CUI YU

China's education department has launched a massive project to re-train teachers across the country.

Teachers will be trained under a new qualification system to be set up this year, which aims to spur teachers on to improve their general competence and codes of ethics.

All teachers who work in kindergartens, primary, middle and vocational schools and colleges and universities will be required to update their skills, said Minister of Education Chen Zhili at a national conference on upgrading teachers' competence, held yesterday in Beijing.

China first issued the Teachers Law and Teachers Qualification Regulations in 1993 to try to improve standards.

Statistics from the Ministry of Education indicate that nearly 95 per cent of teachers in primary schools, 83 per cent in junior middle schools and 64 per cent in senior middle schools received State-set qualifications under these regulations.Those remaining teachers and new recruits will be required to take exams under the new qualification system.

On its part, the State will improve teachers' living and working conditions in a bid to motivate existing teachers and attract new recruits, said Chen.

Setting up teacher training has become a worldwide trend over the past century. It has vastly improved teaching efficiency in many countries, she said.

A fair competition system is to be introduced in schools at all levels, to gradually phase out the previous life-tenure convention, where teachers had the right to stay at a school for their entire career.