AS THE NEW SEMESTER begins, many primary and secondary schools in rural regions are facing the now all too frequent problem of a lack of professional teaching staff. People's Daily commented on Tuesday:

Why is there a lack of teachers in rural schools? The most direct cause is that teachers in rural schools have fewer opportunities for progress compared with their urban counterparts, while their payment is not high enough to be attractive. That's why many rural teachers quit from their jobs and rush to the cities to find a job, and also why many teachers from small and medium-sized cities rush to metropolises.

As a result, quality education resources have become increasingly concentrated in major cities, and the gap between metropolises and small cities is growing. The authorities have taken measures in the past, but they failed to curb this.

The Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, China's Cabinet, recently co-issued a document on education reform that not only seeks to increase the status of teachers, but also establish a fairer payment system.

In order to make the reform measures truly effective, the document makes two things clear: First, teachers in public schools are unambiguously defined as State employees. Second, the average payment of public school teachers should be no lower than that of civil servants of the same region.
These two points will ensure that teachers in rural regions and small cities have a stable job and reasonable pay.

Some say giving teachers from rural regions and small cities higher pay will use up more public money. True, but the benefits are worth the investment. Education is the foundation of a country's development, because better education provides the country with more talent and a better-trained labor force.