there are 3 teachers, 37 students and the student-teachers ratio is 12.3:1.
Each teacher teaches each grade and teaches lessons whole day, 5 periods of les-
sons everyday, so that their average workload weekly is 35 periods of lessons.
Mr. Wang teaches the grade 2 and he teaches 45 periods of lessons every week. In
Yangjiagou primary school, there is only 1 teacher, 12 students and the student-
teacher ratio is 12:1. The only teacher, Mrs. Zhang has to teach all the subjects
from pre-school to grade 1, including Chinese, Math and ideology and morality.
She teaches 30 periods of lessons every week and uses multi-grade teaching meth-
ods. The differences between schools are that the teaching group sizes in the small
schools are small and in the Central primary school they are large so there are
many fewer teaching periods per teacher.
In 2009, the average student-teacher ratio in Xiji were around 10:1 as noted
above. According to the principals, the teachers’ workload is not heavy. However
due to the uneven use of teachers, some teachers’ workload is heavier than oth-
ers. Home teachers usually have to teach two subjects: Chinese and Math, and
some teachers have to teach 6 subjects. For example, Mrs. Chen in Xiji central
primary school, has to teach 6 subjects: Morality and Life, Environment, Labor
and Technology, Health and School-based course. In Xiaolin primary school,
every teacher teaches 24 periods of lessons weekly. Home teachers teach 2 sub-
jects and other teachers teach from 3 to as many as 7 subjects, including Science,
Information and Technology, Society, Morality and Life. They have to spend a
lot of time on preparation. The apparently high workloads are the result of small