As the country celebrates the 29th Teachers' Day, we extend our heartfelt greetings and our respect to those teachers who are devoted to passing on their knowledge to the younger generations and instilling good virtues in them.

Their selfless devotion has cultivated people of great talent in various fields, people who have been instrumental in China's rapid progress, who have helped transform the country into the world's second-largest economy and made possible such achievements as putting manned spacecraft into orbit.

Since its establishment in 1985, it has become routine for society to place teachers under scrutiny on Teachers' Day and talk about whether they are paid enough, their social status, the achievements the country's education has scored and the problems in the education system that need to be addressed.

However, this year such scrutiny is perhaps even more necessary as a string of incidents over the past months involving molestation or even the rape of students by teachers or school principals has seriously tarnished the image of teachers as a group. Such cases have raised concerns about safety in schools and caused lasting public anger at and suspicion of teachers.

These scandals, along with reports about parents' bewilderment over the legitimacy of expensive Teachers' Day "gifts" to their children's teachers, have plunged teachers into an unprecedented credibility crisis.

There has been a great deal of expectation that the authorities would take effective measures to purify the country's tainted educational atmosphere, remove unqualified teachers from the classrooms and restore the traditional good reputation of our educators. Teachers' Day should not be the only day on which we reflect on how to protect children from those bad apples who do not deserve the trust bestowed on them and the problems that exist in the education system.

There is a long-cherished maxim that "a teacher for a day is a father for a whole life" and teachers have long been viewed as "engineers of the human soul".

China's aspirations for greatness would remain out of reach without the dedication of its teachers to nurture talent. To ensure that it has the highest quality teachers possible, the government should fulfill its promises of educational inputs aimed at improving the quality of national education, increasing teachers' pay and removing malpractices.

(China Daily 09/10/2013 page8)