Students give their teachers handmade certificates of merits to express their gratitude on Thursday, Teachers' Day, at a primary school in Handan, Hebei province. HAO QUNYING /CHINA DAILY

Not paying teachers reflects lack of respect

MORE THAN 170 TEACHERS in Zhouzhi county, Northwest China's Shaanxi province, have not been paid for over seven months. Recently the local government promised to advance them 8,000 yuan ($1,223) each. Beijing Times commented on Monday:

Thanks to the recent reports of their failure to be paid, the more than 170 new teachers received their salaries after waiting seven months. But as to why they were not paid for over half a year, the county government blamed the red tape for the delay in approving the newly recruited teachers' payments, which is hardly convincing.

In fact, it was the local authorities' disregard for the legal interests of the teachers and the importance of school education, not the so-called complicated paperwork, that led to their seven months' work without pay. The young teachers who start their careers in underdeveloped areas such as Zhouzhi county to support local education should be respected and properly treated.

Of course, the number of underpaid or unpaid teachers has significantly decreased in the past two decades, as the country keeps doubling its spending on education, which reached 2 trillion yuan in 2012, for the first time accounting for about 4 percent of that year's total GDP.

And the implementation of the Teacher's Law and the Compulsory Education Law has improved teachers' livelihoods and offered them the needed legal protection. But many teachers, who are supposed to be paid more than local public servants as the Compulsory Education Law stipulates, are yet to receive their legitimate earnings.

Such a violation of teachers' legal rights, to some extent, indicates that some local officials are only paying lip service to the law when they promise to solve the problem.

In Zhouzhi's case, paying the newly recruited teachers was hardly a financial burden, because their monthly salary was just over 2,000 yuan. In comparison, the average income of employees in the public sector in Shaanxi province was about 4,580 yuan per month. It is necessary that the former are fairly and timely paid in accordance with their teaching performance.