58 3 Nine Year Compulsory Education in a Poor District ...
over 20 years as a primary school teacher. She managed to complete 3 year college
study and became a qualified teacher and in 1993 she received a teacher certifi-
cate. Now her school has lost enrolments and only has preschool and grade one.
It is a one class school so she uses multi-grade teaching methods to teach students
of different ages. She has to teach all the subjects and teaches 30 periods a week.
Her teaching load is much higher than the teachers in central primary schools. Her
teaching preparation indicates that she is a very devoted teacher who cares greatly
for her children. She gives special attention to a child in her class who has learning
difficulties and gives special help and records his progress to ensure he does not
drop out. She encourages him to integrate with other children. However, Ms Zhou
remains a substitute teacher. Mr. Wu and Mr. Zheng in Chengmao Incomplete
Primary School in Huaziping are in similar situation. Both of them are qualified
teachers with a 3 year college education and teacher certificates. But they cannot
become official teachers because the policy is to recruit new graduates.
3.5 Educational Funding and Infrastructure
Teachers’ salaries have risen by a wide margin. The average monthly income of
government teachers in Huaziping Primary School was about 1200 yuan in 2010
which can be compared with about 170 yuan in 1990. Substitute teachers still exist
in Ansai though they were to be phased out. They typically now earn about 700
yuan though they undertake the same workload as government teachers.
There is an incentive system whereby home room teachers whose classes have
outstanding achievements are rewarded. In the secondary schools incomes aver-
age about 1300 yuan, and the teaching period fee is 6 yuan with a bonus of more
than 20 % of the typical salary under the structured salary scheme. The school pro-
vides teachers with dormitories next to their offices. Though Huaziping Secondary
School provides more than many other secondary schools its conditions are less
favourable than Ansai County Secondary School where the average monthly
income of teachers is more than 2500 yuan, with a 12 yuan’s per teaching period
fee. In Yan’an City the monthly salaries reach more than 3000 yuan. The bonus
system in Huaziping Secondary School of four allowances—teaching hours, cost
of living, performance related, and electricity is designed to partly compensate for
these differences.
Yanhewan Central Primary School is similar to Huaziping though the average
income is slightly more—about 1300 yuan. In Huaziping teachers have 15–18
classes per week, or three to four a day. If they have more than 18 classes per
week, they receive 2.5 yuan for each additional class. In Yanhewan, teachers have
12 classes per week, and receive 2.5 yuan for each extra class. Head teachers get
an additional 100–150 yuan depending on the size of the school.
Structural wages are distributed according to the workload of all the working
staff at school. The practice is that teachers get additional pay by teaching more
lessons. The baseline for the number of teachers classes is 360. The class fee for